Do other people experience guilt issues, even if they are largely on plan? I went away to a friend's house this weekend for a Labor Day break and we had a lovely cook out. I had a great dinner--a meat platter, if you will. I had 1/2 a chicken breast, 3 oz of lean tenderloin, a bit of kielbasa (about 75 cals worth--I know it is super fatty), great grilled sweet corn (no butter or salt since it didn't need it) and I allowed myself 1/2 serving of oven fries (about 100 cals). Later that evening, I had a Weight Watchers cookie dough sundae that I got for myself so I could have a treat while everyone else was having ice cream. I ate light earlier in the day anticipating dinner and my calories for the day were at 1450--most of which came at dinner.
I was stuffed--really, really full and happily satisfied. Then the guilt set in. I felt that I had totally blown things, even though I knew that I was within my calorie range and I hadn't eaten anything too terrible, or at least anything too terrible in amounts that mattered (I probably could have done without the oven fries).
This isn't the only time this has happened. I'll have something that is on plan, keeps me within my calorie range for the day, and I'll feel like a cow if I start feeling really full. This is not to say that I don't eat enough and feel hungry all the time, I don't. But, if I eat something, even if it is on plan, and I feel happily full, I think that I've somehow cheated.
I know part of it is that I am used to eating less, so feel full more easily, and that the quality of the food I'm eating is better--more bang for my caloric buck, as it were, but... I feel guilty. And it seems to be getting worse. I had a light multigrain English muffin with all natural peanut butter on it and after I finished, I thought "Wow, I really shouldn't have eaten that." Why? It was a meal, not just a random urge to eat. Does anyone else have this issue and if so, how do you deal with it? It isn't out of control or anything, and I'm not anorexic as the size of my butt clearly indicates, but I'd like to nip this in the bud so I don't get all weird about food. Well, weirder about food, in any event. I realize a lot of this is informed by the (erroneous) mentality that dieting/healthy eating is about deprivation. How to really change that mindset--really process it--beyond just knowing the right and wrong intellectually?