binge eating on w/e hurting my progress losing & gaining same 5lbs for a year

melnikn
melnikn Posts: 41 Member
edited November 17 in Motivation and Support
I started mfp back in 2011. I was pretty strick for 2.5 yrs of weighing my food and working out 4-54-5xs a week. But always had a cheat day on the weekends and i lost 50 lbs.. but now that doesnt seem to work anymore. im 5'5 and got down to 152 last April. But then i just got stuck. So itook a break and stopped logging calories. Im bouncing btwn 152-158 since. I cant get out of the cycle. how can 2 days ruin my hard work for 5 days. ? I need my wekends to just forget about calories. Im sick of counting but really want to reach my goal of a healthy bmi and. My GW of 137.
Please help !!

Replies

  • carliekitty
    carliekitty Posts: 303 Member
    I use to have a day a week where it was the same thing. Once I lost alot of weight it started wiping out my hard work for the week. I switched to every two weeks. Once I did that I started looking again.
  • carliekitty
    carliekitty Posts: 303 Member
    * loosing
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    melnikn wrote: »
    I started mfp back in 2011. I was pretty strick for 2.5 yrs of weighing my food and working out 4-54-5xs a week. But always had a cheat day on the weekends and i lost 50 lbs.. but now that doesnt seem to work anymore. im 5'5 and got down to 152 last April. But then i just got stuck. So itook a break and stopped logging calories. Im bouncing btwn 152-158 since. I cant get out of the cycle. how can 2 days ruin my hard work for 5 days. ? I need my wekends to just forget about calories. Im sick of counting but really want to reach my goal of a healthy bmi and. My GW of 137.
    Please help !!

    Once you get closer to your goal you have to be a lot more exact in your logging. There's really no way around it. What kind of deficit are you running? If your deficit is fairly small, it would be super easy to erase it with a weekend of eating whatever you want.
  • Adc7225
    Adc7225 Posts: 1,318 Member
    I feel your frustration, I am sort of at that point where I think I need days where I just don't think about what I am eating but I am not sure I am really ready for that. One thing that I have learned about my body is that basically CICO does not necessarily work for me. I need to have a balanced diet with not low fat but not too much fat and sugar. Too much of these things do not do my body good. I think at a point we may get caught up on the calories and not so much watching the macros, for me this not only works some of the weight off but I feel better and the sugar craves are minimal. But of course since we are not perfect I do binge at times and have to do a hard reset of really eating a pre-logged diet for a few days to get back on track. Maybe working with your macros for a few days a week and then just watching serving sizes on the weekend ;)

    Also, are you working out at all?
  • nekoface
    nekoface Posts: 149 Member
    I agree with Adc7225. I realised I was eating way too much sugar but not enough protein or fat or anything else and that was hurting my progress.

    I have a 'cheat' day once a week, but I like to have it on a day that I'm working out a lot so I can eat what I want and still meet my calorie limit or if I overshoot it, it's only by a small amount. I make sure that I average a reasonable deficit every week. That was after one terrible Saturday night when my alcohol consumption was like 2000 calories. I know many people aren't fans of exercising away your calorie intake but I find that's what works for me.

    One of the things I find helps is to do an interesting physical activity one day on the weekend: like a really long walk (hiking?), a dance class, or some kind of weekend exercise workshop.
  • Lourdesong
    Lourdesong Posts: 1,492 Member
    You're very likely erasing your deficit with your cheat/free days. Is it that you want to not log several days a week, or that you want to eat more several days a week?
    If you just want to eat more, you could set 2 days up to eat at maintenance, or set aside some calories on the 5 days to save to eat on your free days. You could track by week instead of by the day to ensure you're hitting your weekly deficit goal, even if some days you eat more than other days.
    If you don't want to log, not sure how you could ensure you're in deficit without at least being mindful of how much you're eating on your free days. I also don't understand why you'd be at all tempted to erase 5 days of work when logging your intake takes, like, no time at all, really.
  • joepratt503
    joepratt503 Posts: 191 Member
    Generally, unless you go absolutely mental, you are not eating back 5 days worth of deficit in one day of cheat. The "weight" gain you are seeing is likely not all actual weight but waste and water with SOME body weight. That is how Cleanses work and people lose "5lb in the first week".

    Spending the amount of time you have logging, you know by sight what is over-the-top. At the end of the day, your goal needs to be your BMI, your weight, your strength, or your sanity. Pick one and be happy with it.
  • mistikal13
    mistikal13 Posts: 1,457 Member
    I feel your frustration. I was in the exact same situation before I reached my goal. I still eat what I want but in much smaller portions and this has worked for me. You could try to limit your "cheats" to twice a month?
  • tibby531
    tibby531 Posts: 717 Member
    I used to eat whatever for my "days off." now I have to count calories on those days, and reign it in to 4000. my best advice would be to figure out your weekly goals, and figure how much you want to eat on your "on" days, which tells you how much you can have on your "off" days. :)

    best of luck!
  • leggup
    leggup Posts: 2,942 Member
    One pound is 3,500 calories (basically). 3,500 calories divided by 7 days in a week is 500 calories. So, if you eat 500 calories under your maintenance every day for 1 week, you will lose 1 lb (more or less- weight loss is not linear so you're not going to lose exactly 1 lb every week. If you keep this up for a few weeks it will average out to 1 lb loss/week).

    So, if you're eating 500 calories under maintenance every day for Mon-Fri, you're at a deficit of 2,500 calories. That's still great, that's .71 lbs lost (2,500/3,500). But wait- that's only if you eat AT maintenance on Saturday and Sunday. You're 2,500 calories under. 2,500 / 2 = 1,250 calories. If you eat 500 calories under maintenance for 5 days and 1,250 calories over maintenance for 2 days, you average out to eating AT maintenance for 1 week.

    This is even easier to mess up when you're at a small deficit, like .5 lb/loss per week. That's only a deficit of 250 calories per day for 1 week.
  • buzybev
    buzybev Posts: 199 Member
    I was (and still am) in the same situation. Got down to 150lb with a goal or 145lb. Started SL 5x5 and used that as an excuse to overeat cus I "needed" the extra calories (pretty sure I didn't need cheeseburgers twice a week, but that's a story for another day). I am 15lb heavier, and acknowledge that while some of this is muscle... a good portion of it is fat. I've done a bit of a reset, and I am trying my best to follow IIFMY and not overindulge on the weekends. Something that helps me is doing a simple weekly meal plan in Word, and using that to fill in MFP. Know what I'm going to eat in advance gives me some peace of mind.
  • bshrom
    bshrom Posts: 71 Member
    I totally understand what you are going through. I am what I would like to call a recovering binge Eater. I was allowing 1 day a week to eat what I want without even realizing how much the thousands of extra calories were totally messing up everything I did all week! So now what I do is think all week about what the 1 thing I really want that week and on Sunday I will have a small portion of this item. Small portion being the key here. We all work so hard all week we can't derail everything we are working for for the sake of a cheat day. Hope this advice helps :)
  • melnikn
    melnikn Posts: 41 Member
    Thank you I really appriciate your feedback!!! I will try to log on my cheat days to see how much I'm consuming.
    Yes I am working out about 5x week. I am doing month 1 of Insanity now. and started the gym as well. i try to do about 1 hour of different strength machines and cardio.
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