I need help with calorie counting guilt. I'm having trouble with weekends. During the week when I work, it's easy. I eat 200 calories for each of my six meals. They're scheduled and I'm always hungry by my next meal.
Weekends and holidays are rough. And it's the opposite of what one might think. I'm not getting enough calories in.
Today for instance, I didn't grab "breakfast" until 10:00 which is the time I'm normally eating my second mini-meal, so I was already down 200 calories. I got busy and had lunch around 2:00 so now we're up to 400 calories. I got busy again and now it's dinner time and I've only had 400 calories. I grabbed a mini hamburger for 100 calories. (I do mean mini...they're so cute.) And I felt guilty!! And now I'm up to 500 calories. I'm planning dinner and figured that since I have a calorie deficit tonight would be a good night for my favorite mac and cheese as a side. And I feel guilty! I keep think I ate so much for Christmas dinners I shouldn't eat poorly today. But in all honesty, I bet I over estimated my food both days and ate under 1200 calories again.
I'm really struggling with the mentality of this. I've never been an over eater and I can't trust my hunger signals. When I eat very little, I tend not to be hungry.
Blah! Am I alone? Does anyone else have this backwards problem?
I see this all the time, and have experienced it myself. It's especially common when people switch to a new, calorie-restrictive diet. The important thing is to just keep trying to stay on plan, and not under-eating. But I'm sure you already know this!
I'd go by number of calories and not number of meals. If your weekday schedule doesn't work on weekends, that's okay. If you know you'll be eating less frequently, choose higher cal meals. Just use it as an opportunity to indulge in other things, like you mentioned with the mac n cheese, that don't fit into your meals during the week.
I like what you said about considering under-eating to be off plan, that's kind of how I look at it...like undereating is just as bad for me as overeating, and the target is always to stay within a reasonable calorie range, not too high OR too low.
I think it helps when you banish the guilt. That sense of "I should be doing something else," isn't always a bad thing, but food and guilt often make poor bedfellows, especially when guilt is no longer a mild sense of "I should be doing something else," and becomes a serious ache of "I'm a terrible, and stupid person."
I'm learning to treat myself like any other "work in progress." Making mistakes or even wanting to tweak a plan that is working ok - none of that is guilt-worthy.
When you're trying to lose weight, it can be easy associate "not eating," with "being good." When we know this is a mistake - we make another mistake by associating "not eating" as being "not being good" (that is being bad).
Sometimes we work ourselves into a corner - where eating = bad AND not eating = bad, meaning no matter how you stack it we're always feeling bad.
Eating (for anyone) shouldn't feel a dangerous high-wore tightrope walk without a safety net. Make your food plan, and work on following it, but try to take the anxiety out of the process.
In my crazy little world, if I skipped or ate breakfast late then I know I should eat more calories at that one sitting or I'll be ravenous later. Ravenous = poor choices for me.
And I'm the opposite. Food is like water for me. With water, if I drink a lot, I start to feel thirsty. If I don't drink much at all and pretty much dehydrate myself, my first sign that I am thirsty is a headache. I do not feel thirst. It's the same with food. If I eat the old normal way, I do get hungry. But if I deprive myself of food, the hunger signal goes away. I don't know if that's good or bad! With the water, it's nice on road trips because I never have to go to the bathroom! LOL! But I also dehydrate really easily.
Calorie counting guilt
