I was doing sooooo good to. I was down about 8 pounds in 4 weeks. My clothes were falling off, i was excersing. Then came birthday weekend on 10/17. My only planned cheat was on the 18th.... wine and a little bit of carbs. Well that cheat turned into a weekend CARB cheat... pizza, bread, pasta, wine and more wine. It was my hubbys bday too.

Then I got sick with vertigo and a stomach bug... now two weeks later I am eating like a pig and 6 pounds up.

I am restarting tomorrow again with the preconditioning. Just soooooo PISSED off at myself. Anyone ever do this and did they bounce back okay?

Omgosh I have been there!! I recently got married, and between the wedding and honeymoon there was a good solid week and a half of being off plan. I gained about 8lbs! It was totally worth it, I mean how often do you get married?! But bouncing back was tough! Now that I have been back on plan for awhile I feel so much better, and all that weight I gained is long gone. I think its all about willpower, I knew if I didn't get right back into it after the festivities I would be right back where I was a few months ago.

The thing about wagons is that once you fall off, you can jump right back on them. Don't beat yourself up. Just start again. You cannot change what you did last week, yesterday, or an hour ago. Dust yourself off and commit your energies to tomorrow.

I go off plan when I'm out of town (which is about 2 weekends a month). I give myself a line in the sand that I will not cross. When I go to tailgates (I'm a big college football fan), I limit myself to one beer or drink. I don't ever have soda (as much as I used to drink the stuff). I drink water during the game.

I also find that I do better when I weigh myself every single morning. I know that weight can vary significantly, but it keeps me honest. If I was bad and had a chocolate bar and carbs, the next morning, it shows up on the scale. If it continues to go up, I know it's a red alert. I'm making the scale my friend.

I went off plan for about four days and I gained three pounds this week. It was pretty disheartening because although I ate things that were off the menu (I was really craving bread, REAL bread, not that sandpaper-like 45 calorie stuff) I still kept a calorie journal and never went over 1600. I honestly thought I would maintain and was very disappointed to discover that I could gain three pounds after eating 1600 calories/ day. It makes me wonder what maintenance will be like (I still have over thirty pounds to lose!) and if I will be doomed to 1000 calories (and no bread ) for the rest of my life.

I've progressively regained everything I lost also. It's a hard pill to swallow, having to start all over. VERY HUMBLING. BUT here I am. At least its a common affliction. I know I am not alone. I decided I'm putting everything in to it, for 90 days. All In! 125lbs or BUST.

Just an FYI for you I did MRC last year on july 13th and lost 38 lbs and 19 1/2 inches started maintenance jan 4th and they put me on 1330 calories a day, if I would have known that maintenance was counting calories I would have saved myself over $2000 and just did the calorie counting, anyway after about a month all my cravings came back and now I'm 15 lbs heavier and can't stop the cravings, they told me I could buy more weeks and start back on the green menu but what is the point I know where I will end up so now I'm counting calories and gradually losing the 15 lbs I gained. Being on the MRC program and eating such low calories for 6 months it has totally messed up my metabolism and I'm finding that if I eat more than 1300 calories a day I gain weight! If you have the willpower you can maintain but when you hit maintenance all the foods you eat on pre-conditioning are the only foods you can eat for life! I can't do that! good luck with your journey.