You guys! I'm 138 pounds now. Back in September 3, I was 148. I lost 10 pounds! My tummy is pretty much gone and can wear tank tops with unclosed cardigans and my "back bra bulge/fat" is the only one really keeping me from wearing the tank tops without the cardigans
I still want to get to my happy weight which is 120 (and my later major goal 105) but I am extremely excited that I want to say thanks for motivating me when I started here.

I want to ask now for a question that I always want to know. DO YOU HAVE CHEAT DAYS or MEALS? And have you gone on a vacation since you started on this journey and NOT wreck your weight loss? I have gone over 2000 maybe once or twice since starting losing, and am going to be on a one week vacation soon. Any advice? Thanks so much!

i dont have "cheat" days or meals because i simply calorie count...nothing is offlimits although i try to aim for healthy choices...i do overindulge occasionally...if i'm getting a craving for ice cream, i try to tell myself i can have it during TOM and usually will when that rolls around...if pizza is available i tend to go overboard so i try to limit its availability...it hasnt seemed to impact my weight loss

ive taken one "vacation" and by that i mean, a trip to the village for a funeral...i was very busy with family, barely ate, and when i came home, i had lost 10 pounds in 3 days...and the 10 pounds stayed off once i resumed my usual eating routine...weird...beyond that, i'm far too busy to take a real vacation lol

Congrats on your progress so far!

I didn't do a lot of "cheats" per se during my weight loss--like alaskanlaughter, I usually decided to fit indulgences into my calorie count. (However, except at the beginning when I was doing 1200-1400 calories, I lost most of my weight on 1600-2000 calories a day. So I had more calories to work with than a lot of people here do.)

Vacations are a bit trickier. My two pieces of advice: 1) Understand water weight if you don't already, and be prepared to possibly see a significant gain when you get back, and to have to be on plan again for a while for it to go away (the majority of it will be water); 2) get back on plan as soon as you get back from vacation!

Personally, I don't worry much about indulging on vacation, which for me is about 2 weeks a year. I don't have any binge eating issues or anything to worry about there, so I figure I can just lose any vacation weight when I get back. It's usually gone within a week, sometimes two.

We went for a long weekend out of town back around Labor Day. We were mindful of our choices but did eat out 3 meals per day. We worked out 1 of the days in the hotel gym, did a lot of walking and sight seeing. We drank every night, when we got home we weighed exactly the same as when we left.

The bad part is since we figured out we can indulge on occasion, we have been doing so about 1x week. We haven't lost weight, really, since. I have lost about 5 pounds, but not nearly what I would be losing.

I told myself on Thursday, next week no cheating. No little snickers, no jimmy johns for lunch, no eating out etc. I'd like to see if it will push me over the edge of my plateau or if I'm genuinely plateaued and need to change my routine a little.

Btw, we calorie count. We eat what we want, but make substitutions to make those choices lower cal and healthier.

I really try not to label it "cheat".

I do have days, or meals, where I will eat foods I typically don't (cake, candy, pasta, fast food, restaurants); or I will have days where I will eat above my normal, deficit level, calories. I've had many days and many meals over the months that weren't "saintly", and have still lost a lot of weight. This is life, and typically life consists of indulgent days, and/or indulgent meals. Personally, I think it's very important to incorporate these types of things in, early on, to practice for the way you will live your life once you are at your goal. I also think it helps to not look at foods as good or bad, or to see eating indulgent food as "cheating".

Just my humble opinion.

I eat Mexican "cheat meals" (skipping cheese & sour cream) about once or twice a week but it falls within my caloric allowance and I rare to never eat junk/pop/fast food. I will die without Mexican.

I say over and over everything in moderation, avoid obvious high cal foods as much as possible and drink zero calories. Lots of exercise in conjunction w/ a balanced diet. If I have a cheat meal then my next will be salad or something very low cal and then sweat my @ss off later. Again, balance is important.

I'm by no means perfect, every once in a while I grab a donut at work and then suffer remorse. I'm human. As long as my scale keeps going in the right direction I try not to stress over slips too much.

i slip up once in a while. since ive found that one cheat day can blow my entire week ive been doing it much less often though

Hi there, I was on a week-long vacation a few weeks ago and I cheated like crazy in terms of meal choice (fried rice and fried things in general, banana splits, things like that!). However, I tried to keep everything in moderation (ate only 1/2 of what's on the very generously portioned plate, shared the banana splits with my husband) and WALKED a lot after every meal, just sightseeing. At the end of the vacation, I had lost 1 lb! Incredible, no?