How do you pull yourself back after a binge
DeButterflyx
Posts: 41 Member
How do you get your head back in the positive mood again after having some junk? I'm calorie counting for a week now was down 2lbs overall yesterday but decided to eat most of 2 share bags of chips and some chocolate and I'm up 1lb today so 1lb down overall.
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Replies
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You accept that you’re human, and carry on. I don’t ever consider it “starting over” because that implies some kind of past failure. It’s not. You still lost a pound.
Did you log it? Unless it was 3500 calories it wasn’t truly a pound. It’s just water/carbs.
Are you just starting? Are you being too enthusiastic and cutting your calories too low? Allowing yourself more calories may be slower, but it’s the path to success.12 -
Acknowledge you did it. Ask yourself why? If you can understand the behavior that led you to the binge, try to learn from it. If not, you've still asked. And most of all, move on and don't beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself!8
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Let me rephrase that. More calories is not always the slower route. If you chose “ too low”, you may be prone to frequent binging, which is actually the slowest route of all.6
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Yesterday is behind you. You can't change it. Today is a new day. Begin again.
If your car developed a flat tire, would you scrap the entire car? Probably not, you'd change out the flat and then get back on the road.
If you made an impulse purchase, a new expensive handbag that you didn't really need, would you stop going to work to earn money? Probably not. You might even work a little more to help cover the costs of special purchases.
Be fair with yourself, even when you slip up. It's not the end of the road, just get back to it. Also, when weighing daily it is not unusual to see a bump up now and then especially in women. You did not gain a pound of fat yesterday, that is impossible unless you actually went 3500 calories plus over your BMR which you didn't.5 -
Just dont dwell on it.Tomorrow is another day,get back on track you will be fine.2
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Being successful doesn't require perfection, it just requires being good on average. One bad day, even one bad day a week, isn't likely to derail you if you are at or below your budget on the other days.
Even if you hand't eaten all of those chips, your weight will fluctuate daily. Being up 1 or 2 lbs is actually normal.
While I wouldn't call it binging or cheat meals, I eat well above my goal most every weekend. I account for it by eating a little below budget during the week. This weekend my wife and I have two higher calorie meals planned:- One night I'll have a fish fry where we will eat fried fish and fried hushpuppies. I'll have a few beers with that meal while I'm cooking and with the meal.
- One night we plan to go out to eat at restaurant. I'm sure I'll have a couple drinks (depending on who is DD). The last time I ate at this place I had fried pickles and a hamburger.
During the week, however, I eat healthier and lower calorie meals.
If you look at my weight chart below, you can see it bounces around daily -- it's only the trend over time that matters. Also, you can see that big increase for me near the end of my chart -- that's the result of a 4 day weekend on spring break.
I knew when I came back that my weight would be up and that it would be mostly water weight. You can see how it bounced up 3 lbs and then after I got back on track is down 4.8 lbs from that peak -- all over a 2 week period.
All that matters is the trend -- both in your weight and your calorie intake.
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A lot of your one pound up is water weight.
I secretly hope that a lot of your 2lb loss was also water weight because if it wasn't you're applying too large of a deficit unless your tdee is close to the 5000 calorie a day range... which is not the case most of the time.
Take care, plug your scale numbers into a weight trend app, and apply reasonable deficits for your current level of activity and weight!2 -
Thanks everyone I actually met up with a family member 2 days back and they commented that I'd lost weight but I haven't much on scales so maybe iv toned up a bit. I'm trying to get my head around weigh loss being a line that will go up and down a little while decending and relaxing about it a bit but it's hard for me2
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Log every bit of it.0
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What PAV said: make sure you're not undereating. Undereating can, if you are not morbidly obese mean having a 2lbs per week weight loss goal. Don't eat 1200 calories per day but more. Yeah, loss will be slower, but the risk of binges will be smaller, and overall you might be losing in a more sustainable way. Don't make it hard, make it sustainable.1
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Math helps.
