1) I never "ruin" a perfectly good opportunity to lose weight. That's not to say I never make a mistake, but I'll explain.
Some days it's easy. Some days I just follow my plan, I eat healthfully, and not too much. I exercise briskly, and the world is shining and bright.
Some days it's not easy. Some days that extra serving of delicious cheese called to me and I ate too much of it (or two or three extra servings
). Some days I go for my walk, but I wasn't
really working myself as hard as I could've.
But, so what? I've got to look at this journey one step at a time, and compare what I do each day to what I've done BEFORE I cared about what I ate.
Did I make any improvements? Maybe I did have an extra serving of that really delicious, expensive cheese, but so what? Before I cared about what I ate, I would've eaten the whole block.
But, what if I did eat the whole block? First of all, I'd be in for a world of pain in a day, but even if I did eat that whole block... so what? The very next moment I have the opportunity to get back on plan. I do it. I get back on plan.
This is not a call to say that we should just eat whatever, but rather that mistakes are going to happen. Every day, too! Little mistakes, big mistakes. We all make them. We just have to assess how we can do better in the future, get back to plan, and aim to improve as we go along.
You didn't ruin anything. You just ate a little more than you wanted to. No big deal. Put it behind you. Plan out your strategy better for next time.
2) While the human body is an awe-inspiring organic machine... it does not behave like a computer. It is not perfect.
We cannot put x number of calories in and always expect to lose x pounds.
Even if we ate exactly the same thing day in and day out, some mornings we'd lose, some mornings we'd stay the same, and others we'd gain.
That means that even if we eat differently each day... we're going to have the same thing happen. Some days lose, some days maintain, some days gain. It's the natural order of things.
Add to this the fact that scales cannot accurately tell you how much body fat you have. For example, if someone stepped on the scale to see they magically lost 10 pounds, they might initially be thrilled. Until they find out they lost 10 pounds of muscle, not fat. They'd be horrified.
If you eat under your maintenance level... you will not gain
fat. However! You might gain water weight, and you might have heavy food traveling through your digestive system so you may gain
weight on the scale. You will not have gained
fat.
There is a very important distinction between weight loss and fat loss, and it's important to learn it early on so that we can accurately understand why the scale shows what it shows. Why it might have gone up even when we stay on plan, and why it might have gone down even if we ate off plan.
It's a simple tool. It only knows weight. Which, mind you, is helpful! But, it's not a 100% accurate measure of fat loss each week.
Messed my day up. Info wanted.
