I binged today for the first time since December 30th. I am so upset. I started this weight loss journey in January 2010 and the pounds come off so slowly. I feel like I just shot myself in the foot. Here is what I ate:

Breakfast - Special K with skim milk
Lunch - Special K protein bar
Dinner - (here's where it gets ugly) Sandwich from whole foods deli (grilled chicken breast, cheese, BBQ sauce and veggies on focaccia roll), 3 fried chicken tenders (also from WF), blue corn tortilla chips with salsa and low-fat sour cream, ENTIRE mint-dark chocolate bar that my mother sent me for V-Day.

I was totally stress eating after a crazy day at work (I teach elementary school music and, frankly, it is chaos). All in all, that's about 1700-1800 calories, 500 more than my daily allowance. I would have been fine if it weren't for that chocolate bar.

I just feel like I'm never going to get there. :'(

Some people do calorie cycling where they have a higher calorie day. So I think you will be fine. We will have bad days sometimes. Congratulations on
Your weight loss so far. You only have 16 Lbs to go.

Cheating ain't bingeing. And it's okay to splurge every now and again. If anything it'll help your metabolism. Don't stress, it won't show on the scale. You are allowed to eat like a human every now and again

It's very interesting to see how different people define binges. I would have considered that a "maintenance day" rather than a "binge" and not felt particularly bad about it - it sounds like you're going through a bit of stress, try not to be overly restrictive/punitive to yourself or it will only get worse!

You didn't overeat by very much at all; I highly doubt this will affect your rate of weight loss by any measure! 1200 day in day out is pretty strict and if you return to routine I imagine you'll be just fine.

What is impressive is that you went a month and a half totally on plan. Most people can't do that!

Thanks for the advice. I do think it is binging to eat all that stuff for dinner in less than an hour. I wasn't even hungry, but I kept eating. There are days where I eat more than 1200 calories, but those are days when I am actually hungry and eating healthy things (like extra fruit and veggies)

I used to binge eat a lot more -- like chili cheese dogs and chili cheese fries and a bag of chips all at once, or an entire pizza. I guess my binges are a lot smaller, but it is still the same problem - overeating out of emotion instead of hunger or enjoyment.

Maybe switch up your lunch from just a special k bar to a sandwich, or lean meat with veggies and/or a fruit. I bet your body was going nuts for food when dinner rolled around.

I agree with others here though. Look at it as a maintence day, and don't beat yourself up at all. It could have been much worse.

I agree with maybe upping what you eat at breakfast and lunch. Maybe you felt like you "binged" at supper because your body was in starvation mode! I highly believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and maybe should be the meal with the highest calories of the day (hard to do when dinners are usually the calorie-high meal of the day in society). I would also try having lots of protein and fibre in the mornings to help ease satiety early in the morning which will prevent "binges" later on in the day. Another thing you can do is eat more often, maybe every 2 hours have a snack (doesn't have to be much, just something to tie you over til the next meal... ie. 10 raw almonds with an apple).