After an emotionally rough day, I realized that I've eaten about 300 calories over my regular 1400 (not trying to lose weight). As I feel miserable about this, I've done about 20 minutes of weights and 100 minutes of cardio (hoop dance) so far. I usually give myself 100 extra calories per hour of exercise, so I have another hour to go to compensate for my self indulgence. Does this sound resonable to other people who count calories? I know that I should never have let it get this far!

It's what you do *most* of the time that counts. I would not specifically ramp up exercise to undo food that has been eaten already. I would just do my planned exercise, think about why I ate off plan, and try to do better the next time.

Agreed. I try to not obsess over any one moment, especially if that moment is a rare occasion. It sounds like today was out of the norm for you, so I would be inclined to ease up and move on. Trust me, 1700 calories in a day, combined with the excercise you've already done, is perfectly reasonable and not something to beat yourself up over.

The key, to me, is balance. Forcing yourself to endure over 2 hours of cardio to "undo" 300 extra calories seems slightly extreme to me. Remember that it's rarely one slip that leads to gaining weight - it's the not getting back on track as soon as possible afterwards. Cut yourself some slack and aim to have a better day tomorrow.

In my opinion, that's not a good approach. You don't want to set yourself up in a cycle where you overeat and then overexercise to compensate. This behavior is too much like eating disorder behavior, even though you're not trying to lose...

(I'm not sure why 1400 calories isn't a weight loss level, however. My maintenance level is 1600+, and I'm an older woman.)

Don't go that route. 300 calories isn't the end of the world. Just get back to your maintenance level tomorrow and move on. Keep up with your regular exercise. Our bodies aren't so inflexible that we'll be "struck fat" over 300 cals!

Jay

Keep in mind:
1 lb of fat = about 3500 calories
so 300 calories = less than 1/10th of a lb

One day off track does not equal disaster! Not a bad idea to do a little extra exercise, but to do tons in one day is probably not the healthiest idea. You can always add an extra workout later in the week, too.

I very much agree with midwife! 300 calories just once is not going to cause you to gain any weight.

But, I kind of understand how you feel - I've been trying to gradually increase my calories with the hopes of being at a *normal* level by the time I get to goal but, even the gradual, planned increases tend to send me off into an irrational panic that I'm going to gain back everything I've worked so hard to take off. (Funny how it's so easy to tell you 300 calories isn't going to hurt you and so hard to listen to my own advice )

Thank you guys for understanding. I had a terrible day yesterday- lost a pateint after a routine surgery. I'm a vet, and my beautiful little kitty patient suddenly went into cardiac arrest and died during recovery. Normal bloodwork, normal vital signs, normal surgery- just...flatlined out of the blue and died. And no amount of CPR and intensive care that I did made a bit of difference. I've been crying all day....and eating more. I think that the exercise was my way of trying to fix a problem, ANY problem today. Now, I'm tired and a bit saner. I'm so glad to have all of you guys here to listen and understand how easy it is to turn to food when stress hits you hard. No matter how long the weight has been gone, the bad habits sometimes still sneak back.

Working out is a great way to deal with stress. And for me, eating is my normal way of dealing with stress. So overeating a little, and 300 calories is very little for a 'binge' and than working out doesn't seem like such a bad thing. If it was me, I'd have eaten a LOT more.

Circebee. I hope tomorrow dawns better for you. Hang in there.