You just need to remember that:
One day/weekend is not going to undo an entire month of progress.
You will NOT gain 10 pounds back because you indulged one day/weekend. You would have to eat 35 000 calories for that to happen. That’s a crazy amount of calories you cannot eat in one sitting without getting yourself sick.
Yes you might see a few extra pounds on the scale on Monday but most of that is water weight. Give it a few days (maybe even a week) and you will have flushed that down the toilet. Don’t let this discourage you.
Life isn’t about depriving yourself 24/7 for the rest of your existence in order to lose or maintain weight loss. Vacations, cheat days, and birthdays will happen and you will eat high-in-calories foods. That’s life. It’s how you bounce back from those occasions that will make or break your weight loss journey.
Get right back into gear as soon as your cheat day/weekend is done and you’ll be totally okay. Just make sure you don’t do it all over again next weekend or you’ll never see progress. Pick your cheat days wisely and OCCASIONALLY, they won’t hinder months of progress.
Also, give yourself some grace. Losing weight and getting fit is a marathon not a sprint. You’re doing much better than you think you are. I’m proud of you and you’ve got this! ✨️
From my experience, I would recommend to try not getting too much into the details of it all. I have had a few failed attempts in the past but this time I’ve gone much longer and it feels different, it feels plausible that I will keep it up. What’s different this time:
I am not weighing myself or tracking calories or macros or anything like that. In the past I would get discouraged by plateaus, even though I knew it was water, and give up. So I’m not doing that shit anymore. I just tried on all the clothes that I had become too fat to wear over the last few years and almost all of it fit after about 3 months of fasting protocol, so I know it is working without having to obsess over the details.
I discovered that the wiped-out feeling I had from fasting is easily solved by taking electrolyte pills.
I allow flexibility to fit this into my life effortlessly. I eat lunch always and dinner sometimes, never breakfast. I sort of float between OMAD and 16:8 depending on what is going on socially. The only hard rule is no drinking after dinner. I barely ever drink but I’m definitely not doing that late-night anymore for any reason. Day drinking is more fun anyway.
I told myself that I’m just trying this out for a year, which at 42 isn’t really a long time to try something. So I do not have any goals really other than see if I like fasting after trying it for a year. I already know I do because I feel better in every way (joint pain and inflammation gone, better sleep, no more sleep apnea, way better fitness level even though I don’t exercise, sex drive returned, clothes fit better, feet don’t hurt from standing all day, clearer brain, feeling like a badass due to self-discipline, etc) but still it’s just a little experiment I’m trying to make this year more interesting and maybe I’ll learn something as my motivation. Sometimes you need to come at your goals sideways.
I hope this helps. Please do not be so hard on yourself. You can do it.
I could talk about this until I’m blue in the face. You’re allowed to have bad days. I know they’re hard to get past mentally, I know it’s tough sometimes to see the scale go up a little from water weight because you skipped the gym and had some cake. Times going to pass no matter what. Whether you stay on track or not. When you wake up a year from now you won’t regret pushing past bad days and slip ups. You will if you give up. You’ll think wow it’s already been a year? I could of come so far. Something I have learned to do is not mentally beat myself up. I’ve lost 60 pounds and the amount of people who have asked me “what are you going to eat when you hit your goal weight?” The thing with me is if I want to eat something bad enough I’ll do it and move on with my life. I think one of the worst things I ever did in the past was dwell on it or let it make me not care for another day and those days turned into weeks and months and years. That’s another thing. I feel like beating yourself up makes you miserable and then you start think …id rather be fat and miserable than deal with this. And you give up. Forgive yourself, acknowledge what happened, and move on. That is so much easier said than done but practice it and it will get easier. Remember too that it’s not realistic to say you’re never going to have a piece of cake at a party or go out to eat with your friends or never going to eat a holiday dinner with your family ever again. Allow yourself to have those moments because they are sometimes the best moments in life. Learning to move past them and let go of guilt that will ultimately bog you down to the point of giving up is hard but is possible. The big picture. Look at the big one.