I started a few days ago knowing I'd overdone it over Christmas. I am still burning that off. It's tempting to try to speed up that process, but I committed to being accountability buddy for my best friend from college during this. We were going to try this together two years ago, when we weighed the same amount, but he has put on 5 lbs while I've lost a bunch of weight. I feel like if I tell him I just had 700 calories today while he's struggling to get down to 1700, it will send the message that some people are just better at this, which isn't true. It's really about learning things that work for you. I really want to help him with this.
It's not like he's constantly eating trash. He has oatmeal with collagen for breakfast, a pear for a snack, cauliflower crust pizza instead of regular, and so on. Then he has a huge blowout and feels like he's just bad at dieting. And the truth is, he is, but not for the reason he thinks.
As an example. We were both doing good the first day. The second day, they had a family takeout night and he ended up eating a huge meal and blowing his calorie goal with "burrito/tacos". So we talked about what went wrong and what to do differently next time.
His answer, predictably, was that he needs more willpower. I disagree, and I think this is a really important point for people who are new to this and have a long way to go.
The issue isn't that you didn't have willpower, the issue is that you know you don't have the willpower to stop yourself from breaking your calorie goal at night, and once you break that goal, you give yourself permission to just say #### it and fall back into bad habits.
Let's go back to the start of the day when you had a 690 calorie breakfast, and a 400 calorie lunch, and a 100 calorie snack. What if you'd started with that 320 calorie breakfast you had yesterday, and a 400 calorie lunch, and skipped the snack? Your calorie goal is 1680, so you'd have had 960 calories left. Now go to Moe's and instead of the 1000 calorie homewrecker burrito, get a homewrecker Jr with double chicken, and load it up with black beans, rice, corn salsa and cheese and guacamole for 664. Then add on a loaded up beef taco on a corn tortilla for about 290. Guess what, you stayed under your goal for the day.
Well, I didn't know that we were getting takeout. Sure, but that is still under your control. When you eat that big breakfast, you're saying "I am having this now instead of later". Not "I'm having this now, and I hope I can stay good later". You usually have willpower in the morning, use it. And if you go over, then just plan your day knowing that today's not a day I can have a big takeout for dinner. If you don't dump all the treats from your diet, you won't feel like every takeout night is an opportunity that you can't pass up. And you can still have something. Like maybe you still have enough calories left over to get two tacos, or the jr homewrecker, but not one of each. The reason we track our calories is so we can see what we've eaten and how much we have left for something like this, and make good decisions when it comes up.
The mindset isn't that you need to deprive yourself of "treats". It won't work and you dont have to to start. You didnt develop all of your bad habits overnight and you aren't going to quit them suddenly, either. Acknowledge that you eat big meals at night, and make small improvements. The jr homewrecker vs the homewrecker. Just the jr homewrecker instead of a little of each. Maybe cutting down on the rice, or having a burrito bowl instead of the tortilla.
You can go to McDonald's, if that's something hard to give up. If you really want that 1000 plus calorie value meal, just plan for it. But even if you don't have a thousand calories left you can get a cheeseburger or an egg mcmuffin for 300 calories, instead of the big Mac for 550 or the mccrispy chicken clubhouse for 640. Get a small fries for 230 calories instead of the large for 490. Yeah, it's less. But you get to eat McDonald's on your diet without starving yourself the rest of the day.
Some of this might sound obvious to you if you're reading this, but it's not obvious for everyone. The disconnect between what I eat in the morning and what I have left for calories at night is a big hurdle for people. I routinely try to save 800 to 1000 calories at night because I want the freedom later in the day when my willpower suffers. There are also mornings where I want French toast or something. I guess I'm having a salad tonight. No biggie, because I had a nice dinner last night and I can have another tomorrow. That's a sustainable way of thinking. Trusting yourself to have some magic willpower is not.