What to do after overeating

geiznekcm · August 2018

Hello, All. I pray everyone is well!!

I am usually not one to expose myself like this nor resort to media to seek advice, but, nonetheless, here I am. Let me say now that I appreciate any genuine, realistic advice and knowledge from any of your personal experience you are willing to share. Please forgive me if I fail to be brief with my concerns (I am also not one to be concise!!).

Anyway,

I do not need to lose weight, but my goal is to not gain any -- specifically fat. I am disgusted and ashamed to admit that this week I overate -- I mean, I consumed at least twice my caloric needs on multiple days. Not that this makes it any less bad, but I overate very few processed foods; the bulk were whole foods. To no surprise, I feel not only physically gross, but emotionally and mentally. I really do not want to experience any "rebound" weight gain, but I feel as if I've set myself up for just that, and I am at a loss as to what to do now.

So, I suppose my question is if there is anything I could possibly do to mitigate or counteract all the overeating for the week to NOT gain any weight. What do you think the maximum "rebound" will be from my poor decisions? Do you recommend I fast at all, eat significantly less to try to compensate? What would likely happen if I just forgive myself, act as if my slate is clean, then pick up my usual routine tomorrow, without trying to compensate for overdoing it all this week?

Again, I apologize for being a burden. I ask anyone who reads all of this to please be kind in sharing any advice they have. I sincerely appreciate it.

God bless you All!!

Nony_Mouse · August 2018

Honestly, go with forgiving yourself and picking up your usual routine tomorrow. Extremes such as fasting or eating significantly less may well backfire, setting you up for further overeating. In all likelihood, you may not be as hungry as normal the next day or two anyway, so if you end up eating a little less than normal, that's fine, just don't try to do it deliberately.

I would also avoid the scale for several days. There will be a scale weight spike, but most of it is going to be fluid retention, glycogen replenishment, and extra food in your system. It will be gone soon enough.

jdubois5351 · August 2018

Be kind to yourself. Crap like that happens, it's not the end of the world. Get up, dust yourself off and carry on with your normal regime.

sytchequeen · August 2018

What they said ^^^

I had a shocking day on Saturday - and suffered a morning of self recrimination the day after. But I didn't do anything other than eat how I "normally should", and there is no harm done. It's difficult to forgive yourself sometimes, but punishing yourself will not fix anything.

Deviette · August 2018

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

Honestly, go with forgiving yourself and picking up your usual routine tomorrow. Extremes such as fasting or eating significantly less may well backfire, setting you up for further overeating. In all likelihood, you may not be as hungry as normal the next day or two anyway, so if you end up eating a little less than normal, that's fine, just don't try to do it deliberately.

I would also avoid the scale for several days. There will be a scale weight spike, but most of it is going to be fluid retention, glycogen replenishment, and extra food in your system. It will be gone soon enough.

This 100%

If your goal is to maintain weight you've got to accept that overeating happens occasionally. It's only if it is common when it could be a problem.

Remember 3500kcals is 1lb of fat. So unless you've consumed A LOT LOT extra calories, you've almost certainly not gain barely anything fat wise. I highly doubt that your daily weight stays exactly the same eat day and I easily get fluctuations of 1-2lbs daily, so chances are if you do see some movement on the scale, it's unlikely to be actual fat movement, more because of fluid retention/physically having more food in your body at the time.

smolmaus · August 2018

What happened was not "gross" or "bad" and you have no reason at all to be ashamed. You just ate food. There is no morality attached to eating food. You have nothing to forgive yourself for.

Do you know why you felt the need to overeat? Anxious? Stressed? Sad? Over tired? Food can be comforting to the brain, everybody knows that and although its obviously not a healthy thing to rely on food-as-comfort in the long term, you'd be better off looking for the underlying issue rather than focusing on the symptom (overeating). Punishing yourself for eating "too much" is a small step on the rocky road to Eating Disorder Town.

