Let's just get this out of the way...
I binged Thursday. I was six days short of my three month mark.
Yes, I am disappointed in myself. But, I am not going to wallow. Beating myself up will not undo it. I am choosing instead to focus on what I learned:
This is not the end of the world. One bad day is ONE day. One good day does not result in anyone losing ALL the weight, and one bad day does not result in anyone gaining ALL the weight.
It is not an excuse to say "screw it" and keep eating like the end of the world is nigh. That is how I gain all the weight.
If I am going to binge it is most likely going to occur on a day when I do not exercise. Another good reason to exercise!
It felt good to be eating whatever I wanted...sort of. There was a brief punch of adrenaline at the prospect of eating all the things, but it was significantly less intense than it used to be. I am going to try to remember that the next time I feel like I want to binge. The 'high' was not that high.
Despite not wanting to, I tracked the binge. I put everything on MFP. This was painful, but also kind of helpful. First, the actual number of calories was not as bad as I would have guessed. I ended up just below 3000 on the day. This is not good, but nor is it cataclysmic. If you had asked, I would have said I'd eaten 6,000. I think this is part of my overall 'black and white' mentality when it comes to food. I am either good or I am a Titanic failure. The second reason it was helpful was because it made the 'screw it' mentality less likely. Yesterday was just another day. It got tracked like the 64 days that preceded it.
And now I am moving on.
In the middle of last month, I made some commitments:
1. Continue my binge free streak
So clearly that did not happen. BUT... I can start another binge free streak today and hope to beat my (nearly) three month record.
2. Track calories without becoming obsessive. I will reduce my calorie allotment to reflect my increased exercise (exercise calories get added to your MFP goal). I will experiment with greater accuracy in calorie counting (weighing/measuring) but I will stop immediately if it starts to become obsessive.
I have continued to do this. Today is my 65th straight day of tracking on MyFitnessPal. I decreased my daily calories to 1450 to reflect my additional exercise calories. I have not done much in the way of weighing and measuring, but I am going to keep it as a goal because aiming for greater accuracy is a good plan.
3. Continue to lose weight at a pace that keeps me sane and happy. This is not a diet. It is my life.
As of about a week ago, my weight had dropped again, but by just a tiny amount. I went from 150.4 at last check to 149.8. Something tells me I would not be there if I jumped on a scale right now! I will check in on this in a few days. The overall trend remains steady and/or downward. And that is good. I would love for the weight to be falling right off, but I know the tradeoff there for me is being unhappy and VERY likely to binge because I have to reduce my calories to around 1200 a day.
4. Increase my exercise intensity by increasing the incline for my walk portion to 6 or 6.5. I will maintain the 1% incline for my runs and continue to add run time.
Done! I have increased my incline to 6% for my walking portions. I have stayed at a 1% incline for runs, but have increased my time spent running. I am currently at 31 min run/29 min walk done at a 5.7 pace or 10:30/mile. I look forward to working out 95% of the time! :)
So, as part of my commitment to just getting right back on track, I am updating those goals:
1. Start a new binge free streak today. My previous record was 84 days.
2. Continue to track calories and experiment with greater accuracy by weighing/measuring. Reduce my calorie goal again once I am burning 500 calories through exercise.
3. Continue to lose weight at a pace that keeps me sane and happy.
4. Start adding time or intensity to the run portion of my workouts. Instead of adding one minute each day, I am going to add 1:30 OR stay at my time and increase my pace to 6.0 (10 min/mile). I will continue to walk the rest of the hour at 3.7, but increase the incline to 6.5%
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