controlling the off day

hello again,

i have decided to finally post this, as it has been troubling me for the past weeks, months even. i have finally come here to seek some advice.

first of all, about me: i am happy to say that i am athletic, sporty and have been a regular at bodybuilding/fitness for many years now. i have no weight issue.

however, as many of you know, a common thing to do for people following a strict diet is to have a once a week 'off day'. a day where you arent as strict on your diet, and you have your little treats that you usually crave for.

now my problem is - i cant control these days - even if i tell myself (aloud) to take it easy and to handle the situation well, i always end up ruining the 'off day' and turning it into somekind of binge.

have any of you got similar problems? and if so, what did you decide to do about it? i know, binging comes from too much restriction - but in my case it is not so much the restriction on food, for i like healthy food and if i binge, it is never on chocolate or mcdonalds (usually on 'healthier things' but way too much - or recently, bread... not so good).
however, in my case it is that somewhat my mind cant cope with the 'ok you have got one day to enjoy, so take EVERYTHING'.

curing this would mean being way more relaxed with my diet and allowing myself these days more often - however, i am soo happy with my current physique, i dont want to lose it

please help,

thank you

I don't think you'd be binging if your diet wasn't restricting you from eating things your body needs. Figure out what they are, add them to your daily intake.

thank you katherine. i really appreciate your post

Do you count calories as part of your normal fitness? How do you control your intake on those "normal" days?

For me, what works is to simply keep counting on the "off" days, but simply allow myself to count to a much higher number.

i sometimes do.
i used to weigh everything before i put it in my mouth - and of course counted calories. though, what was the mean problem was that i wanted too much, too soon, if you know what i mean. i was in good shape, looking back, i had nothing to complain about, but for some reason i wanted more - getting more ripped - more definition.. better looks?

i ended up undereating, feeling bad, looking bad. now i tend to be a bit more easy on the counting, and try to listen to my gut, rather than focusing on numbers.
dont get me wrong, i never went to the extreme of serious anorexia. it is just my characteristic to do everything as good as possible and to prove everyone including myself what i am capable of achieving... and what i got wrong was that i thought eating less was the key to achieve these goals.

personally, i think these occasional binge-moments root back to the days i have just described to you. it haunts me a little bit, as I as a person took a bit of a hit from the whole thing.

(i never counted the 'off days' as i usually went to eat out - hence i couldnt type in the exact food)

i thank you for your reply, it means alot to me just to get this out.

I can totally relate to your post, hendrix, as I've tried in the past to have an "off day" and many times had the same result as you & totally overeating or binging. One thing that worked for me in the past was to instead have only an "off meal". I'd have it for a dinner as even though its probably better to have the excess earlier in the day, I couldn't then turn it off & would be hungrier all day. I also found that if I up my calories all week, I'm less inclined to overeat on an "off meal".

For me though, through the holidays, my "off days" started outnumbering my "on days" & I realized that I was addicted to sugar & have since stopped eating added sugar completely. While I know some say this itself can lead to binging, for me it has worked wonders. After being off it for just a few weeks (I'm sugar free 8 weeks now), my cravings decreased dramatically. While i can still at times overeat healthy foods, I'm realizing this is usually a form of emotional eating which I'm now working through. Having recently read the book "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat" about mindful eating, using the techniques there have helped me tremendously too.

Hope some of this helps you & feel free to send me a friend request if you'd like to discuss it more. Good Luck!

That's a great suggestion, Ruhu.

And Hendrix - I think MANY of us (including me) can relate to losing grip on the off days. This is why I try to count them. I don't ALWAYS succeed, but I try.

If we didn't have some sort of eating disorder, we probably wouldn't be writing in this very forum, would we? We can all relate one way or the other.

Yep, I want to have the odd off-day but IME they often go-onto 2, then a week etc etc. If I limit myself to a single meal (preferably a single course) then I seem to control it better.

Well I think you have to do what works for you, but when I think about the times in my life when I've had the most success, there weren't "off days" and I wasn't on a "diet," I just had an eating plan/strategy that made sense for me that I followed all the time.

If you don't do something every day, how do you know you're not just "starting to quit?"

Not saying what's best for you, just saying what's worked for me.

adam, thank you very much for your suggestion. i am very much working towards a sensible 'eating plan' as you have said. it is definately the way forward. especially when you consider, you have your whole life ahead of you ( if you get what i mean)

and to everyone else. i really really appreciate all your replies. it helps me alot just to get this out of my system. my actually putting my issue into words, i can somewhat approach it, deal with it even.

and hell yes, a cheat MEAL per week sounds good

I developed the same issue you have a few months back. It left me feeling guilty every time I binged. I was miserable and my fat loss stopped. Recently I have been more flexable with my diet and listen to my body. Not being so restrictive on the "dieting" days helped me to be better about the not as restricted days. I currently don't have planned off-days/cheat meals I just listen to my body and when it wants more food I give it more food. Also, I recently took a break from my diet for about 2 weeks. It was very beneficial. I wish you luck!