I've always had a problem with overeating, and I just started my diet a little over a week ago. I was feeling great about it (I'm doing calorie counting) and everything was going fabulously...

...until today.

My friend came to see me at my lunch break at work and we got little mini pizzas, made and ate them, and then stuck around for my work's Rhubarb Fest in the break room. I don't even like rhubarb that much, but I certainly loved it today. ...a LOT. With ice cream.

I understand that a) this isn't as bad as it could be and b) everybody needs a little leeway in their diet, but my main problem with overeating (borderline binging) is that once I do it during the day, I feel like the rest of my day/week/diet is for nothing and completely done for. I've lost nine pounds (in Onederland!!!!! though not after today, bleh) and had a bunch of diet non-food incentives and tricks and things to keep me on track. And it worked for the first week, but suddenly my willpower crumbled.

So my question to you guys is this: how do you stop yourself from calling it quits after you rebound heavily? What do you say to yourself? Do you look at that fat picture one more time? Any help is appreciated - because I'm sure I'll do this more than once this summer (it's my main reason for diet failure). Thanks!

I think about it logically. It takes 3500 calories to make a pound of fat. That's 3500 OVER your basic maintenance calories. So it would be very, very difficult for a mini pizza and some rhubarb with ice cream (yum!!!) to add up to 3500 calories.

However..... if you decide that the whole week is trashed, and keep indulging, then it's pretty easy to get up to 3500 extra, isn't it? French fries....a candy bar....and heck, since the whole week is wasted anyway, how about a big pizza? THAT is what blows the whole week, not a mini pizza and some ice cream.

So this is what I do: I face the music. I count the calories that I have consumed as honestly as I can. I do my best not to attach any emotional or moral significance to what i ate. I am not "disgusting", "weak", or a failure because of something I ate. Do I need to re-examine my committment to my food plan? Perhaps. Or maybe I just felt like having ice cream and rhubarb, and I know I'm back on track for dinner. What I no longer allow myself to do is to use a lapse in judgement to serve as an excuse to abandon ship and start eating whatever I please. Because eating whatever I please, whenever I please is what got me crammed into size 20 jeans that I could barely breathe in. It got me into terrible asthma and depression and lethargy and crying all the time.

So that's how I stay on track. Because the alternative is those big jeans and that dark, unhappy state of mind. The ice cream is gone; it's in the past. But your future is all before you and it depends on you making healthy choices. Lucky for you, you are a calorie counter so nothing is really "off plan" until you decide that it is. So count the calories, be honest about it, but do not indulge in self-recriminations. Above all, do not use it to give yourself permission to abandon your plan.

You can do this! We are here to help you, so keep posting!

Thanks, Windchime - I struggle mostly with putting it into perspective, and I use it as an excuse to ruin everything and eat everything in sight. I like the way you approach it - if you think about it, you can't really argue with the facts. It's nice advice for next time (because I know it'll happen, but as long as I'm ready for it).

And I've been a long-time lurker, but you guys all seem so nice and supportive, so I didn't even feel nervous about posting a problem...thanks!

ArcticMoonShadow (pretty name!), most of us have been through the exact same things. That's what is so nice about 3FC; no matter what problem I post about, someone here has already been through it and has beaten it so there is always lots of good advice.

I think sometimes the reason people use one bad decision to justify going off plan for days or a week is because they secretly fear that they can't do this. If that is part of what is happening to you, then scurry your little buns on over to the Goal section and look at some of the Before and After pictures. Some of those girls have had truly staggering amounts to lose and look at them now--slim, sleek and healthy. If they can do it, so can we!