Binge and learn?
 

So my husband works for a well-known coffee shop and brings home all sorts of sugary sweets when he works the closing shift. I normally don't even look at them, but then yesterday he brought home all these dark chocolate bars. So I had some, then some more, then SOME MORE and then I went and looked at the goodies in the fridge and found two huge chocolate chip cookies and ATE THOSE TOO!

So I am sitting here feeling icky and wondering why I did this? And I think I actually know so that I can maybe avoid this next time. First off, I did not eat dinner because I did not like what I made (too much tomato!), but instead of making a tuna fish sandwich or eating some hard boiled eggs, or anything at all, I ate nothing . . . which primed me to snarf down all that chocolate. SIGH - I wish I could take it back now, but I think I am starting to learn about myself and my eating habits.

Also learning that husband may not be able to bring home those treats or he'll have to hide them.

Trying to see the positive side of this!

Those lessons can REALLY help you engineer your life to make staying on plan in the future as easy as possible. So yes, there is a positive side. Back on plan tomorrow, get rid of any baked goods or ask him not to bring them, and have emergency backup dinners on hand!

I don't think there is always a reason, just the food tastes so good and you probably haven't had a chocolate in awhile.

If you had a small piece of a chocolate bar everyday for a few months you'd probably get sick of them.

If your husband insists [I]he[I] wants to be able to have those things you can't, you might consider freezing them. It's easy enough for him to take one or two baked goods out of the freezer, but they would be out of your sight.

Oh yeah, that stuff has got to be strictly off limits to you. I'd ask him to not bring them home or throw them in the trash if he insists. Better to be in the waste can than for you to be the waste can. You now know they do you LOTS more harm than good and you do not need them!!!

And yes, staying satisfied and satiated is a big part of adhering to a healthy lifestyle.

Sounds like you've learned some valuable lessons that will begin to help you from here on in.

If I told myself to eat a small piece of a chocolate bar everyday, I would 1) absolutely never get sick of it and 2) day after day, I would NOT be able to limit myself to a small piece. I would want to eat the entire bar plus some...every single day. And I would not get sick of it. I do have chocolate sometimes, but I know that it's a very rare treat. And when I have it, I HAVE it. Chocolate sundae with hot fudge and chocolate chips, perhaps? Again, it's not off limits, but it's very rare. I love chocolate, and tiny daily pieces would be torture for me. I can live with substantial rare treats. That's just how my brain works.

And there are definitely valuable lessons to be learned. EMBRACE the crummy tummyache and guilt and regret. Savor them and reflect on how this made you feel. Ask yourself, was the taste of the chocolate bars worth feeling like this?

The next time you see a no-no food that you could eat, recall what you're feeling right now. Force yourself to ask the question "will it be worth it to feel like garbage after and feel regretful and guilty?"

As I said above in my spheel about chocolate...I have very rare and very significant planned cheats. About once a month, I pick a day a few weeks in advance and turn myself loose. If I want three plates at a Chinese buffet and ice cream after, shoot, go for it. And throughout the month, I eat clean to "earn" my glorious cheat day. I imagine all the fried greasy delicious foods I'll eat. And yea, I might make it to the Chinese buffet, but you know what? When I'm actually faced with the decision of eating three plates of nutritionally worthless greasy chicken or not, my brain automatically remembers how nasty I feel after eating food like that and how I feel guilty and wish that I hadn't of eaten it. So even on my cheat day, I make MUCH better decisions (even when I had fully planned on going crazy) just because I dread that oh-no-what-have-I-done feeling afterward.

So yes, feeling like this is a bummer, but you'll feel better soon. Just this one night is hardly going to make a blip in your weight loss progress. So it's not the end of the world. But remember the lessons you learned :)

NEVER. LOL! In fact, I typically have one Godiva truffle every day. I've done this for months and months in a row. I never get tired of it.

This works for me. I often have one piece of chocolate after dinner, and knowing that I am going to get that high-quality treat I don't feel compelled to eat anything else that is bad for me during the day. And as for overeating Godiva? I remind myself that 32 truffles costs me $76. I can't afford to eat more than one a day. And of course I also remind myself how awful I feel about myself when I do go too far.

In the end, everyone has to figure out what works best for them. Not eating chocolate for long periods of time leads me to binge. Knowing there is a "cheat" day out there for me doesn't work. Staying full all day for me doesn't work. But eating a little chocolate every day does work—for me. I'll still let myself go hog wild every once in a while, but I feel the desire to do that very rarely when I eat this way. This weekend I had my first actual cheat day in six months.

The other reason it works for me is that I don't develop a guilt complex about dessert. If I stay away from it 99% of the time, then I find it very difficult to let myself have a treat one day when I want to. I feel such guilt over ending my perfect streak that I forgo indulging. And after having this happen a number of times, it typically leads me to binge out of frustration down the road. I don't want to feel bad about having a little fun once in a while, and I don't want to binge. So I do what works for me: I eat about 100 calories of chocolate every day. I eat it slowly, I savor it, and when it's gone I'm done.