How do you deal with one bad day?

[TheNewLook]

I’ve been losing weight steadily for three weeks. 8lbs in total. Yesterday it all went to pot. Something just switched off in my brain, the resolve that had kept me going all this time (to my absolute surprise actually) just gave out and I ate a lot of sugar. Chocolate galore. I stopped logging it when I could see it going over my target.

I want to pretend it never happened and carry on regardless today. Has this happened to anyone else and were you able to just get back on the horse?

Sure. This happens all the time on the 'weight loss journey'

I lost six and a half stones and went through this countless times. New day: forget yesterday. Lots of luck

A very similar thing happened to me at the weekend. I've lost 10 pounds, but on Sunday I ate a load of random sugar for no apparent reason.

It's happened to me before and I've let it derail me and started eating unhealthy again, but this time I got right back on the horse the next day.

I've read that once you loose around 5% of your body weight (that's about where I was, don't know about you) your body starts to panic that you're starving and releases loads of hormones to try and make you eat more. That's how I felt on Sunday, I was almost a bit stressed out at the fact that I was losing weight, even though it's something I really wanted!

I think the key for me is to build 'breaks' into my eating habits in a controlled way. So I'm going to eat slightly more calories one day a week and see if that helps.

Congrats on your weight loss so far!

I used to binge eat regularly (in fact every day). I tried to stop many times, and would have that "one bad day" which then made me think "sod it" so the next day was bad too, and so it went on.

Now, when I binge (more like once a month now), I just accept it, let it wash over me, and forget it and move on. By not dwelling and obsessing over it, I can forget it and don't do it again the next day.

So my advice is just accept it happened. There's nothing you can do about it, you can't turn back time. Just forget it and move on.

Concentrate on the things you can change (i.e. not repeating it) rather than obsessing about things you can't change (you can't turn back the clock).

I used to lose heart after a bad day (or weekend!) and that is the precise reason I couldn't lose weight! My new mentality is that nobody has weight issues due to one bad day every day often... It's the "all or nothing" mentality that causes the problems!

So now, I shrug and her back on the horse, and a lot of the time it doesn't even affect that week's weight loss! If it does, so what? You'll lose again next week! My SW consultant used to say, "you wouldn't throw away a brand new handbag just because it got a tiny stain on it, so why throw away your weight loss just because you had a tiny hiccup?"

Just echoing what others have said really. Don't beat yourself up about it, it's done, just accept it happened and keep moving forward.

I do want to say however that motivation and resolve do not keep you going, it tends to wear off quick (from my own experience and opinion of course), it takes dedication, commitment and consistency to reach your goals. If you get to a point again when you feel yourself wavering use this is as an opportunity to strengthen your mind. Go for a walk, listen to some uplifting music, anything to distract you from the mindset you are in for a short while, you might find this will be enough for the craving to pass and you will have a new tool to use to help you in the future.

I am an alcoholic but am currently one and half weeks sober, doing the above has helped me so it can absolutely help you too