Well, I didn't listen to @Yoolypr last night/this morning... and it cost me 650 Cal in cookies (and being over maintenance for the day) -- so now I will have to do stupid pet tricks to end up balanced between yesterday and today!

I mean I COULD be a grown up like I used to be and start the new day as a new day... but, especially without a big deficit in place... nope, I will make this thing look pretty!

Nah cookies came before sleep! The opposite would have worked out better for weight control!!!!

What I'm doing is bad advice while applying a substantial deficit. To be clear, when I was applying 500+Cal deficits I both believed and practiced letting overeating events go and concentrating on hitting my targets the next day without trying to overcompensate. The reasons being many. Not the least of which being that excess deficits can trigger restrict-binge behavior.

However when essentially maintaining or applying ~200 Cal level deficits this does present a challenge in that a single +1200 day fully wipes that. And, even accepting that single events tend to have less of an impact than their numbers would indicate, certainly more than one event in proximity would start throwing things for a loop.

So yes. I don't use a weekly debit/credit spreadsheet like a previously active MFPeop used to. This would be more clean/clear cut.

What I do does remove/pollute information that I could have been used to make more correct decisions. But then again I don't really look at my numbers as much as I used to. So yes, I DO move items between proximate days to balance things out!

So the 650Cal of cookies, which represent about 23% of a day's calories based on the 2851 logged during the past 7 days... they ARE getting carried forward till I will hopefully whittle them down a bit. Yesterday I could have probably shoehorned 100/650 into the day... but I carried forward the whole thing given that I should probably remain extra mindful!🤷‍♂️🫣

You missed creative calorie counting 101????🤣 Do we need to introduce you to the Cheetos guy????🤣🤣🤣

Why is it always cookies or chips or bad stuff that’s calling in the middle of the night? Why not carrots 🥕 or apples 🍎 or celery? Fats, sugar or salty are the main desired craving. Yet most “diet” advice insists you can subdue those cravings with fruits or veggies. Never worked for me. I mostly rely on avoidance cause there’s no one in control around cookies, chips, cheeses, nuts …….

As for the Cheetos dude - he was underweight to begin with!

Cookies are good (bad) but has anyone ever tried the cinnamon Sugar Pretzels by Dot? My son got a bag the other day and I have been munching them every day. They need to vacate my house ASAP!

Is it just me or is our little group in a slump right now? I’m hoping we can try to support each other by posting a bit more. Losing weight is a lonely journey at best. It’s just nice to know someone out there is understanding and wants to cheer you on. Let’s hope we can do that for each other!

Hello, back from my Mexican vacation on Wednesday, and only up 2ish lbs as of today from my weight before I left, so feeling good about the choices I made while away. Hoping those 2 lbs disappear and I can get back on the losing train next week. By rights though I really should be down, given all the activity I engaged in for the last few days away!!

Remember:
It's okay to be a little messy.
Tacos are messy and we love them 😉

We travelled around the Yucatan peninsula - flew into Cancun, bused down to Bacalar, met up with friends and then drove together to Chichen Itza, then onto Chiquila and took ferry over to Isla Holbox. Spent 5 days there (friends had to leave a couple days before us).

Last 24 hours were a doozy though as high winds hit the island and the ocean washed over and filled all the roads and flooded many buildings. Power and water went out. We had to wade over an hour through the streets to get back to the ferry, and were so happy to make our bus back to the Cancun airport in time for our flight home!

I am now only up 1.4 vacation lbs!

A bit late but heartfelt nevertheless.

Thank you, Yooly. Hope yours was lovely!

I truly messed up yesterday. There is a fancy donut shop in town that I was going to drive by after a fantastic walk in the conservation area fueled by two healthy meals. I had this great idea to pick up donuts and deliver them to friends on the way home. I have successfully done this in the past - bought half a dozen plus 1 and asked for them in single serving bags.

When I passed by at 3 in the afternoon they had a sign up in the door that they were completely sold out.

Not to be dismayed I thought I would pick up a chocolate Tuxedo cake (sold frozen at local grocers) and slice it and deliver slices with strawberries.

You know what is coming.

Entire cake into me. 4,000 calories.

Logged it and am carrying on with the normal plan today. Nothing I can do about it other than acknowledge it and hopefully learn and, apparently, "confess my sins" here.

I did. It was a good but foolish idea. Things worked differently last year when I played St. Valentine (?) and delivered treats on the way home rather then having the cake on my kitchen table and getting close and personal with it. The "have one slice now" turned into ... oh that was good - I'm a bit tired - maybe I'll have a sit down for a bit and then slice this up ... to one more and one more then it was too embarrassing to have so little to deliver.

I’m very thankful that I’ve never seen or bought a tuxedo cake. Been spared that turmoil! I’m sure it’s just a passing faux pas Laurie. Better days ahead.

PAV half price chocolates do not equal half the calories. Why did that come home with you? Ah the siren song of clearance, sale and half price!!!

During my 530-day AWOL there were lots of 'meh' days but very few actually really bad days. Only a bare handful of days when I exceeded 3000 calories. But, when you're 5'1" tall, you don't need 3000 calories a day to gain weight - for me, anything over 1650 calories a day equates to a surplus, even with a fair amount of daily activity. And on all those 'meh' days I ate about 1750 calories.

One thing I've learned - eating 100 surplus calories a day is sooooooo easy! Doesn't even have to be anything indulgent, like cake or ice-cream. A small slice of toast...a banana!....a palmful of nuts....a small bowl of yoghurt. Or not even a whole snack - the odd lick here, taste there, dollop of mayo, chip nicked off someone's plate...they all add up!

This seems to suggest that I'll have to religiously log every single thing I eat/drink for the rest of my life and exercise iron discipline so as to never, ever run a calorie surplus. Jeeze! Just the mere thought of that is soul-wearying...