It is 8:30am and I have already consumed 850 calories

I have already screwed up for the day.  How am I going to be able to recover from this today????  Help!

What is done is done, try and be sensible for the rest of the day and just start afresh from tomorrow.  You know where you went wrong so just learn from it.

Personally I would have a salad for lunch, lots of lettuce and carrot and cucumber, a light dressing and maybe some ham in it for around 300 cals

Then for dinner I would have a thick soup for around 200 cals and if you want add some bread for another 200 cals.

So even with your horrendous breakfast (McD's????) you could still end up only 1450 cals for the day and remember, if you exercise you will increase your burn deficit, so 1 hour of walking negates around 200 of your mornings naughty calories :)

Ok, breathe.  Just relax for a minute.

What are your stats?  Do you work out?  Did you eat healthy foods this morning?

Eating a big breakfast isn't bad necessarily.  If you eat a big breakfast, you won't have to eat as much throughout the day.  Perhaps if you are still pretty hungry throughout the day, today can be a maintainance day?  If you exercise a bit, you could still eat quite a bit without going over. 

Just don't throw in the towel and figure you have already ruined your day so you might as well go all the way.  You haven't ruined anything. 

If you ate a big breakfast because you were hungry, you probably needed it.  If you ate a big breakfast because you just couldn't stop yourself or got something like fast food, you should think about that for a while and try to prevent that in the future. 850 for breakfast really isn't that bad though. 

twt11,

Yes, the previous posts are good supportive advice especially if you can exercise within your ability today/tonite. it will also help you mentally because it will reaffirm that you have not given up?

I wish i had logged on last week after I had an icecream binge on vacation but what is done is done. I gained a pound. Got back on the wagon last monday. Unfortunately I have limited ability to exercise due to feet injuries  but I have to work within my limits and realize it will just be a slow weight loss process for me.

I will admit trying to keep to 1500 calories/day is VERY challenging. No more peanut butter!

Don't be to hard on yourself

Cat

the body needs a shocker every once in a while...helps keep it guessing! I wouldn't suggest skipping any meals, but try to fill up on low cal stuff like veggies and eat a lot of protein for the rest of the day. Be active. Sometimes we need to just say screw it and give ourselves a cheat meal.

Want honesty? I had mcds for breakfast today. And it was yummy. But lunch is chicken and veggies, snack is a small egg white omelette and dinner will prob be lean steak w veggies. It'll be ok!

For real you're okay! Like yesterday I thought I'd blown it b/c I ate Mexican food for lunch, chips and all. But, I had exercised for an hour in the morning, didn't eat anything the rest of the day, just some sugar-free jello that night, and went to bed early (8:30 which probably saved me from eating again while getting some good sleepytime).  Haha new favorite trick...instead of dinner, go to sleep :)

I agree with some of the people who said to not sweat it. In the long run, it wont hurt you unless you do it over and over again without excersizing. (sp?) Even biking an hour at a slow pace has to burn at least 200-300 calories, or walking like lisajb74 said.

And, just eat sensible for the rest of the day like the others said :) Its very important to not skip meals!!!!

I guess my piece of advice is to just let it go. Yeah, it makes you feel bad that you did it, but most likely your body needed it. So, that should be a positive. The food you ate should give you some energy, so you could try excersizing to get rid of some calories, if you really wanted to.

Everyone has days like this :)

Just keep count of the rest of the days calories and try not to go over your target amount of calories. You'll be ok for one day.

Laugh at yourself and move on...

good for you, keep it up.Well... ok, maybe that is alittle exsisive(depending on you calorie needs), but it's good to eat the most in the morning: it gives you energy to burn more cal during the day, it makes your matablism start earlyer burning more cals, and if you screw up in the AM's you still have the whole day to fix it, insted of having to go to bed with extra cals in your tummy. So if you have to screw up, or have a high cal splurge do it in the morning and reap some rewards.

I put in the McSkillet burrito I ate this morning and it gets an F!  Eating it was one thing, but seeing an F when you input it is a real bummer.  I want A's or B's, just like school. 

Went to a baby shower today and had cake too.  I'm up to 2,000 calories by 1 p.m. and my daily goal is 1800.

I agree with everyone above who advised you not to panic. If you look-up and try the zig zag method, you'll find that the odd high calorie day is not only forgivable, but helpful when losing weight.

I used this as I lost around 100 lbs. Basically, some days you eat more, others you eat less. You log everything, and shoot for an average based on your per day deficit goal. This means you rarely eat your limit, but rather you eat over or under it in such a way that your average is attained.

It takes a little getting used to....but some days you can and should eat well over your limit, as long as you eat well under it so you maintain your average.

I did this on a monthly basis and found it kind of fun. You can actually plan for these wicked high calorie days two, three weeks in advance, and you can atone for things like 800 calorie breakfasts in just a few days.

You don't have to make up for your big breaky on the day you have it. You literally have all month to do that. It's just basic, yummy math