TheMagicOneMikeD · August 2018

That was a lot of reading and I didn't do it, so I'm responding to the headline... If you overeat one day spread the difference over the next week or so and eat fewer calories (maybe 50-100 calories a day) for the week, or just workout more to burn it off faster. It happens when ppl are working on bettering themselves. Worst thing to do is stress out and get your cortisol level up over it. Once in a while is no big deal, it's easy to fix.

kommodevaran · August 2018

What you need to do, is to stop thinking about "mitigating" overeating. Trying to fix overeating with undereating, sets you up for more overeating. Overeating happens occasionally, everybody overeats now and then, it's perfectly normal. We don't have to "think"; a pound of fat equals 3500 calories. But a pound of fat is easily hidden within normal weight fluctuations. It's consistent overeating over time that leads to weight gain, and guilt for eating sets you up for comfort eating, paradoxically. So you are not to forgive yourself, because you haven't done anything wrong, and there is no reason to "confess" what you have eaten. You are also to stop thinking of yourself as a burden. People reply or decline based on interest in the topic. And this is a topic that interests me greatly, I have struggled with bad relationship with food myself, and MFP has been a lifesaver; I hope you will find success too!

It's important that you stop dividing foods into good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, processed/clean (or whatever). A diet is more or less healthy, and you can eat anything in moderation, The key is moderation, and when you're relaxed and informed, and trusting yourself to decide what to eat, and what moderation is, in each individual situation, you can eat in moderation.

Seffell · August 2018

People who naturally maintain a healthy weight without counting eat more on some days and less on others. I wouldn't think much of what you did last week. I'd just go on a deficit for several days.

snickerscharlie · August 2018

What to do after overeating?

Log it all honestly and completely, learn from it and move on.

shaf238 · August 2018

You'll be fine. Just get back to your 'normal'.

hesn92 · August 2018

Just go back to normal, you'll be fine. It's not like you're going to gain 10lbs in a week from overeating.

elsie6hickman · August 2018

Have to echo, forgive yourself and move on.

Crafty_camper123 · August 2018

Yup forgive, and move on. To add though, if this is a chronic problem for you, instead of beating yourself up, ask yourself why? Figuring out the root cause of why you overate can be helpful to reduce occurrences in the future. Were you stressed? Bored? Was the food just too tasty to step away from? Super hungry?

Stress or boredom- find something else you enjoy to channel your energy to.
Food too good?- If it's a trigger food (food you have a hard time moderating) Limit your access to it. Or serve yourself, and immediately put away leftovers so it's more inconvenient to go back for seconds.
Were you too hungry and inhaled your food? You may look into your calories and nutrition to get a handle on your appetite.

There are other things that can cause overeating of course, it's different for everyone. But the number one thing to do, is to accept it happened, and move on.

kimny72 · August 2018

I'll add to all the excellent responses you've got - Stop thinking of eating in terms of a morality play. There is no reason to feel gross or ashamed by eating too much once :huh: It's just food - it's fuel for your body and yummy as a bonus. I'm sure there are plenty of times you ate less than you needed without realizing it. This time you ate more. That's life. Fearing food or moralizing eating can easily lead to unhealthy habits and a disordered relationship with food.

If it happens often, look for the reasons why it happens and work on improving them. If it happens once in a blue moon, congrats! You're human!

urloved33 · August 2018

I always go to the gym. when I am done there I feel great and forgive myself and forget it.

nutmegoreo · August 2018

I agree with the suggestion to forgive yourself and just move forward from here. I see a lot of emotionally charged words in your post and I worry that adding in fasts or very restrictive eating, is just punishment for doing "bad" things. This mindset can set you on years of hateful thinking towards yourself. We ALL need to learn self-forgiveness and self-compassion. Go with the forgiveness and work on improving your emotional well-being.

cwolfman13 · August 2018

You move on...a couple of days of overeating isn't going to make you gain weight (fat)...the human body is very adept at maintaining homeostasis...to override your body's ability to maintain homeostasis you must consistently be in a calorie surplus for an extended period of time or in a calorie deficit for an extended period of time. The human body is very good at utilizing excess energy in the short term.

dragonghost · August 2018

Grab a heating pad an try an do better the following day

hroderick · August 2018

Lots of us here have behaviors and feelings to overcome. If you have a history of under-eating, then you might put on your analytical hat and think about where your concern is coming from.

[edited by MFP Mods]

amusedmonkey · August 2018

Move on. Nothing happened. Everyone, even the thinnest people, have days where they eat more than their usual. It's completely normal and nothing you need to feel gross about or even need to forgive yourself for. There's nothing to forgive.

Fixating on it will only make things worse, pushing you to restrict, which results in more frequent overeating. That's one cycle you don't want in your life. Don't act like it's a clean slate, just act like it's part of life, which it is.

You won't rebound to your weight unless you overeat consistently without catching it early. Don't focus on this one day, but if your weight starts creeping up over time, just re-lose the small bit you gained.

What to do after overeating

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