Does anyone else feel bad for taking breaks sometimes?

I take lots of breaks, mostly from dieting but also from exercise. Still managed to lose over 80 lbs. Breaks made the journey longer, but way more enjoyable for me. As far as dieting breaks go, I felt a little guilty until I reframed them as 'maintenance try outs'.

I felt that way when I first started weight training. Never wanted to miss a day in the gym. Now if I can't/don't feel up to going for some reason, I'm like you know what, the weights will miss me, but they'll be fine. They'll be there tomorrow.

Nope. You are only accountable to yourself. No guilt necessary. Eating better and exercising is to improve your health overall and over the long term. It's not about being such a slave to it that you cannot enjoy life's pleasures. If you were to turn away family members or friends for the sake of one more day of burning calories, then you might have something to feel bad about.

No, not really.

The way we talk to ourselves in our heads matters, I think. I don't do "cheat days", or take "breaks" from my "diet" or my "workout schedule".

What I do is to try to establish good, practical, relatively enjoyable eating and activity habits that will tend to keep me healthy and happy almost on autopilot . . . basically just try to live life in a way that supports my goals, on average. I can't take a break from my life, y'know? It's logically impossible.

Once in a while, there are external things that disrupt my habitual routine: Maybe some family/friend visit, a vacation, a special event, being ill or unusually exhausted, etc. When those things happen, I accommodate them in some non-routine way, because they're non-routine things. Then I go back to my normal routine.

For those non-routine times, or just because I feel like it, sometimes I decide to eat above my calorie goal, or even above maintenance calories . . . occasionally way above maintenance calories. Sometimes I decide I need to reduce my activity levels (exercise and/or daily life activity) because of schedule conflicts, stress, burnout, injury, or fatigue. Those things are non-routine, too.

Still not a break, though, just a decision. As long as I relatively rarely make decisions that conflict with my long-term health goals, that's fine, too. After that, I just go back to my normal routine.

In retrospect, sometimes I decide I made a decision that wasn't a good one - not worth it, according to my values/preferences. I can learn from that, make a different plan to use in similar circumstances in future. There's no point, IMO, in feeling guilty about learning something, even if that learning pinches a little. Guilt burns no extra calories, builds no fitness, feels icky. I prefer to avoid it.

The bottom line, IMO, is that it's the majority of our days that determines the majority of our results. If what I do most of the time - that normal routine - is health promoting on average, I'll get the reasonable health I want, generally speaking. Good enough for me.

Also, it's low drama. I don't like drama, either. 😉

P.S. Sijomial said some really smart things in his post above, about the risk of burnout, importance of pacing (of weight loss and exercise intensity/duration), and the role of recovery. Read that one carefully, and take it on board, I'd suggest.