How do I forgive myself for overeating?

Buff Man forgives you child! Go forth and continue your journey to buffness

You got right back to it? Sounds like you handled yourself perfectly. We were twins with our 'off the rails, right back to it' couple of days. We all get off track from time to time and everytime we recover gracefully, like you did, we can let go of a little bit more of that stress over failure. Five years ago, it would have freaked me out too but now, after successfully recovering from lots of little stumbles, it no longer does because I know it's not a big deal.

Keep up the positive work by continuing to not give up after a little setback and someday it'll be no big deal. Hope that ramble helps in some way.

May33338 wrote: »

I feel like I've let myself down and I can't help feeling ashamed of myself for what happened yesterday.

I think this is because you have let yourself down. Here is why I say this. Maybe you put too much pressure on yourself and feel you need to commit 100% to this calorie limit 100% of the time. So when you fail to comply naturally you feel you let yourself down. So my advice is to rethink your commitment. Eating more (even this much) on a rare occasion means nothing - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING - if you look at the big picture. You say you are in the routine already and easily got back to it the following day. So the big picture is - you are doing what is good for you.
As much as you can.
You don't need to be 100% on target.
It is fine to be 90% of the time too.

The first time I "fell" off (binged at an all you can eat restaurant) I also felt bad but I also discovered that I could make a (huge) difference the next days. I could reduce the next few days' calorie intake by alot just by that one day's huge surplus. I've been falling off the wagon several times since (avg. once/week). Make little difference to my wt loss 15 lbs+ six weeks in.

You're doing great! Imagine any other skill you're trying to learn, doing it every single day for 40 days, would you feel guilty if you took a day off and didn't practice? You've got this,

vingogly wrote: »

The decision to eat is not a moral choice. Neither is the choice to eat item X rather than item Y. Use of phrases like "cheat day" and "fall off the wagon" and "sugar is evil" is counterproductive because they feed into the myth that deviating from our plan is a sin and sticking to it is righteous.

I do not deal with feeling low after overeating, because I've come to internalize these beliefs rather than accepting the old morality programming surrounding the concept of "dieting". Dieting doesn't work; making permanent lifestyle changes does.

I agree, long term habits will sculpt your body (for better or worse) far greater than a piece of cake every now and then. Having said that, you might consider finding a different outlet to deal with your stress rather than binging, especially if it only makes you feel worse.

It's a long trip...just keep traveling.

WOW! lighten up! You are human ! We all are ! Some people eat very well all week and do what ever thy want 1 day per week it's needed sometimes to eat guilt free anything you want to eat in one day and then get back on the horse the rest of the week. My day is Sundays I have a big family dinner every Sunday with the works I make one of these dinners with the works!
roast beef dinner or ham , turkey,chicken ,potaoes ,gravy, pie chocolate even restaurants for lunch ect... Why because let's face it on 1200 calories Iam limited to what I can nourish my body with so I choose high fiber, proteins and low carbohydrates all week so come Sunday I like to be free. I don't over eat I stop when I am full but I will eat anything for breakfast ,lunch, supper, Snack on that da
y even wine anything goes. I don't gain I still lose! So I need to feel freedom once per week some times. It feels good for a change. I am good all week so I induldge Sundays.I don't feel bad at all! Live a little once in a while life is too short for regrets!

Francl27 wrote: »

Personally, I do the math... 4000 is maybe 1500 over maintenance? With a 500 calorie deficit (yours is probably bigger), you'll make up for it in 3 days.

It's not a huge deal at all, as long as you don't give up.

+1 to roughly estimating the math in your head. An over day like that is just a minor delay in reaching your ultimate goal. If Francl27's assumptions are correct, you've delayed your ultimate goal by 3 days. If you do this only rarely/occasionally (like once every 40 days - LOL) you'll be completely fine.

I've done similar things from time to time while losing, maybe once a month or so. No biggie. I'm now heading into maintenance at around 118 pounds. I took a trip this past weekend, and over the 3 days, ate a total of around 5000 calories over my maintenance calories. Weighed 118.8 before I left; back at 118.4 by Wednesday, without doing anything extraordinary.

And (IMO) don't make a big cut afterwards to make it up: You can be setting yourself up for an deprive-and-binge cycle. Just log the over amount, go back to your healthy routine as soon possible, and go on. If the extra calories give you a burst of energy, then maybe do some extra exercise the next day; if the extra calories make you feel less hungry the next day, it's OK to go a little under goal according to how you feel. Other than that, don't sweat it.

How do you forgive yourself for making ANY mistakes? Look at what you did, see it in context with the rest of your life, realise what a tiny infraction it was in the greater scheme of things and then just get back on track. But you don't need me to tell you that because that is what you already did. Winner!

Francl27 wrote: »

Personally, I do the math... 4000 is maybe 1500 over maintenance? With a 500 calorie deficit (yours is probably bigger), you'll make up for it in 3 days.

It's not a huge deal at all, as long as you don't give up.

It's not even as bad as that, because, as you guessed, the math suggests her daily deficit is larger than 500 calories.

10 pounds lost in 40 days (.25 lb/day) suggests an average daily deficit of about 875 calories (1/4 of 3500). OP says she eats about 1400 (no mention of net or eating back exercise calories), so 1400 + 875 yields a maintenance level of about 2275. 4000 is about 1725 over maintenance, or just shy of twice the OP's average daily deficit. She'll make up for it in two days. (Of course, this doesn't account for any water weight that was part of the 10 lb loss.)

As for feeling badly about what I eat, that's really not something I do anymore, at least not in the way you seem to mean it, May3338. This isn't like you stole something or murdered someone. One day in six weeks you ate more than is consistent with your long-term goals. Take the opportunity to think about other ways to deal with the stress that led you to eat that much more than maintenance, and decide if it's something you want to do occasionally (once a month doing that will slow your loss about 3/4 of a lb a month), or maybe something more in the neighborhood of maintenance (you could do that three times a month for the same result).

Math is your friend smiley: