So, I have no idea what got into me, but I gorged on Chinese food. Horrible, I know.

I was wondering, if I eat healthily the rest of the day and exercise for 5 hours to burn off those horrible Chinese food calories, will I be back on track? Or is this going to set me back regardless?

Thanks a bunch,

Cam.

Wow. If you can exercise for five hours today than you can eat whatever you like!

I don't think it ruined everything. Not by a longshot. I would drink lots of water because of the likely sodium and MSG in the Chinese.

This thing we are on, it's a journey. Some paths are rocky and steep--like today's path. But you are going to get to the top anyway.

Everyone of us messes up from time to time, no matter what anyone tells you. And trust me, nothing is ruined. Working out and staying on plan will help you keep moving towards your goals. It's all you can do, really, is keep doing what you can. I don't think your whole week is ruined, but don't be discouraged if you don't see loss until next week.

If I were you, I'd be good for the rest of the day, but don't starve yourself. Starving yourself will just lead to another binge. If you get hungry, eat sensibly. Try to stick with whole foods (fruits/veggies) for the rest of the day because they are low in calories and filling. Five hours of exercise is way too extreme. I would add an additional workout, but don't push yourself too hard. Do what you normally do for exercise.
Just remember that one meal of overdoing it on chinese food is not what got you to a weight you are unhappy at....overdoing it meal after meal after meal is what got you to where you are. Forgive yourself, and move on. Stress only causes more weight gain! I would start hitting the water pretty hard to flush all that salt from your system...

As someone who has suffered from an eating disorder, and whose method of purging was overexercising strenuously, I can tell you that you don't want to do a five-hour workout just because you overindulged in one meal. Because of my history, I'm wary of associating exercise with "punishment" for what's perceived as misbehavior. If you do this, your workouts will turn into rather grim sessions, instead of being exhilarating.

Exercise to be healthy, to relieve tension, to get out in the fresh air, to test what you're capable of doing -- for positive reasons.

Don't exercise because you just have to work off something. It's just too much like purging. Believe me, that cycle of "paying for" overeating with exercise is easy to slip into & difficult to get out of.

Exercise for 5 hours? Come now. Doesn't that seem a bit extreme?

Use this as a learning experience. Learn from it. Try to decipher why you let it happen. Were you too hungry? Did you not have a better option? Did you not have something healthy planned to eat? Were you tired? Whatever it may be. Set up some strategies to keep yourself from repeating the "gorge". And move on. Stick to your healthy eating plan for the rest of the day. No need to punish yourself with 5 hours of exercise.

Even if you did do a lot of cardio to try to burn off calories - you will have sodium bloat for a few days from chinese food.

Just be back on your normal track, move on, and have no guilt feelings about the food you ate.

Put it behind you and get back on track. You will be fine, I doubt if you have done any serious harm.

Have you checked in with the Chicks in Control?

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=64

I agree with others who say that 5 hours of exercise is not a solution. Get back with your plan, be sure to drink enough water, and move on.

Jay

Did you enjoy yourself in the moment? do you no have the urge to do it again? 1 indulgence doesn't undo everything, its the continued ones that do. It might stall you for a couple days, might even go up a lb or 2 due to water retention. Just drink plenty of water and get back on track.

I'm just wondering why according to your goal you are striving for a BMI that is in the underweight category. maybe you're pushing yourself too hard?

Thanks everyone for the support!

I've been thinking on it and I think it was mostly extreme hunger mixed with that being the only place to go. My relatives are in town from Canada and we were grocery shopping for hours, literally, so I hadn't eaten anything for 5 hours and I was famished. They love to eat out so my mom took them out for Chinese. I was at first going to wait until we got home to eat lunch so I could make something to eat, but I was so hungry I couldn't wait. Very bad.

I learned from it though and we were going back out and I took a snack with me. Sure enough, we were out a long time again and everyone was snacking on chips and salsa. I pulled out my little low fat/low cal granola bar and ate it and after that, I had no desire to eat any of those chips, so I was proud of myself in that sense.

Oddly enough, I got on the scale this morning and lost 1 pound. Not sure how that happened, though I did end up with 2 hours of exercise yesterday, but I'm not going to complain about that :P

RN - I'm striving for a goal that will give me the measurements I need to model, and from all the other models I talked to that are my height, they weigh on average from 100 - 105 pounds. I'm reevaluating it though. I'm thinking of trying 115 first and seeing if that gets me to my goal measurements.

When you're that thin, you feel like crap. You feel miserable, wretched, horrible. You feel like food is the enemy and you can't ever enjoy any of it. You feel your bones rubbing against your muscles as you walk, or your hips bruise from sleeping on your side. A shower feels like ice, regardless of how hot the water gets.

Please don't strive to be skeletal. A healthy weight for you would probably be in the 140 area.

Eeeck, really? That sounds horrible! Especially the bones and bruising part. Do you really think 140 is good? Note that I have a very small frame (except for my hips :P)

I can see that there would be pressure in the modeling industry to be an unhealthy weight, so I think it's great that you are focusing on measurements. It's quite possible, with healthy eating and weight bearing exercise, to attain those measurements and still be a healthy weight. Keep in mind that muscle takes up less space, but weighs more. Also, I wonder if these other models are being truthful with you. I don't know many women who are truthful about their weight in general.

One meal won't ruin you and in fact, if I'm reading correctly, you learned from it. That's awesome! I'll bet you'll always carry snack with you now. Being prepared is really the key sometimes. You're doing great. Just try to keep it healthy!