how do you deal with failure days?

No such thing as a failure day and viewing less than nutritional sound days as failures is setting yourself up for failure. Use it as a day to learn something about yourself and why you make your choices. Call it a re-feed day (if you need to) and move on to tomorrow.

I'm 54 years old and after a lifelong battle with obesity, I'm finally succeeding. So far I've lost 115 lbs. My biggest failure in life was my weight. I could do anything I set my mind to, except lose the weight. In December 2012, I started a weight loss journey that I had no expectations would be successful. After all, I had more than 30 years of historical proof that I was a failure when it came to my weight. The biggest change I made was re-wiring my brain. You have to realize you're human and will never be perfect. The key is to get back on track and never give up. Many people who knew me as a 300-lb. woman flock to me these days wanting to know how I did it and many have insisted that I create a blog about my journey. If you're interested, here it is: http://blossomingvilma.blogspot.com/ Maybe something I learned along the way can help you learn how to deal with setbacks, binging, and not being perfect.

You call going over your daily calorie limit a failure? Why??? You've had a bad (eating) day, cut back over the next few days if you can. All (or most of us) on here want to lose weight, but it takes time, and there's a learning curve as to what helps and what doesn't - but you need to learn to take the good days, and the bad, it's a lifestyle, not a fad diet.

If you're eating for emotional reasons then work on figuring out your triggers and finding ways to stop the urges.

Be nice to yourself, you are allowed a blow out occasionally, put it into perspective, once a month will not do any damage, you're doing more damage by thinking you've failed than any over eating has done.

It depends on my mood whether I log the specifics, or just throw in an extra couple of thousand calories, just so when I look back at my diary I can see all the extra calories - ignoring the diary is not helpful.

Feel free to message me if you need to rant.

Forgive myself and move on...a lot of times a bad day resets my focus. Just don't let it turn into a bad week..etc. we are all human and I love chocolate lol!

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »

You realize that in the long run, one day is not going to make much difference in your weight loss goals. You just pick up where you left off the next day, and don't worry about it.

It says nothing about your moral character to go over your calories for one day, and the overall impact is going to be negligible. There is absolutely no reason to beat yourself up and dwell on a bad day.

Try not assigning any moral value to your eating habits. It's just food!

I love this, Alyssa!

vilmaes wrote: »

I'm 54 years old and after a lifelong battle with obesity, I'm finally succeeding. So far I've lost 115 lbs. My biggest failure in life was my weight. I could do anything I set my mind to, except lose the weight. In December 2012, I started a weight loss journey that I had no expectations would be successful. After all, I had more than 30 years of historical proof that I was a failure when it came to my weight. The biggest change I made was re-wiring my brain. You have to realize you're human and will never be perfect. The key is to get back on track and never give up. Many people who knew me as a 300-lb. woman flock to me these days wanting to know how I did it and many have insisted that I create a blog about my journey. If you're interested, here it is: http://blossomingvilma.blogspot.com/ Maybe something I learned along the way can help you learn how to deal with setbacks, binging, and not being perfect.

Very inspiring.

kae612 wrote: »

I had a day like that yesterday, and I know repeatedly thinking "wow there is so much wrong with you, you're a failure you deserve nothing good" etc. is not something that's going to help. It will make me want to eat. Do you have ways of dealing with this?

You can deal with this unhelpful negative thinking by mindfully, calmly, pay attention to it as it is happening, and (1) argue with every single sentence that puts you down by refuting it with how much you have already accomplished, that one day falling off-goal is not catastrophic, that you will do better tomorrow, etc. At first this can be very time-consuming, but after some time of doing it, you will find that you have trained your mind to argue in YOUR favor just as it is currently used to putting you down.

And/or (2) get in the mindset of a scientist and just observe it, this weird little robot that lives in your mind that gets triggered and start talking, talking, talking, saying all these ridiculous things. Where did it learn to say all these things? Who does it think it is? What other kinds of situations make it start talking like this? Become an investigator into your own brain.

Ultimately, a single day is very insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Weight-loss and health is more about persistence and consistency. If you are generally doing healthful things, indulging yourself now and then is perfectly OK

One of the first things I'd say is...you need to be your own best friend. Your best friend would not tell you that you're a failure. Your BF is the one that supports you thru the tough times and tells you what a great job you've been doing all along and that one day won't change that. Not even one day a week will change that.

I do not allow myself to say things to myself that I wouldn't want someone else to say to me.

This whole thing is a process. You're learning so many things about yourself, your relationship with food, your relationship with others. You're learning what foods satisfy you, which ones don't, which ones may initiate a binge, which ones you really like, which ones you could live without. You're learning how to live your life within the parameters of being conscious of health and fitness. It takes time, patience, and allowing yourself to be human.

Perception is everything. If you call yourself a failure, see your actions as failures, you're setting yourself up to continue those same failures. Changing your personal perception may not be easy, but it is very possible. I did it. A lot of us have done it. You can too, I promise you! Every single time you do well, you meet a goal you've set for yourself, you need to be your loudest cheerleader. Log what you eat. The good, the bad, the ugly. Guesstimate if you have to. You have to be honest with yourself. It helps in ways you don't think of...if you're honest about what's going in your body, it's easier to believe yourself when you congratulate yourself for meeting a goal you set. Loving yourself is something you either start this process with, or you achieve it at some point. I wish you all the best

booksandchocolate12 wrote: »

I have days where I overeat (a lot) where my logging is sloppy, where I just say "who cares?!" and throw everything out the window. But my weight loss process is just one facet of who I am, and I never for one minute thought that I was a "failure of a person" because I ate too much.

Absolutely. Usually when this happens, too, I'm enjoying life a lot. So, it's just an aspect of one day in a string of many, many, many days.

OP, I would echo the advice to not get unnecessarily undone or upset about an "off" day. Getting stuck in any kind of negative emotions -- playing that tape over and over again in your head -- is just not beneficial at all.