Question for those who have lost a lot of weight......

If you had an off-plan weekend, I suspect you went out, meaning you went over your sodium goals (restaurants are notorious for having a lot of salt), so you have likely retained water and refreshed your glycogen stores. Most of it isn't a real gain (some of it is, but hard to know how much). Most of us have gone off plan at one point or another (I know that I went way over during this past July 4th and even more so last St. Patrick's Day), but it hasn't hindered my losses long term. So long as you get back to what you were doing, the weight will come back off. I suspect a lot of what you gained will drop of in fairly quick order as you shed water and glycogen again. Don't let it worry you.

I've lost almost 40 lbs, and I've had plenty of "cheat days," on top of my planned high-calorie days.


ETA: Yeah, a good part of what you put on is probably water retention fronm sodium. Unless you actually ate however many lbs of food you gained?

I lost 135 lbs (before getting pregnant) and I allowed myself some "cheat foods" along the way. I never gave up my one vice...chocolate donuts. Not everyday, but once or twice a week. It's good to let yourself have something bad once in awhile, otherwise, you would never stick with it. That's my two cents.

People tend to add a moral quality to their diet by using terms like cheat days. Food isn't evil, and not following your "commandments" 100% isn't a sin. The language we use does matter, and can feed into the negative self-talk we have regarding food, our bodies, and our behavior. Like others here, I think "cheat day" is a terrible phrase.

What matters is your intake over a period of time, not one particular meal or one particular day (how much did you take in over the past week, say). And just as there are no "white magic" foods that will make you lose weight, there are no "black magic" foods that will make you gain weight.

There's a graph someone posted recently of his weight loss/gain over time; the overall trend was steadily down, but there were days where the weight fluctuated as much as 4-5 pounds. There are a lot of reasons for this: cheap scales, water retention, differences in bowel content.

You know that you aren't alone out there and many people have strayed and swerved. The key is to developing a skill set that will prevent or at least minimize this tendency. The best advice I ever received was to log before I eat anything because it forced me to stop, think, and choose. Do I really want this? So much of our eating patterns are mindless and a one key is to make eating mindful.

I have lost 183 pounds and no definitely not perfect I had many times were for even weeks or months were I struggled...you just have to persist. A lot of your increase on the scales is prolly water weight and will go quite quickly

I have lost 74 pounds now, a little over halfway to goal. I don't have or believe in cheat days. I do, however, indulge in certain things that I like best. A local Mexican restaurant, an occasional treat, but 99% of the time, I am at or below my calorie goal. It is still too scary to me to go full on back to old eating habits.

Thank you everyone for your words of wisdom. I guess I am just paranoid that it's going to demotivate me if I get on the scale of the 31st and have not lost the 5lbs. Truth is that no matter what the scale says I still need to keep on this journey. I can't quit. Bottom line.

I think what is more important is how do you feel? You've changed your habits these past few weeks - concentrate on those positive changes (higher energy level, clearer skin, feeling stronger from exercise). Don't watch the scale so much - it's stupid and it will make you paranoid.

Drink a lot of water to flush the sodium out of your system - that should help you out.

In with the sodium crowd. I travel a fair bit with my job and, when I was losing, noticed either a stall or gain after returning from a trip as I had to live mostly on restaurant/hotel foods (even if I kept within my calorie goals). That gain would generally drop off in a few days after resuming my normal eating patterns.

I often have cheat days... or cheat weeks :blushing:

I don't watch my salt intake at all and eat processed foods (as well as more natural foods and fruit and veg!). ALso I am female and have hormonal contraception. All these mean that I can stall, lose, gain at complete random. My weight loss is definitely not a straight line down, but it is definitely a downward trend. I recently gained 5lbs from hormones. Three weeks later I was back where I had calculated I'd be (2lb down). If you know that you are eating under your maintenance calories you will lose weight. It might be hidden for a while but will come out in the end!

I never had "cheat day". I try to be perfect. Since I'm not, sometimes I have imperfect days.

QFT

I also ate the term "cheat". Using this word makes it seem like you are doing something wrong. In life, we will eat out, have junk food, go on vacation and eat at restaurants.
2 weeks ago, we had a great reason to celebrate our family. We let the kids make the decision as to where we would go for dinner...chinese. Can we say sodium, glazed sauces and deep fried heaven??? and buffet to boot. I went online before eating out and checked out some dishes for calories. I found out that one of my faves clocked in at 1400 cals. So I was very aware of what I was putting in my mouth that night, went over my cals by about 200. And that was ok as I could have easily done 3000 lol. But then I felt like crap. I started bloating, my feet even swelled. I said I felt like I had gained 5 lbs. Hubby suggested I should weigh myself in the morning. I did... +2lbs :noway: I didn't stress, ate very healthy that day and drank gallons of water. 2 days later the extra weight was gone.
I guess the moral is live life, fit the foods you love into your daily intake and don't be to hard on yourself for going outside of your lifestyle once in awhile. I always look at that before I started our healthier lifestyle I wouldn't have worried about eating out, not exercising and putting on a few pounds. being aware of the choices we make and how it effects us is an accomplishment itself.

Good luck on your journey

Reality is that sometimes you have off days. Having "cheat days" in my opinion is creating an exception so I don't think of it like that. I don't give myself specific "cheat days". For example this past saturday I went over 200 calories. We were camping and I went over a bit, I knew I might and accepted it and tried to be reasonable. I also knew there were plenty of days in the previous week that I ate at a deficit so with that in mind when I realized I went over a bit on Saturday I didn't beat myself up, and you shouldn't either. You will meet your goals you just have to keep in mind that you also get only 1 life, so enjoy it, be reasonable, and have fun.

Cheers,

Tess

I weigh every day, and chart my progress. Usually a spike in my weight is salt-related and it takes 2-3 days to drop back down, but all I have to do is look at the graph of my progress to remind myself that my weight always comes back down. Hang in there.