Yesterday I ate 3600 calories and the sky did not fall on me!!!

Yesterday was my little girls 4th birthday. I live in Italy so to get american treats is a special day. We had 20 kids over and I made tons of choclate chip cookies, peanut butter on ritz crackers, pop corn, and we had pizza, hot dogs, chips, cake, pasteries and tons of other terrible terrible things. I tried, I really did try to resist, then the dam broke and I could not help myself. I gourged and said what the hell and I feasted on sugar and white flour. It was worth it to have her on my lap and feeding me cake that was at least 200 cal per spoon, spoon after spoon. Her smile told me that an extra day or two to reach my goal was a small price to pay to have a blast with her all the little rugrats...and today at weigh in, with my eyes almost closed, I looked at the scale and... not much worse than a normal weekend. I won't do it again for a long time. but it was really a wonderfull day.

It does sound like a fun time was had by all -- including you.  Every once in a while a loss of control can help you regain that control -- and feel better about your lifestyle choices.

I'm gald you had a great time - if you had turned it all down, you wouldnt have enjoyed yourself as much and you would have resented your diet.  Everyone needs to have a good old blow out from time to time.  It is encouraging to hear that it didn't have a massive effect :-)

Thanks to all.. the thing I forgot about was ...leftovers.. arrrrggghhhh I just walked in and the fridge is full of all this stuff.. run run as fast as I can outside.....lol

Two things I have recently learned (and I am 47!)--

One, parties do not HAVE to revolve around food (granted, your party for your daughter was a very special occasion, but...)

Two, I try to give away all of my leftovers to my guests when they leave!

Tonight my son surprised me with a phone call...he is coming for dinner. He is in the Army so we never know when (if) we will see him again. I invited my in-law, etc. I am fixing his favorite foods (see--I don't ALWAYS follow #1 above!) BBQ ribs, homemade mac and cheese, green beans and salad (those are healthy!), french bread, AND RUM CAKE! I am cooking the ribs for ever and they are really lean. I will eat two or three and a spoon of mac and cheese and enjoy the gr. beans and salad. After dinner, I will fix a lunch for my husband for tomorrow and send the rest home with the others!

Hey, michaelinitaly, good for you!  Sounds like you really had a great time with your daughter and you didn't pay the price for it too bad.  :)  You sound like such a good dad.

ZOMG carolann5111 I didn't even think of rule number 1!  They DON'T?!?!?  XDDDDDD I'm so bad!  But meep, I'm going home Friday for like 6 days and my dad... my dad spoils me SO BAD.  Like right before I left, right?  He makes this like, rack and a half of ribs (those are my FAVORITE).  Well, I ate four of them.  I was like, yep, I'm good.  He's like, hey, look, there's like five left!  Who wants them!  I'm like, you do, you've only eaten two... he's like, no, you eat them.  I'm like, Dad, I can't eat five more ribs!  He goes, well when you're at college and eating gross food you can think about how good those are!  So he gives like one to my mom and the other four to me, and yeah... I ate them... so sue me.  But y'know, nothing happened.  Go fig.  Sometimes it's totally worth it.

D'oh!  I thought birthday party food didn't have any calories!  I know I read that somewhere...

Seriously, sounds like it was a great party, and because it didn't cause you to lose sight of your goal and fall "off the wagon" as it were, it's actually a good thing.  The fact is, birthday parties are part of life, and we (ok, I do, at least) need to be able to deal with the occasional splurge without turning it into a weigh of life.  (get it?  "weigh"of life?  get it?)

OK, no more puns.  I promise.

It sounds like you had a great time, and better yet the world didnt end!

I have a massive celebration coming up, being my 18th birthday where I know we will go out for dinner on the actual day and then of course the party where I will consume endless amounts of party food, not to mention all the people who will buy me alcohol!

So I have decided that for the whole rest of the month leading up to that I am going to be really really really good and save up my cals for then..

Who am I kidding I know it doesn't really work like that. But it would be cool if it did!

