[aliasihaya]

So today is my Birthday (yay) and tomorrow I have to start being good again (boo). I've been pretty good lately (although haven't lost any weight, but anyway) and so I said that I'm giving myself a free day. I don't think there should be restrictions on your birthday, as long as I'm not bingeing of course. But I'm worried that giving myself a day off is going to make it harder to get back started again.

Do you have any 'free' days? If so how do you handle them? Or do you even restrict yourself on these days? I guess restrict is probably the wrong word. I think one of the issues that I struggle with is that when I eat well and cut out things that aren't as good then I'm depriving myself. I'm still not in the mindset that I'm making healthier choices for myself and it's a lifestyle. So that's why I give myself a day off when in theory it shouldn't really be a day off. It should be a normal healthy day because it's my lifestyle. Anyway, not sure if any of that made sense to anyone else. But I was just curious how other people handle the big events in their lives.

[lucindaarrowspark]

happy birthday to you. What and how you eat does not impact your goodness.
you are good regardless of your weight.
You are good because you are a caring, vital, goal oriented human being.

[one small bowl]

My husband and I finally came to the realization that we cannot have the treats that trigger us, days off our healthy diet, or think that we can indulge periodically like we did in the past. Those days are over. This is our reality and we embrace it wholeheartedly and with relief that we are moving away from the pain and misery of obesity and food obesssion.

The best advice I can give you is to know your own food history. What has happened when you gave yourself a free day? Did you overeat or binge? Was it harder to get back on plan? Did you choose to eat foods that you know are hard to stop eating? Did you make yourself feel stuffed and bloated and regretted it? Some people can handle small lapses in their diet/food plan, some cannot. Which one are you?

Happiness is a state of mind and has nothing to do with food. If chocolate makes you smile and cauliflower makse you frown, those are qualities that you give them, they are not attributes they possess on their own. You could actually have a wonderful birthday by celebrating in other ways instead of food. You could give yourself a luxury bubble bath with scented candles in the backgound and soothing music. You could dress up and feel fabulous. You could go buy yourself a lovely gift as a token for this special day. There is nothing wrong with planning a special meal for your birthday, but you have the option of keeping it within your plan guidelines and making it only a small part of the special day instead of the highlight.

Just some thoughts for you....and Happy Birthday!

[flourless]

I just did two weeks "off", where I wasn't calling it a free-for-all, but was calling it "unaccounted for".

How did I handle it? The week I'm happier with - I just eyed my portions and made sure to stop when I had had enough. I made the choices I wanted from the selections available.

The week I'm less happy with? I let situations, habits, and "being a good host" influence my eating habits, and felt pretty sugar-hangovery.

Coming back from it has been pretty easy, because I LIKE the food I eat on my diet. It's the same food I was eating before, and new recipes that I love. I've just changed the ratios that I eat them in, and the number of servings I prepare.

My big issue now is that I managed to get gastroenteritis in those two weeks, and -something- still isn't agreeing with me, but I'm not sure what.

[TigerGal24]

I struggle with this concept as well. I'm in maintance mode currently (and hopefully forever). I manage to stick with my healthy lifestyle and can do so fairly easily. However I have a huge sweet tooth and often crave cookies and ice cream, my two major vices. I have a hard time eating sweets in moderation, so I try and stay away from eating them on a regualr basis. However in order to stay sane (I can't imagine living without ever eating sweets again), I sometimes plan an entire day once or twice a month to eat whatever I want. It could be anything from pizza, pasta, cookies, ice cream, chocolate, ect. I don't count calories that day and I let myself eat as much as I fancy. Sure I may go overboard and consume an extra 2000-3000 calories sometimes, but if it helps me stay on track 95% of the time I figure one or two days a month won't make much of an impact on my weight. Plus I tend to eat less in the following days and never end up gaining anything in return. I'm not sure if that's a good idea for anyone else but it certaintly gives something to look forward to when the sweet tooth starts acting up haha.