Weekend cravings help

For me, I let myself eat whatever I'm craving for but in a smaller amount. As long as it fits in my calories.

You really just have to learn to say no to yourself.
Yes, we all know if it fits in your calories go for it BUT I often have craving that don’t reasonably fit in my calories. I regularly crave Cheetos, truffles, cheese & crackers and kit Kats in one day. My cheese & crackers alone are around 350 calories, a kit kat bumps that up to 560, etc. And when I have a snacky craving, eating 1/4th of a kit kat really doesn’t help the craving go away.

So in the end, even if you have a treat that works in your calories and you crave more, you just have to say no to yourself. My diary is open so you can take a look, but yesterday I had Chick Fil A for lunch which took 1,000 calories and I’m a BIG snacker. I love munching all day rather than having one massive meal. I had cravings all day from 2pm to 8pm but I just knew if I started snacking I wouldn’t have room for dinner and I didn’t want to go over my calories for the day. Dinner came and I had a piece of Mochi frozen yogurt for dessert which was delicious- once I had that I wanted another one. I simply couldn’t fit it into my calories so I just drank ice tea.

Basically I’m trying to say that I realize you can eat anything you want since it’s CICO, but even if you do fit all the foods you love, sometimes cravings surpass calorie allotment for the day and at that point you need to ask yourself “is this extra X amount of calories worth decreasing my weekly deficit?” Sometimes that answer is a yes and sometimes it’s a no.

Also, I struggled with restricting my calories too much. To lose .5 pound / week MFP has me at 1,650 calories and that was too low for me so now I’m eating the maintenance calories for my goal weight (thanks to the recommendation from folks here!!) and that’s much easier with me. Try playing with your calorie goals and see if it helps!

Mine got the better of me last night. I’ve been back on mfp for two weeks now and started back exercising this week. I have been eating my calories plus some of the exercise calories back until I can get used to everything (I usually don’t like eating back my exercise cals). I have been eating some of my cravings but stayed within my calories. However, I don’t know what it was about yesterday but I stayed so incredibly hungry throughout the whole entire day. Last night I ended up binging on some cravings. I have never in my life just binged like that. I just told myself I will get back on track tomorrow. I am back on track today and my hunger is now at a normal level again. I don’t know why I binged bc I haven’t been depriving myself. I’m just hoping it’s because of all the new changes and my body is just trying to adjust to what I’m doing and this doesn’t happen often. I even read online that binging every once in a while will not make you gain weight. It’s constantly over eating with no exercise that will. I’m trying to not let it get me down and just say it happened and move on and do better. I know I didn’t give you any advice on how to stop the cravings, but I just wanted to share my experience because it’s normal to have cravings. It’s normal to give into them sometimes. We are human. Just don’t give up and results will happen. Just get back on track.

You have two options and only you can decide which will work for you. Either (a) you can have a small amount of what you crave by building it into your diet or (b) if you don’t have the willpower to have a little and stop, exclude those foods that trigger binges entirely. Remember when choosing your option - this is for the rest of your life. Which option appeals now?

Depending what you crave, see if you can make a healthier version of it. Also have things that aren't too bad ready to eat... when I'm hungry I'll eat the first thing I see.