Out of My Mind (Back in 5) - BINGE
 

Well, I think I checked out temporarily for about 10 minutes tonight when I devoured an entire bag of caramel creams candy plus some chocolate. 170g of carbs plus what I ate all day... I think it was a grand total of around 240. Wow. I had been doing so good and then the stress of the last week or so finally got to me. I can't even imagine how much sugar I just ingested - kind of grosses me out to think about it. What should I do now? I am sure this will knock me out of ketosis. Darn it, I wish I wouldn't have caved. :(

The solution, esp when you are first starting out, is to not have stuff like that where you can see it, or even have it in the house if you can avoid it. If you haven't been on a food plan for long, you will be esp vulnerable until the sugar is out of your body. So, forgive yourself and move forward. It's not like you are the first one to do something like this! We all walk a tightrope and sometimes we fall off temporarily.

No big deal, it happens to everyone.

Throw out any tempting foods in your house & go back to extreme low carb (induction levels) for a few days. You should be back in ketosis in a few days. You might have the 'induction flu' and cravings again for a few days before you're back in the swing of things, but it'll be ok.

Maybe avoid the scale for a week or so too -- those carbs will bring MORE than their fair share of water -- your weight can shoot up a lot after a high-carb digression but it's just water weight & it will go away in the same 4-6 days it takes you to get back into ketosis. (It's the same phenomena that has a lot of people losing major pounds in the early days of low carb, only in reverse). Don't let it freak you out, it's biochemistry, nothing you can do about it.

Good for you for catching it fast & coming here to get back on track quickly!

I knew I shouldn't have done it but the old urge for comfort food came back because of all the things I'm trying to work through right now. My fiance's stepfather and grandfather have both passed away in the last two weeks and I have been helping him sort through feelings and a mountain of paperwork; it's taken its toll on both of us emotionally.

Thank you for the support, it's appreciated. The binge didn't even taste that great, lol, that's perhaps the saddest part. It wasn't worth it, but then again, it rarely is.

Hi Icrenee,

I'm sure we've all done this....lesson learned, of course.:)

I just want to relate one experience I had in the past (this is not the first time I've done Atkins). Everything Sarahinparis described is absolutely true. You will have to now invest a few days while your body goes back into ketosis again, you may temporarily gain some water weight, etc. BUT....one thing that can happen...and it happened once or twice to me in the past....was that the net result of carb/sugar binge would sometimes be a sudden loss of a few pounds, esp. when you may have been in one of those little plateaus where you seem to be bouncing around at the same weight for an extended period of time.

My rationalization for went something like this...."hmm, I was in a plateau and having that little sugar binge actually shook-up my metabolism and got it moving again". And who knows? Maybe that IS what happened. But the pitfall of this was that this gave me a justification to have more little sugar binges/lapses. And in the long run, it was counter-productive....and would cause me to really stall or to gain back weight.
I learned the hard way that in the big picture, these lapses caused much more harm than good. So this time, there have been NO lapses....as I know that one would lead to two and would eventually lead to several....with me rationalizing that it was somehow being a helpful nudge to my metabolism. For while it may sometimes appear that these lapses can jump-start your metabolism during a little plateau.....they DO cause more harm than good.....mainly, because they justify more lapses.

So I agree with the others here.....get that stuff out of the house. Don't even tempt yourself. I tend to be a little OCD now when it comes to Atkins and NEED to follow the rules strictly but I have to say that doing it this way has made it much easier for me this time around.

Also.....when going through stressful personal events....I have to be honest and say that feeling guilty after having diet lapses just compounds the stress for me. It might feel good at the time....but then later, it just piles more stress on top of the stress that was already there. By sticking to my diet, I at least feel that I have some control over SOMETHING in my life...when the rest of it seems so out-of-control....if that makes any sense.

deena:)

Please don't be hard on yourself, I lost 20 pounds 6 years ago and then my Dad passed away and I went back to the carbs and got totally addicted to them again. This is my 2nd attempt to do Atkins....

I have some trail mix (mostly fruit) and I am going to put it in the garbage right now!

You will be just fine!
Toby

Very insightful comments deena! I was having success even though I had some minor cheats, but that gave me "permission" to not stick to plan and ended badly!

I still struggle with emotional eating and stress eating, its a problem on any plan. Good luck with bouncing back Icreene, hopefully not feeling satisfied with the taste reward vs. the setback will help you when you're tempted next!

pferde01......I liken going off plan to cutting class in college (back in <<cough, cough>>the 70's).:D Learned quickly back then that if I allowed myself to cut one class....pretty soon it would get out of hand...so made it a rule to never cut. I've found the same principle applies to sticking to this diet.

Icrenee....you know, I've found that this whole messing up on ones diet can be a really tricky issue. On the one hand, you NEVER want to allow it to send you into a downward spiral of continued eating off plan. That is always a HUGE mistake. It's always better to go with the "ok, made a mistake...get back on plan immediately"....forgive yourself and move on. To NOT beat yourself up over it.
BUT....at the same time, being too forgiving of yourself can potentially lead to frequent repeats. I think that if it happens, forget it and move on...do what you have to do to keep it from spiraling. But you also have to be realistic about the fact that multiple episodes will ultimately keep us from moving forward.

One of the things I'm learning a lot more detail about (by reading around here) is this whole fluctuation in weight related to water retention issue. For instance, this morning, my weight was 154.4....a fairly big drop. BUT, I have pretty consistently bounced around within certain parameters throughout this entire experience....though over-all, it consistently nudges downwards (when observed in retrospect). I might even bounce around for a few more days....but know I'm on my way to settling at the lower 154 soon.

So...one can appear to have lost some weight the day after a little binge...but the reality is that the body was probably doing its own thing regarding fluid balance and had released some fluid.....and the gain WILL show up later. I've found that if I stick strictly to the plan...I don't really worry about these fluctuations....because they always do end up in a consistent net decrease. But...if I was repeatedly messing up....the scale would really be going haywire and probably driving me crazy. It is much, much easier to follow ones progress if one sticks to plan....not to mention that the loss is fairly consistent.....and this can be very critical in maintaining motivation and perseverance.

deena:)