Why do I go to extremes?

I don't have any real good advice, but I know where you are coming from... I'm either all or none. This is one of the main things I am trying to change about myself. There has to be a good balance. I don't usually go off of my correct course of eating until I'm at my goal weight and this time I plan to learn that balance so when I reach my goal I don't let myself induldge much becuase I will fall back in to that viscious circle. I am just re-learning how to eat and I try not to focus on over doing things like you said...just because you have one amazing day doesn't mean you have to hold yourself to those higher standards every other day after that. Celebrate it as a victory and start fresh the next day. That's what I have to tell myself all the time. Otherwise I'll try to do too much and my standards will become unrealistic and I will fail. Good Luck!!

P.S. If you want to try to motivate each other feel free to add me as a friend.

Maybe it's a personality thing. I'm the same way.

I used to be an extreme "All or nothing" person. I've mellowed. No one can stay that vigilant forever :laugh:

Here's a cool post: it's kind of a wall of text, so I didn't want to copy/paste it on your thread.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/39177-nobody-s-perfect

I've found that for me, I go to extremes when I am being to hard on myself. I'm doing good, so I have to do better, then I have to be perfect and overachieving. I do better when I can remember to forgive myself for not being perfect. I aim for better than last year - a goal I can hit pretty consistently. Then I aim for better than last month, on average, with some wiggle room to forgive day to day transgressions. I still sometimes forget, and experience shame for failing spectacularly, but mostly if I take out self flagellation (always substituting another, healthier exercise) I can get over the bad patches quicker, and back on track.

I have that issue, too. I recently decided to do the following--I'm allowed to have sweets, but in moderation, and I had to create an actual limit, not just the ambiguous "in moderation" guideline. So, I give myself 600 calories a week for things like dessert and chocolate. The caveat is that I can use them whenever I want, but it must not exceed my calorie goal on any given day. It's worked well so far!

Sometimes it takes years to find that spot where you are happy. But if you keep at it, you will find it.
I believe that it comes from a place of insecurity with a mixture of self-loathing. So you sabotage your good efforts and you don't believe that you deserve to be happy, or healthy. You don't believe you can succeed.
I have been on this rollercoaster for years, and the only thing that has kept me on track for 4 steady months now is exercise. And not any exercise, but structured exercise. I am doing TurboFire and because I know I have a goal of how many classes I need to complete each week and when I start and when I finish, that keeps me on track. And when I work out hard I find it hard to eat crap because you don't want to undo the hard work.
It's hard but you will find your way.

I'm exactly the same. I'm trying to tame this now. I'm trying to turn things into habits by changing things one at a time for 3 weeks. My change last week was to go to the gym at least 3 times a week, I was motivated so I went 5 times but I know in the future I'm not going to be this motivated. For the next two weeks I'm going to stick to this goal but I'm not going to change my other bad habits at the same time. After that when I get into a routine I'll try to take out chocolate and maybe only eat it once a week. I think coming on here for support even if you didn't exercise or ate bad will help. Just don't do it the next day. I try to think I ate one biscuit today, that's better than before because I would have eaten 5 and just progress on that.