Well, my husband and I have kinda built in "cheat days" into our weight loss plan and it's worked pretty well for us so far. Well, Friday ended up being the cheat day for me, and boy did I take it overboard. I went to lunch at a favorite place.....had, soup, salad, entree and a HUGE dessert. Later in the afternoon I ended up digging into my kids bagged snacks (cheez-its in particular). Ate cookie dough (crazy, right??), ordered pizza, then went to Walgreens and bought a crazy amount of sugar-sweet candy and ate it with my kids while watching a movie. It was seriously just nuts how much I ate, like I was on a mission of destruction. Needless to say, I had a bad stomach ache afterwards. I've done some cheat days before, but this one was so overboard.

One thing I know is that it was emotionally triggered because I've been pretty stressed lately. I thought it would maybe relieve stress for one day, but actually it just made me feel worse.

Another thing is...this would have been a pretty frequent occurance before I started my weight loss plan. In the past, I was just eating such junk, and on a daily basis. For me, I always felt guilty like I should be on a diet. So to rebel, I would be on a mission to eat everything fattening, because I knew I'd have to diet someday soon, so I might as well enjoy it while I could. This really used to be my mentality, and this turned into months and years of eating so so badly each day. It was not healthy emotionally or physically.

I'm so proud to say that today I turned it around, ate healthyfully (except for sneaking into that candy a little -- I need to throw it out), exercized for 45 minutes on my elliptical machine. I didn't turn this into a bad weekend, even though that little voice in my head was saying "go ahead, eat bad one more day, there's candy in the house anyway".

I just wanted to share my experience with you guys. I am staying on track. I am going to reach my goal. And the next time I have a "cheat day", I really need to be more reasonable, that's for sure. And I know that I don't have to be that "fat girl" who binges on food when she's stressed. It doesn't make me feel better anyway!

That is so great how you did turn it around. You should be proud Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work

good job getting back on track! you cant expect to be perfect. forgive yourself and keep moving forward!

Life isn't about being perfectly on plan EVERY DAY. Glad you were able to turn yourself around the next day! Great job!

Hey Kell, good job at getting back on your plan, but i seriously have to question your "excuse" for falling off plan. You say it was emotionally triggered, but you also say you have a planned cheat day. So emotionally you you knew your "cheat" was allowed. For some reason I think the HUGE dessert might have been your trigger. Not emotion, not stress, but SUGAR. Some people tend to disagree with the addictive powers of sugar, but I think it is as powerful as any narcotic. What do you think? If you would have skipped dessert at lunch and just had the meal, do you think it would have continued on as badly as it did?

That's why I always have a cheat MEAL, not DAY. I can destroy a weeks worth of good eating in a day. Instead I have a cheat dinner where I can have whatever I want. I always make it dinner so that I don't have as much time during the day to mess up.

Congrats on turning it around, though!

Yeah, I don't think you're totally off base here. Although I did plan it, and knew I would be not eating good for the day, it surprised me just how much I did eat. I ate more than ever before, I think because of the added stress I've been under. I thought I could eat, but maintain "sort of" in control, but I just didn't. I thought maybe my stomach has "shrunk" to where I wouldn't eat as much.....NOPE. And yes...I ate an insane amount of sugar and empty carbs which I'm sure helped fuel this crazy binge. Sugar has been a major problem for me, most of my life! I do think sugar is a bad trigger for me.

For myself i took cheat days completely out of my diet. I just never want to go back to eating the sugary and processed foods that caused me to get to this weight and that I know will trigger me to binge. Instead what I do now is that once a week I reward myself with a low-calorie treat that I usually don't eat during the week. So that could be going out and getting low-calorie Japanese food ie low cal sushi (which is one of my favorite) or some other special meal or snack that is both tasty and healthy.