At the risk of not hearing what you're saying, going three hundred calories over once in a while won't set back your weight loss much, and might even be healthy if you can enjoy it.

In theory, 3500 calories = 1 pound, so if you did that about 12 times you'd lose one less pound. So if you did it once every week, you'd lose 8 lbs instead of nine, for instance, over three months if you're averaging 3 lbs weight loss/month. But it might be more sustainable for you if you know you have that one "cheat" in your program.

As to what to do to avoid it, I think the best thing is to call someone who supports your efforts and is willing to listen to you "process" and talk - for instance, about stress and anger and frustration from work. (Not your husband, he's probably too close to the situation. Better if it's someone who's agreed to work with you on weight loss.)

Another thing that sometimes works is to get involved with something, keep yourself busy, and the feelings will simply pass.

It's hard. If it weren't hard there wouldn't be so many people dealing with similar problems

If you fall off the wagon, don't consider it too long, just climb right back on! You will not fail!

I've found that exercise helps; even if it's just cleaning, working in the garden, etc. Exhausting myself physically can help calm me mentally.

If you can't find a way to work in exercise, try sitting with your eyes closed and listen to yourself breathe. When a thought tries to enter your mind, ignore it or make it go away; your only thoughts should be breathe in and breathe out. It's hard to do, but it's very calming.

The other thing that helps me is getting on the forums and reading about other's journeys (success forum helps to see myself in the future state), or items I'd like to know more about (the learning distracts me from what was bothering me).

It sounds to me that you are looking to learn better techniques and not worrying too much about your misstep. Like other's have said it's water under the bridge, and don't angst over it. It's very easy to start a cycle of feeling guilty about eating too much, then eating more to make yourself feel better.

It is important to be gentle with yourself during this journey! Try and feel the emotions instead of stuffing them inside with food. I have done this for so long and I am working hard to just feel the emotions. They will dissipate and then you can move on. I have had to stop and cry hard at different time over the past fe months as I have been working on just feeling. Try to sit with your emotions even if what you want is to eat. This is a daily struggle, but it will get easier as you recognize what triggers you emotions.

1) Exercising gives a temporary high/euphoric feeling and it can be a helpful way of channeling any feelings of frustration - spending the negative energy, and it doesn't have to be anything fancy like a gym set-up, just simple jumping jacks, jogging, running up and down the stairs, jump rope etc is helpful. And the harder you push yourself you'll be more reluctant to set yourself back with extra calories because of the effort it took to lose the weight.

2) logging in food and ingredients before cooking or preparing your food (or at the beginning of the day) helps you plan ahead of time and not overeat. For me if I see that the foods that I'm craving are calorie heavy, I can plan meals around that so I can eat whatever I'm craving and make up for it by cutting portions or decreasing calories in other meals.

3) Take time preparing each meal and enjoy the process of making it as well as the product, a positive relationship with food is always good and the extra time and focus taken can help calm you down.

4) Baby carrots and pickles. 5-15calories each, these snacks are easy to grab when you feel the impulse to just eat something.