Trouble sticking to healthy eating/sabotaging weight loss goals

If you find yourself giving into these temptations, consider the following:

1) You would not crave or give into these things if you were truly satisfied with your current diet. I, for example, absolutely loved junk food prior to my diet. I guess you could say I still love it, I just don't eat it anymore. The number one thing that has kept me away from junk food has been finding healthy foods that I actually enjoy eating. Among your conventional 'healthy foods', I also managed to find a protein powder that tastes just as good as a legitimate milkshake. It's so delicious, I literally look forward to drinking it after a workout, and having it after dinner satisfies me as much as any desert would. Due to the fact that I actually enjoy the food that I eat, and have found a healthy substitute to satisfy my sweet tooth, when I encounter junk food during my day, I am not tempted by it.

2) If you truly 'MUST' give in to these things when you are around them, do yourself a favor and take some time to go out of your way to avoid locations and events where this kind of food is readily accessible. It took me about 2 weeks of complete avoidance of junk food before I started to stop wanting it alltogether. Believe me, when you see progress on the scale, that alone will be enough to deter you from eating junk food. This is coming from the #1 fan of carrot cake in the world (God, that creamcheese frosting...). I have seen so much success in my nutrition and workout plans that, even though I still see my favorite junk foods and think about how good they taste, the thought of setting back the progress I've already seen is more than enough to keep me away.

Believe me... just keep yourself on track. When you start to see the pounds fall off, you will look at junk food as nothing but a road block to your ultimate goal of weight loss. I still want junk food just as much as I ever did, but I want to see my fitness progress MORE than I want to eat that junk food.

Also, as the poster above me stated, there's not necessarily a problem with consuming junk food as long as you monitor it properly. Use MFP f or what it was intended - log everything you eat. There's nothing wrong with having a slice of cake. Just understand that your carb and fat intake for the day might accelerate more quickly than it normally would. Log it, track it, and maybe focus on a lean protein food for your next meal. I.e.: If you're at some kind of celebration, maybe focus on eating nothing but grilled chicken (pretty common at these kind of events) and then have your slice of cake. The cake will be relatively high in carbs and fats, and the grilled chicken will kind of balance everything out by being extremely low in carbs and fats but high in protein. You can still very easily reach your caloric and macro goals by the end of a day when you've eaten junk food... as long as you don't go overboard. The problem is not the slice of cake... it's the slice of cake... AND the cookie... AND the chips... AND the... well, you get it.

Best of luck, friend.

nadnan91 wrote: »

So here’s my thing: during the week when I’m following my regular routine (going to the office, then gym, etc.) I have no trouble sticking to healthy meals and snacks within my daily 1400 calories. However, this summer I’m noticing that every time there’s a special event outside of the office or I’m out during the weekends, I give into temptations whenever there is a fresh plate of cookies for dessert, ice cream or burgers and fries. Basically if the food is easily within reach, I go for it and then feel terrible about myself the rest of the day. It can take me a few days to bounce back only to repeat this cycle. I feel as if I’m struggling with my weight loss plateau in taking these two steps forward three steps back. Thoughts/advice?

I think the 2 things to realise is:

• there aren't healthy snacks or meals, just an overall healthy diet - all of the things you've mentioned there can form part of a healthy diet in moderation, considering them "off limits" is more often than not, a hindrance rather than a help.
• feeling terrible about having these foods is detrimental in itself, you basically end up in a horrible binge and restrict cycle (below seem familiar?) it's way too easy to feel like you're a failure but the long and short of it is, one meal/snack/binge isn't going to undo months of progress unless you let it. If you have a bad day, log it and move on, the majority of weight gain you see in the days following binge eating is mostly water weight. You'd have to eat 3500 calories above maintenance (not just above your calorie allowance for weight loss) to gain 1lb of fat.

nadnan91 wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

nadnan91 wrote: »

So here’s my thing: during the week when I’m following my regular routine (going to the office, then gym, etc.) I have no trouble sticking to healthy meals and snacks within my daily 1400 calories. However, this summer I’m noticing that every time there’s a special event outside of the office or I’m out during the weekends, I give into temptations whenever there is a fresh plate of cookies for dessert, ice cream or burgers and fries. Basically if the food is easily within reach, I go for it and then feel terrible about myself the rest of the day. It can take me a few days to bounce back only to repeat this cycle. I feel as if I’m struggling with my weight loss plateau in taking these two steps forward three steps back. Thoughts/advice?

I think the 2 things to realise is:

• there aren't healthy snacks or meals, just an overall healthy diet - all of the things you've mentioned there can form part of a healthy diet in moderation, considering them "off limits" is more often than not, a hindrance rather than a help.
• feeling terrible about having these foods is detrimental in itself, you basically end up in a horrible binge and restrict cycle (below seem familiar?) it's way too easy to feel like you're a failure but the long and short of it is, one meal/snack/binge isn't going to undo months of progress unless you let it. If you have a bad day, log it and move on, the majority of weight gain you see in the days following binge eating is mostly water weight. You'd have to eat 3500 calories above maintenance (not just above your calorie allowance for weight loss) to gain 1lb of fat.

I guess my problem really isn’t that I binge eat it’s more this intake of cookies and pastry isn’t helping me to further my weight loss goals yet I can’t resist. I’m trying to lose a pound a week and yet when I see these foods available I end up eating them and going over what my daily caloric intake should be if I want to lose weight.

But is it slowing your weight loss? Are you not losing the 1 lb/week?

I think what you’ve described is a common occurrence for many people - more indulgent activities on the weekend than during the week which tends to be more scheduled. What I do is bank 100 -200 cals during the week so that I have a buffer of 500-1000 cals on the weekend. It’s the weekly deficit, and ultimately the sustained deficit over time that results in weight loss and whether you eat those calories on Weds or Sat doesn’t really matter.

I also try to make sure the weekends include extra activity - tack on a hike or a bike ride before those events, make them part of the whole day. We often ride our bikes to the farmers market, eat samples and yummy stuff from food trucks, buy healthy fresh foods and bike home to cook that stuff for dinner.

Good luck. Remember this is supposed to be a lifestyle change and fun weekend events are a part of life, and certainly one I wouldn’t want to give up.