It takes an extra 3500 calories ABOVE your maintenance to gain 1lb of fat.
For me that would mean binging on nearly 5,000 calories in a day - and then processing it all and that isn't likely. I've had some intensive eating. I have never in my life put 5,000 calories down in a day. That's not why I got obese. I got obese over eating 200-500 or so a day most days. Not 5,000 extra once in a week.3 -
All of the above about acknowledging what you did, then getting over it and moving forward. In the end it's the PATTERN of behavior over weeks and months and not your consumption on any single day that will lead to success.
Besides, that one pound you were up the day after probably isn't fat (or failure!). It's just as likely that you retained more water from eating all those salty chips! NEVER look at daily weight fluctuations (which are COMPLETELY normal) as an indicator of your success or failure.2 -
Keep logging. I thought I destroyed my diet at the weekend because I was 3lbs heavier, but logging made me stop the binge. After a couple of days the weight went back down because it was actually just bloating so thank goodness I didn’t continue down that path!5
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xDaniellexsh wrote: »How do you get your head back in the positive mood again after having some junk? I'm calorie counting for a week now was down 2lbs overall yesterday but decided to eat most of 2 share bags of chips and some chocolate and I'm up 1lb today so 1lb down overall.
The only decent advice is to just carry on tomorrow as if it did not happen. Just put it behind you and forget about it.4 -
When I have gone off plan like that, I find I get really sleepy and thirsty, so make sure if you feel off you address those things too! But mentally, it's as everyone else as said: Start over, that very minute. You haven't 'ruined' your day, week, month, what have you. Stay honest with yourself.3
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I have had binges where I was up SIXTEEN pounds overnight, on the path to losing 90 pounds. Bit of a binging issue here LOL My binges look nothing like "2 share bag of chips", they are truly ridiculous and often involve alcohol, which totally remove my food inhibitions. That said, my answer is: next morning, get up, get on exercise machine, count calories.
The binge itself is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It's what happens the next day that counts, because for me a binge day can turn into a binge year. As long as I get back on track first thing the next morning, all is okay. I have discovered that binging itself is OK as long as it is always contained to one day, which I've done for 2 years.10 -
In addition to what has already been said, I find that after I eat a bag of chips and chocolate in excess I feel really sluggish and my stomach hurts. I find that heavy feeling in my gut perfect motivation to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables the next day.
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First, log the chips you ate. It may feel uncomfortable to log all those calories, but I find it helps stop a repeat binge of the same magnitude. Once logged, let it go.
Second, keep tracking and pat yourself on the back for hitting your calorie targets each day you are under.
Don't focus on scale weight since you are seeing a salt/water connection on the sudden increase.1 -
Just jump right back on your plan and pretend you're in maintenance. By weighing yourself and owning up to the truth.. you can now get back to it, instead of letting it get out of control.
Those in maintenance lose and regain the same view pounds over and over.1 -
If you were a true binge-er, my advice would be completely different. But it sounds like you had an off day or so and you get back on it the next day. Getting back to it and not letting a day or a weekend grow into weeks/months long is the key. I started a binge(history of overeating and bingeing here
) last year and it took me a couple of months+ to turn my mindset around. I ended up gaining 30# and have lost 20 of them. Why is it so much easier gaining than losing the pounds?
I'm trying to be kinder to myself, such as accepting myself where I'm at, realizing I'm only human and I like food, not all obsessed over every 1/4 # gained or lost this time around. I was always on here worrying about my calories and wondering why I'd only lost this or gained that. Now I step on the scales every Monday a.m., if I lose fine, if not well there's always next week's weigh-in. I'm trying to focus more on putting healthier foods in my mouth and have found a routine that works okay for me. Plus I feel I was trying to maintain an impossible weight for me which makes a person feel like they're almost starving themselves and end up eating more.
Keep moving forward, log your calories, move more, eat healthy, it'll work out even if you eat the occasional bag of chips.
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