I thought of one other point: you don't lose weight by being "good", you didn't gain weight by being "bad"--it's not morality, it's biology. You gained weight by eating more than you burned, you'll lose weight by eating less than you burn.

Often times we grow to see fat as punishment, and that weight loss is the result of atoning. This is why we tend to think it doesn't "count" if we didn't have any choice: if we ate food just to be polite, but not because we even enjoyed it, it shouldn't make us fat because we weren't being "bad". The same applies if we had a really really bad day (we couldn't help eating, it wasn't being bad) or if it's a special occasion (it's not bad to eat on your birthday).

We also tend to feel like we should get extra credit for turning down big temptations--like we should lose more during a week where there was cake at work every day and we turned it down every day, compared to a week where there wasn't. But if you ate the same food both weeks, you'll see the same results. Your body doesn't know what you said no to.

We then get upset if our weight loss isn't what we "deserve", but our body doesn't think we are bad people either way. It's just doing its job, storing fat for the winter, not worrying about where all this lovely food is coming from.

Shmead's post is right on--that is all SO true!

I know that I have the tendency to think I should have bigger losses when I've faced bigger temptations. I've recently given in to the "But I've been so stressed and still stayed on plan, how could I possibly not have lost more!?" mindset.

Thanks, Shmead, you really clarified something that I'd never thought about in those terms before. It's funny--I make a concerted effort to move away from "good" or "bad" designations about food or behavior, yet the residue of that kind of thinking stays on in the corners even when I've managed to clean most of it out of my head.