A whole box of chocolates

TheWaistBasket
TheWaistBasket Posts: 56 Member
in Getting Started
After a healthy breakfast, I managed to enjoy one box of 'Schogetten milk chocolate' in one quick session. I logged it, 560 calories. I felt shocked. I wasted all these calories on chocolate. Now I have only 800 left for lunch and dinner but lunch got canceled by chocolate.

Logging it is like facing the music. Crime committed, here is your sentencing. No hearing!
I met with a dietician this week. There is no bad food, just bad ways of cooking I learned.
I enjoyed the chocolate, it was worth it. Dinner will be healthy again. The chocolate I still had in the house is gone. I messed up but it doesn't mean the day is destroyed.
Should I pre-plan my meals. Will this prevent messing up? I don't feel guilty which bothers me a bit. I should be outraged. I am here to get healthier and lose weight. I haven't heard of a chocolate diet.
I don't make any sense, do I?
I did not have my first weigh-in yet and I mess up already. Not a good start but still here.

Replies

  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    It may be easier not to have certain foods in the house for a while, until you learn to moderate them and eat only some, not the whole box. When I first started I couldn’t be around cookies, chips, and so on, and my husband was kind enough to swap to varieties that he likes and I don’t.

    Meal planning can definitely help, because if you don’t plan ahead, you won’t have the groceries you need at hand for healthy meals. What you want is to make it as easy on yourself as possible to make the right choices. Not that it isn’t okay to occasionally skip lunch for chocolate, but you can’t live on nothing but chocolate either.

    As a giant chocolate fiend myself, I had a day recently where I had chocolate with every meal. I’m also a diabetic, so I can’t just eat nothing but carbs, I have to eat balanced macros or see the results in my blood sugar. So I have worked it out to where my chocolate indulgences are actually pretty healthy and balanced. My trick is a bag of zint brand 100% cacao and bars of very good dark chocolate. I put cacao in oatmeal with fruit, almond butter, and Greek yogurt, and it’s pretty luxe.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,928 Member
    Oooh! I've not had Schogetten in ages! There are two things you can do:
    * accept you ate the chocolates and not have lunch
    * accept you ate the chocolates, have some lunch and a normal dinner. It's just one day out of many.
    * Of course there's a third option: not accepting you had the chocolates, have a tantrum, or any such thing. But it won't change anything anyway <3 Thus I would go with being human and make the best out of it. Tomorrow is another day, and you enjoyed it <3
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,464 Member
    Another chance to learn an important lesson. There will be temptations! How can you handle it better next time?
    1. No one’s ever allowed to bring chocolate near you again?
    2. Learn to have just one?
    3. You can only have chocolate mixed with a cup of broccoli (a suggestion from a weight-loss Dr.)?
    4. Have a lower calorie treat that you like handy as an alternative?
    5. Or ?
    6.
  • Lhenderson923
    Lhenderson923 Posts: 102 Member
    If you are unable to indulge now and then, then this journey will be much more difficult. Your dietician is right, there are no good or bad foods. There will be days where you go over your calories, and that is more than okay, and by no means does that equate to "messing up". It's life. Period. Days that I go over the number of calories MFP gives me, I try to at least stay under my maintenance calories. The most important thing is that you logged those chocolates, enjoyed them, and learned something.
  • AmunahSki
    AmunahSki Posts: 209 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    you can have anything, at any time, BUT NOT everything all the time.

    This one really resonates with me, too!
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Food doesn't have morality.

    Are you going to be better off (more satiated) if you eat meat and potatoes and broccoli (or their equivalents in terms of your cuisine of preference), i.e. food that you select because of satiation and nutritional goodness?

    SURE. In the end if you want to stay within your calories and reach your goals MOST of the time MOST of the food you eat will end up being "satiating food that meets your goals".

    Note that I use quotes because the precise content differs between people. The general concept not as much.

