Those difficult eating situations - weekends, restaurants, etc.

I usually bank calories during the week, especially when I know I have bigger weekend plans - saving 100-200 cals/day yields an extra 500-1000 for the weekend. I also try to get in extra exercise and eat lighter during the day if I'm going out to a nice dinner or having a special event.

It is also helpful to maintain perspective about these things - in the grand scheme of things, special events are not an every day event, or else they wouldn't be special. Things like holidays, birthdays, vacations, weddings - yes they can sometimes feel like they are going to derail all your progress but if you are trying to lose weight, with a goal of 1 lb/week, that means you have a deficit of 3500 cals/day built into your week. It's unlikely in one day, even on Thanksgiving or Christmas, that you're going to exceed that kind of a deficit and even if you do, if it is a one time thing, it's a blip in the big picture of trying to come up with a long term, sustainable, enjoyable plan for your overall health and wellbeing.

For what it's worth, I just took a 2 week logging break as I was on vacation at an all inclusive in Mexico, then Easter weekend, then a work sales meeting with eating every meal in a hotel/event center. This is the first time in 5 years of losing weight and successfully maintaining that I didn't log at all, and it didn't have any major impact. I'm still within my maintenance range, and the good habits I've built up over the years with moderating my intake, prioritizing the foods I really want to eat, and staying active really helped with all that I'm sure. I'm back on my normal routine - eating, logging, exercising - AND eating back those exercise calories.

Good luck.

I just had two off-program weeks. I'm kosher and vegetarian and went to my parents for Passover (actually came into town a few days early to help prep). Now, it's not just bread that's verboten. My family is of Eastern European origin, which means apart from matzo, no grains or grain products (except quinoa), no legumes (including green peas and string beans). I think I mentioned I'm vegetarian?

In practice, this means that my main protein sources for eight days are eggs, dairy, quinoa and nuts. It means my iron levels take a hit, because multi-vitamins need to be certified kosher for Passover and I haven't found any in Toronto. It does a number on my satiety levels.

Oh. The digital scale seemed to be wayyyyyyyyyy off. Like maybe the batteries were dying, though it didn't occur to me at the time. And my parents tend to have a liberal hand with the cooking oil.

Add in that my home gym couldn't come on the train with me and even getting in two hours of walking almost every day didn't compensate for the high-potato, high-fat, low-protein, low-iron diet. (Seriously, potatoes, matzo, and oil are in EVERYTHING. Eggs, too, but I'm not complaining about that).

So. Two off-program weeks. This morning, my scale showed me up 3.6 lbs. And yes, some of that is almost certainly water weight. But some of it is significant amounts of chocolate almond bark, matzo slathered in butter and salt, potato kugel, savory matzo farfel, my mom's apple cake, the bars I made with brown sugar, ground almonds, chocolate chips, and eggs... Whatever. As of yesterday, I'm back home, back on the wagon, weighing daily and refusing to let one setback derail everything and go back to my old emotional eating down-spiral.

I have been eating more protein than usual and just hit 169% of my iron RDA today.

I went off-program. I'll be my ideal weight a couple weeks later than planned. But you know something? That's okay. I'm going to get there in the end.