Kahlia let me be the first to say happy birthdayand next time I am down under, I will buy you a drink. I think it would not be wise for me to let you sit on my lap and feed me cake though. I think that you can work harder before and after your birthday to keep the damages to a minimum. For the last few days at the gym, I have pushed a little harder, ran 10 min longer each day and lifted weights for a little longer and used a little heavier weights in my sets. I am not doing it out of guilt, just my little exta motivation to make myself a little better. Happy birthday

Read your post with smiles and nods.  Just returned from 5 days in Florida last night where, with my boy friend and his family, we celebrated his mother's 87th birthday. We did it very thoroughly too!  Gaylord Palms Hotel buffet, my favorite things:  Coconut shrimp, breads with hummus, the creamiest flan ever created, Tre Leche cake...oh my gawd.  Now I'm back home and three pounds heavier, but the difference is, like you, I don't feel badly!  I would have in the past and it would have escalated and I would have over eaten for DAYS.  But back to weights, treadmill, journaling and eating.  I'm still even on my graph trend line believe it or not for my goal, even with the gain. (I'm about your age-55yrs old, 5'3", medicated hypothyroidism as well, and weigh 130.2 with my goal 120-125)

Family first...I'm so glad you had such a wonderful celebration with your daughter.  Those moments will last forever.  Best to you.

That's awesome! It's so important to let your child see you have a normal relationship with food!  Kids are so observant- They will pick up whatever food/body issues that you have. 

Don't be tricked by saying "one day of cheating didn't hurt". I have been through several weeks where I kept justifying and saying I can get back on track them wham....you find out the pounds are coming back.

zxem, your so right, she already talks about calories in the imaginary food she cooks and on her own she has started to limit the amounts of desserts she eats. Miket53, I am sorry but disagree, one day of cheating did not hurt. In fact it helped, got me more motivated and I pushed harder and in the end, I was much better offer mentally, physically and spiritually.

I have realized that it's just too much to try and eat perfectly healthy food ALL the time, as long as it's MOST of the time.

I have a trick for taking care of big calorie days, I take the calories and "carry it over" to the next day. Of course that's a lot.. might have to carry it over for two days. Then the next day (or two ) you eat under. It's normally pretty easy to take care of most of it the next day because your not very hungry after eating all that the day before.  Then you end up staying on track as if nothing happened.

I'm totally with you.

Sometimes it just isn't right to resist, you've got to let things go.

The great trick is not to let yourself be consumed by guilt.  That's what happens- just like you said, it isn't really all that horrible for your goals (especially where you're a guy), but you just have to hop back on.  The temptation is to keep doing it over a couple of days (with, for example, the leftover cake), or you'll just have trouble getting back to eating normally, because your body experienced that huge, nice sugar rush, and it wants it again.

When you splurge, splurge happily, but then don't feel guilty or bad- you're not!  You had a lot of fun!  It was great!  Just pick up where you left off. :D

Double post.

Whoops!

XD

Life is sometimes a celebration and yep we tend to celebrate with food.  I think we make a mistake if we let the diet own us,  it gives it to much power.  So one day we go way over,  that day is over,  go on, enjoy it, don't let it own you either,  get back on track.  Also,  I have found if I am good, good, good, on my calories,  and I stall at a certain weight,  if I go off for a day then back on it seems to kick my metabolism back into gear and I start losing again.  When I eat something I know is really, really fattening,  I do try to not keep eating it,  I don't go for seconds, but I enjoy every bite I do eat.  If you are going to go off for a day you did it right, totally enjoy the day.  AND 3600 calories is a little over a lb.......that's all,  so now life will go on you are back on track and you enjoyed the Birthday...win win....it's life not a dress rehearsal.....well just my two bits here..........

Yep you are definitely right about working out, I plan to continue the routine as normal right up to and on the day of the actual event, and then increase the intensity of it slightly after to help burn up the cals. I think its important not to get distracted and think 'well, I'm just going to ruin it all soon anyway so whats the point' beforehand, so that the celebration period doesn't end up longer than it should!

Original Post by miket53:

Don't be tricked by saying "one day of cheating didn't hurt". I have been through several weeks where I kept justifying and saying I can get back on track them wham....you find out the pounds are coming back.

If that's the case it most likely didn't stay with "one day of cheating" ;-)

wow you did eat alot. But I bet it was a great party.