    Does that mean that you won't eat "chocolate"? I can assure you that a big part of my weight loss included Mcdonald's vanilla cones, especially when heading out or coming back from walks. And that my maintenance includes a considerable amount of chocolate and candy which did, indeed, use to be a bit more limited during weight loss because it adds up fast! 305 Cal of Lindt chocolate eaten inhaled this morning attests to that...

    I've certainly skipped and exchanged dinner for scoops of gelato. One of my past issues was that I would eat the gelato and then eat dinner anyway because it was dinner time and I had to have my nutrition. Sorry. Doesn't work that way: you can have anything, at any time, BUT NOT everything all the time.

    I've certainly skipped dinner for two deserts from Thierry's. Do keep in mind that the calories were about the same. The staying power/satiation actually didn't work out too badly... but only because I didn't stay up too late after! It wouldn't work out well if I tried to do it ALL the time!

    My comment to you is that you're still learning. You're logging and learning and evaluating.

    Do remember that only need to eat below MAINTENANCE to lose SOME fat. And you only gain fat by eating above MAINTENANCE.

    Your deficit target on MFP is a target to lose at a certain rate. A target you should overwhelmingly hit. But there exist even more important things than hitting the target! Staying in the game to come closer to it on another day being the most basic one! :)

    So you ate something that may or may not be sub-optimal for you. First of all: 800 Cal left for lunch and dinner is not optimal. But it is not the end of the world. Did lunch get cancelled by chocolate? SURE. But... do you actually need lunch right now, right after eating the chocolate? Can you not move dinner a little bit earlier if chocolate doesn't prove to have sufficient staying power? Can you not modify and think of a more filling dinner that will help you balance your chocolate eating not as a punishment but as an exercise where you balance your previous choices so that you can fit in everything you want to achieve in your day or week?

    I would consider a huge salad. Perhaps with some boiled baby potatoes, eggs and/or egg whites and/or tuna and/or salmon and minimal or no dressing (or yogurt based or just lemon or just vinegar or vinegar with mustard and oregano or....). I would use 240 Cal and eat a tub of 0% yoplait yogurt as a snack before moving on to a more carefully chosen dinner. But these are things that I've figured out through my own trials and errors and that suit me... and allow me to eat chocolate. While sometimes being a bit over or a bit under for my day.

    You can adapt and, even if you don't come in exactly at your targeted deficit, you can STILL have a substantial deficit.

    This is one of the points of calorie logging, right? LEARNING and figuring things out and becoming more aware.

    One thing you should NOT do is "punish" yourself for having eaten the chocolate. It is one thing to redouble your efforts to come close to your goals (note: perfection is not necessary: close is more than good enough to see results if you're targeting a substantial deficit as I believe you are). It is another thing to make life more miserable than it has to be!

    By the way: lose "healthy" as a concept at least initially and at least while finding your groove: concentrate on FILLING, SATIATING, ALLOWING ME TO SUSTAIN MY DEFICIT. Then go back and improve the nutritional parameters once you're regularly able to stay within your calories. And I would be very surprised if you won't already be at fairly "healthy" once you've managed to dial in the "filling" and "satiating" parts of your food intake.

    And yes, you shouldn't feel guilty and you shouldn't feel outraged. In fact feeling neutral and ready to experiment is probably one of the healthiest attitudes to have.

    I don't know about the bolded. That carton of eggs, made me give it a solid commitment, before it would let me scramble them.....
  • MsCzar
    MsCzar Posts: 1,069 Member
    edited May 2021
    At least it was good quality chocolate. I eat good chocolate several times each week - about 110-170 calories worth. I plan for it and work it into my daily calorie budget. While I am not overly tempted by chocolate, I canNOT have ice cream in the house. So I never buy it. If you feel powerless against chocolate temptation - it's best not to have it in the house at all.

    Do you live with other people? If so, you may have to switch to buying sweets that they enjoy, but don't tempt you. For me, Peanut M&M's, honey roasted peanuts, Hershey Kisses and lemon or marshmallow anything can all rot away before I'll eat them.

