Make up for a bad day?

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jessgallison
jessgallison Posts: 26
in Health and Weight Loss
Yesterday started out really well because I burned 500 calories. That brought my food total up to about 1700 calories. I had no intention of eating all of those back, but I went out with my friends and they all wanted to get milkshakes and have mac and cheese for dinner and long story short, i ended up eating like, 1900 calories (terrible I know!). That put me around 200 over if you consider eating back exercise calories okay.

I was thinking I would make up for it by eating 200 less calories today. I'm not really that hungry anyway. Does that sound like an okay plan / will it do anything? I get that I should just 'move on' but I figure if there was a way to minimize the damage I might as well take it.

Replies

  • sarah307
    sarah307 Posts: 1,363 Member
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    I think that sounds fine! Just don't overdo it and not eat anything the next day or you will most likely get a bunch of junk later! (thats what i end up doing anyways!) If I have a lot of weird days - i mostly look at my net calories burned for that week. Week by week evens out pretty well i think.

    *edit*
    meaning that if say Monday you went over 200, then Tuesday you went under 200 or something..then I think it evens out as long as it's within that week.
  • watermelonstarfish
    watermelonstarfish Posts: 195 Member
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    ppl do this all the time
  • Tiggerrick
    Tiggerrick Posts: 1,078 Member
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    Your journey should not focus on a day. You are already 'making up' for choices you made prior to today. Those extra calories you are having to burn off did not pile on overnight. Don't worry too much abou making up for a day. If you eat less today because you just didn't feel houngry, that's ok. If, on the other hand, you met your calorie goal, that's OK too.
  • carl1738
    carl1738 Posts: 444 Member
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    200 calories over is really diddly squat. Your built in calorie deficit is probably 500-1000 calories anyway, so you're still on track to lose weight. If you honestly think that you're going to notice that 200 calories, which is less than one ounce of fat, add another 15 minutes to your workout tomorrow. Personally, I certainly wouldn't stress myself out over it, but I guess everybody's different.
  • putnam80
    putnam80 Posts: 69 Member
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    Weight loss is not "today". I have been doing fantastic since I started. I have had a few "bad days" my weight has continued to come off. don't worry about yesterday, just worry about today. its why weighing yourself daily is usually a bad idea. week to week, month to month. its a long term lifestyle change not just a "diet"
  • Rowann
    Rowann Posts: 86
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    Don't worry about 200 calories. If you can recoup them without going below a net of 1200 for the day, and without being too hungry, then fair enough, but otherwise just let it go and chalk it up to experience.

    I was in a similar position over the weekend; I really wanted to get Chinese food, and had the calories for it, but then went very overboard and had twice as much as I intended (Bad rowann! When will you ever learn?!!?!). Anyway, I went 433 calories over for the day, and spent all day Sunday beating myself up about it. I'd been at a plateaux for a couple of weeks prior to that. Thankfully my husband stepped in and told me to 'put a sock in it' and just carry on.

    He was right; when I weighed in this morning I'd lost double my weekly target. I'm beginning to think that going over that day gave my system a shock, and jump started it again... :)

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