I had a terrible weekend food wise. I did not stick to my diet at all and paid the price for it by gaining 2 lbs. I forced myself to the gym today...but it wasnt easy! HELP!

What do you do to get over bad weekends?

Get back on track on Monday.

Seriously. You ate what you ate, and there's no point in dwelling on it. All you can do is choose to make better choices tomorrow.

I put in a good workout session, nothing over the top just a nice, strong session and be done with it. You just gotta move on. You don't want to spend good energy making yourself feel bad. It might revv your metabolism a bit and help your loss in the long run. If you just have to do something, observe how your body reacts to it and make notes.

I agree, it is over move on and get back on track in the morning.

Yeppers ... the same as above -- I just move on and eat better the next day; maybe adding a little more walking in for measure.

Yes, I'd follow it up with a more strict than usual week, and throw in some exercise too if you can.

If you think you are retaining water from sodium, I'd eat lots of asparagus and put some lemon in your water this week to help wash away the excess fluids.

I purposely let myself have a meal or two off plan during the weekend so that if I indulge just enough it's kind of like motivation to stay on plan the rest of the week But when I do have a bad weekend, I try to cut back a little in the next few days. I focus on the factors that led me to go off plan, analyze how I could do better next time and just look ahead. There's no changing the past so you should try to put your energy into positives.

I would keep it simple and just get back to my regular routine Monday. I would try to keep any extra treats this week down to a minimum as well.

The workout is a very good start. For me, I don't want to waste the workout effort, so that helps whip my eating back into shape. The hardest part is stopping the bad eating trend-- the first time you decide to eat an OP meal, you're starting to dig yourself out.

I usually spend the first two days come back from going off plan eating *extremely* cleanly and lots and lots of water to help flush out the excess sodium and I drop my calories by about 400/day for those first 2 days. Then I go back onto my regular meal plans.

I will also double up on my work outs to try to work off the excess calories that I ate so I don't really set myself back.

Other than that - I just remind myself that I'm only human and that the only thing that matters is after I fall, I get back up.

Pretty much what everyone has said already!

Dust myself off. Take a deep breath. Charge on forward starting with a healthy breakfast, or time working out.

I'd immediately jump on 3FC and be accountable. Express some frustration. And then... let it go.

Just follow my healthy plans as normal.

get right back on plan and don't think about it

normal people who don't have to concern themselves with weight loss have extremely high calorie days paired with low calorie days -- a few extra calories here and there is nothing to worry about in the long run so long as you do not allow it to become a habit.

I agree. And a workout always helps get my mind back in place.

I also can have a delay in seeing the scale move up if I've overindulged, so I have to keep that in mind and not freak out when and if it does happen.

No one can be perfect every day, for the rest of their lives. One of the most important lessons of my weight loss journey was to learn to forgive myself. After years of "all or nothing dieting" where any slip meant I might as well eat a cheesecake, I now forgive myself and move on. I get right back on plan at the next eating opportunity.

I remind myself that one meal did not make me fat, it was a lifetime of poor eating habits. I have corrected those habits and one meal STILL won't make me fat.

Getting back to normal as soon as possible works better for me than trying to compensate with extra strict exercise or food restriction.

It is one of the reasons I'm losing so slow. I still make a lot of mistakes, but I don't try to undo or compensate for them, because that just puts me on the crash/binge roller coaster. I starve myself because of a binge, then am so hungry that I binge, so I starve myself to make up for it, and then I'm so hungry that I binge.... and finally I get so sick of the cycle (or believe it's so hopeless) that I give up and regain the weight and then hop back on the starve/binge rollercoaster.

About 10 years ago, or so I stepped off that rollercoaster and haven't been back since (I've gotten close a time or two, but I've managed to stay off). The first couple years I stepped off the rollercoaster by stepping away from dieting completely. My weight reached it's highest point, and stabilized (I stopped gaining, but I also wasn't losing).

I was very reluctant to try weight loss again, because in my experience weight loss always resulted in even more weight gain. I knew that I couldn 't get back on the rollercoaster, so I had to try to find a way to lose weight without following the binge/starve pattern.

For me, gradual changes were the answer (even if they meant equally gradual results).

I had to stop looking at overeating as an excuse to overeat even more.

For the most part, I haven't had a "bad food weekend" in those 10 years. I can't say I never have - there've been a few, but fewer and fewer over time. Now, I can't remember the last time I decided that "I've blown it, I might as well eat whatever I want until I can start fresh on Monday."

I don't wait until the weekend is over to start fresh anymore. I remind myself that weight loss is like mountain climbing. When I slip or stumble, I know not to throw myself off the nearest cliff so I can start fresh. I remind myself that throwing myself off the cliff will only make it that much harder (or impossible) to start fresh.

It also helps me not to label food or behavior as "bad." I can acknowledge it as a mistake I would rather not have made, but when I add the "bad" label, it makes me feel as though I'm bad and stupid. And when I think I'm bad or stupid, I tend to act as if I were.

I think of overeating as an honest, understandable and normal mistake (because after all there are millions of people making this mistake every day - we can't all be horrible, morons). Just because it's normal, doesn't mean I want to keep doing it. I want to be extraordinary, not normal (but I don't have to hate myself when out of instinct or habit I fall into normal behavior. I just have to get back to extraordinary as quickly as I can).