In my opinion, it's good to indulge yourself every once in a while. You could go crazy if all you ate was healthy stuff. Sometimes a good fattening pizza is just what you need.

About a month ago I went to the movies and ate two giant butter bags of popcorn and gained five pounds in one night. I wanted to die the next day but man was that some good popcorn.

It's amazing how fast it can come back on! You caught it, though, that's the important thing!!!

Years ago after I lost 50 pounds I started doing that and within a year ALL of the weight was back. I look back and wonder how the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks I let that happen!!!

Thank you for that reminder! I am getting ready to go on vacation... I keep thinking " I am going to eat whatever because its vacation and I deserve it". I will be more free with my diet but I will try to not go overboard.

Hey, at least you are set for a while on junkfood!
You'll get back on track!

ME TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, EXACTLY what you said. I did it, 9 days worth. I know exactly how it happened because I chose to keep eating. I was so bloated and felt terrible yet I kept eating.

I absolutely know what you mean. I have to reign myself in - sure people can eat what they want only gain a few, but if my idea of eating what I want is like 5000K cal a day regularly - even if its for a week - that is TOO much and I don't care to put in all that effort to lose all that post-vaca. My body feels the "ahhhh now I've really had a feast" at several thousand cals, wheras for many ppl, that might be 2-3000 cals.
I'll have to remind myself to enjoy some the taste of some foods, but control my intake, perhaps lose a few lbs beforehand (curb the damage!!) and enjoy other parts of vacation besides the food.

I'm going to Vegas next month, and I intend to indulge for those 5 days. The hotel we're staying at have 5 amazing restaurants there as well as a bar that sells spiked milkshakes (chocolate with Kahlua, for example). I've come to terms with the fact that I'll gain a few lbs back, but I consider it worth it for the good time I'll have.

The important thing is not to beat yourself up after, just dust off and get back on the wagon.

I can easily gain 10-15lbs if I go in with that mindset on vacations with food AND alcohol. I have to seriously rein myself in and "allow" myself some stuff here and there, that's it.

I lost 5 pounds on my last vacation. I usually lose weight on vacation, because I take active vacations. My last vacation was to Peru, and I did eat 'whatever I wanted' - but within reason. Fortunately, in most foreign countries sandwiches do not AUTOMATICALLY come with a giant serving of French fries, and the hotel breakfasts have more fresh fruit and less 'cook your own waffles.'

I had a pisco sour (or 2, or a beer, or a glass of wine) almost every night, and had dessert semi-regularly, but we did not do much snacking and we NEVER ate fast food. Sometimes we ordered a place of deep fried appetizers for the table (potatoes, yucca, weird things stuff with other weird things), but even then often the best thing on the table was the red-onion yellow tomato and lime salsa. Pizzas there were pretty healthy too (and every restaurant seemed to have them!) - thin crust, with tasty toppings and cheese, but not too much.

But gotothegym I feel you about the airport food especially. I think the worst thing I ate all vacation was the GIANT asiago cheese bagel with cream cheese I had from Starbucks in the Atlanta airport, bleary-eyed after an all-night flight (which was the capstone to a long day of touring). I expect that that bagel had more calories than any other meal I had, but I could not stop eating.

On vacation and ordinarily, I do try to make a distinction between fast food and chains and other restaurants. I am definitely less concerned about calories when I am eating at Local 127 in Cincinnati than at Applebee's. If a brilliant chef makes something lovely, I can make room for a bit of it. And find it worthwhile more than some corporate indulgance at a chain.

Or so I am trying to tell myself. Heh. It is a way of making choices that still feels like 'living' rather than 'dieting.'

Hopefully it sticks this time, I have a long way to go.

That's my vacation philosophy too. In fact, I NEVER eat at chain restaurants on vacation (and almost never at home, either). Not because of health or calories, but because the foods they serve are not interesting or tasty enough to be worth it for me.

F.

I did the same thing while on vacation. I went to Vegas in April, and ate and drank whatever I wanted. There was no way I was going to count calories on vacation. I did A LOT of walking, but still came back 9lbs heavier. Within a few days, it was down to 2lbs, but those 2lbs took me almost a month to lose!
But I don't regret it. The next time I go on vacation, I will allow myself to indulge again, but maybe just not quite as much as I did this time.

My best advice is that it IS okay to eat junk once in awhile, we're not going to overly moralize food, but when the nutrition is questionable it become even MORE important to listen to hunger cues and STOP EATING when the hunger signal goes away. The problem wasn't pizza and pretzels, it was over stuffing on pizza and pretzels, regardless of the signals the body was giving that hunger was sated long before then.

I really struggle with this concept too. But I'm becoming more convinced that it isn't the diet that needs the change, necessarily, but those of us who change our food and magically expect it to change our mindsets, too. If we don't change the way we relate to food, maintenance will continue to be a battle.

You'll get it off soon enough but I encourage you to do mental inventory on what you think entitled you to abuse your body with too much food, when the only defense the body has is to gain fat? Some hunger scale measuring may be really helpful to you, I know it has been to me! I eat for many reasons besides hunger, including boredom and 'I deserve it'. But no reason for eating is valid besides hunger and I'm really taking a step back from all eating that isn't physiologically demanded and stopping when satisfied, and not stuffed. It's so simple, but kind of mind blowing, to reassociate myself with those physical cues.

That might be something you'd benefit from, too?

I used to have the attitude "It's my vacation, so I deserve to eat whatever I want!" and "If others do it, so can I!" However, that was really an immature way of thinking, and that sort of entitlement mentality toward food and overeating is what got me fat and kept me fat for a good long while. What I realize now is that a vacation is about so much more than food. Beyond that, there's nothing that says that I cannot enjoy those special meals, but why overeat junk that I can get any day of the week---e.g., chips, M & M's, etc.? Now, when I go on vacation, I will eat those special meals that I look forward to, but I won't just eat everything in sight. For instance, I just got back from visiting family in another state. I regularly had dessert (a lovely Tiramisu at a little Italian restaurant one night) and drank (a phenomenal espresso martini one night), but I often skipped the bread basket because, frankly, I didn't see any bread that was worth "spending" my calories on. So, I guess I will say that at no time did I pretend that calories didn't exist, but I still made room for many, many indulgences.

Thank you for starting this thread as we all need to be reminded of this. Also, congratulations on catching the gain before it becomes more than 10 lbs.

Was that vacation binge a result of being frustrated with slow weight loss or restriction? I've seen a lot of posts from you where it seems like you view food/exercise as punishment/reward...