    800 cals is a lot, but not insurmountable. I sometimes crave pasta, or a big breakfast of pancakes or eggs, buttered toast, sausage and bacon. Those meals can easily top out around 800. On those days, I compensate by having a filling, but low calorie meal (<300cals) such as fish and green veg with mushrooms & onions; veggie soup or chili; fruit bowl, or a huge green salad alongside a whole can of water-packed tuna or two hard boiled eggs. Try to come up with a few go-to low calorie meals that you can make when you have a large calorie intake to offset.

    Most of all, remember that it's only one food on one day. Don't use the lapse to write off the entire day. Just log it, forget it. and keep going. Good luck! ❤️
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,235 Member
    Generally disassociating yourself from "big-time scale events" makes for a calmer life and opens up your eyes to normal fluctuations and to the concept of weight trend.

    Because daily weight moves fast, but the underlying fat change moves slow. Looking at your weight trend instead of your daily weight lets you more clearly see the longer term trend which tends to more closely correspond to your fat level changes

    check out Happy scale (iOS), Libra android, trendweight.com or weightgrapher.com for web sites. Use scale under similar conditions, don't forget to calibrate to zero, ensure that the floor is level and unyielding...

    Lose or gain today... you'll be here tomorrow and if you keep making choices you can live with longer term and which bring you closer to where you want to be... eventually you'll get there!
  • Janatki
    Janatki Posts: 730 Member
    edited May 2021
    Yep... done this too @TheWaistBasket 😬... But you’ve logged it, beaten yourself up about it, sought support & reflected... a new dawn? Hugs x
    I started this & cut out everything I thought was “bad”.... but it didn’t take long before I crashed & burned & overate on all the things I thought I was missing out on!
    Being a bit more measured (sane?🥴🤪🤣), I try to incorporate a bit of “ badness” here & there .... just a lot less than before, but sometimes I fall off ! Important thing is to keep getting back up!
    We can do this @TheWaistBasket !
  • crb426
    crb426 Posts: 661 Member
    edited May 2021
    Honestly, when I saw your topic I thought it was going to be a MUCH bigger box of chocolates. 500-ish calories is not good, but it's also not the worst.

    With 800 calories left for lunch and dinner:
    Lunch (Around 200-250 calories):
    Big pile of lettuce
    Some tomato, onion, cucumber, etc
    3 oz lean chicken or a packet of tuna (about 90-100 calories each)
    Small amount of light dressing
    Or-
    1 piece of whole wheat toast (dry)
    1 scrambled or fried egg on top (cooked in a tiny bit of butter)
    Fresh tomato sliced up with a bit of balsamic vinegar and fresh basil (yum!)

    Dinner (600 calories):
    3 Hard shell beef tacos with lots of lettuce
    Or- Any lean meat grilled with a huge pile of cooked veggies
    I won't name all the options, but 600 for dinner is pretty reasonable especially if you pile on veggies.

    I definitely pre-log all of my food in the morning so I know what to work with. Then if I'm faced with a different option, such as a bag of m&ms given to me, I do the math to figure out if it's worth giving up my other pre-log food for it.
  • ajlmfp22
    ajlmfp22 Posts: 54 Member
    TheWaistBasket wrote: »
    Should I pre-plan my meals. Will this prevent messing up?
    It's not a bad idea because it'll give you an idea of how many "flex" calories you. But will it prevent messing up? Absolutely not because life happens and we're human. I'm glad that you aren't outraged actually because there's honestly no point in getting angry IMO. Just use this as a learning experience and move on.

  • kenyonhaff
    kenyonhaff Posts: 1,377 Member
    Some of the best learning is making mistakes and learning from them. I think that's exactly what happened here. And that's a good thing! You're reflecting on old patterns and making new choices.

    MFP is a different program, than say, Jenny Craig in which all your food intake is decided FOR you. The idea is that you can't mess up because someone else made the food decisions for you. The problem is, of course, you can't do that forever and once you're done, you may not have really learned how to make your own choices. It's too easy to just fall back on old patterns. On MFP there's freedom, and that means you can absolutely mess up, but if you learn from it, you will be wiser next time.

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