Dieting is hard, I am weak

[Jijiang Quan]

Okay, I have done well for the past week eating just meat and vegetables, drinking plenty of water (the occasional cappuccino).  Last night wife and I went to the local diner because we got home late from work. I stayed strong by ordering the chicken piccata with no pasta, just green beans. As I was congratulating myself for sticking to the plan, ( Sinister music "dun, dun, dun",pause for effect).....I was blind sided; totally caught off guard by this decadent slice of carrot cake.  It came out of nowhere, forcing itself into my mouth.  It must have been using a jedi mind control on my hand.

 

I was weak, lured to the dark side by the free dessert that came with my meal.  How does everyone else deal with these moments of weakness or the "I just can't eat another  F@#$!ing salad or vegetables again today"?  Any advice is welcome. 

[porchcricket13]

I won't beat myself up for one moment of weakness. If it extends past that something's up. I had a great first week, but I ate a pint of ice cream...I still lost 5lbs. If I berated myself over the ice cream I probably would have fallen into the "Oh, well this week's a loss. I'll start over next week." You're human. Think of strategies for next time. Mine would be, don't go into 711 after a night of alcohol and video games and you won't buy ice cream. 

[Zahirah]

Treating yourself is important.  As soon as you start denying, that's when the binging on unhealthy food happens.  Completely denying yourself of the things you enjoy is totally not fair to you, and you deserve better than that.

Everything in moderation.  Give yourself a cheat meal, or a cheat day.  You deserve it if you've been kicking ass all week otherwise.

When it comes to cheat meals, etc., I try to save them for special occasions or foods.  Things I know I will really, mindfully appreciate.  So that means when I see something that doesn't really fit into this category, I immediately stop and ask myself, "How am I going to feel after I eat this?"

[SkyeRose]

Pick yourself up and go again tomorrow. You can't beat yourself up, otherwise it is easy to become disheartened and give up. Each day is a fresh start, a clean slate and you can make more choices. 

As long as you keep trying to make more positive then negative choices you are on the right track. 

As for getting bored with food, I try to cook a new recipe each week, usually on the weekend with my husband. It mixes it up and I'm less likely to bored. 

Keep going, just keep swimming!

[Evicious]

On ‎4‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 5:29 AM, Jijiang Quan said:

How does everyone else deal with these moments of weakness or the "I just can't eat another  F@#$!ing salad or vegetables again today"? 

 

You plan. You plan for when your plans fall through - and you plan for when your backup plans fall through too!  

If dessert is something you enjoy, you plan ways to have dessert; for some people, that may mean substituting a slice of apple pie with a baked apple sprinkled with pie spice. And if they find that they just can't say no to a slice of hot apple pie, then they might choose to have it but pass on the a'la mode it comes with.

For others, it means making adjustments to their daily diet - they'll skip the sandwich part of the "soup, salad and sandwich" lunch so they can have a small shake from Denny's when they take Mom out for her birthday dinner. And if Cousin Mimi shows up with birthday cupcakes and Mom just insists everyone have one, then they plan to skip something else on tomorrow's menu.

But most importantly, as everyone has already said, you plan to not let yourself get completely throw off track when you deviate. It doesn't matter if you ate that slice of carrot cake - hell, it doesn't even matter if you eat the whole damn thing! What matters is that you take a minute to figure out how you got sidetracked, make a note of how you'd like to try to combat that in the future, and move forward on the path you started before it happened.

 

[Jijiang Quan]

@Evicious    - thanks for the advice, love the diagram!

[Grymm]

Another way to look at it is if you eat 2000 cal/day, you eat 730,000 cal/year.  A 600 cal slice of carrot cake isn't going to really ruin you over any length of time.  What hurts is when you have that piece of cake and then figure your diet is ruined so why bother.  You have the cake, enjoy it, and then, when you get up in the morning, you get back to your routine.  I myself had (2) donuts this morning because a co-worker is moving to Houston.  And if you feel afflicted with guilt over something, you can always turn it around as a motivator.  Make a deal with yourself to work off that cake.  Maybe it can push you to do a work out one day this week you would otherwise have skipped.