Failed Miserably!

[tEkNiQ]

Well, I completely fell off track on Friday...
I'm really diappointed in myself. My wife and I went out to lunch at Applebee's. I had a Atkins friendly lunch. Then, I opened the menu and saw something that just literally took my breathe away. A large warm chocolate chunk cookie with 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream, chocolate mocha fudge and whipped cream. I debated for several minutes about getting it and ultimately decided against it. However, when the waitress came and asked if we wanted anything else, I completely gave in. This then turned into the worse weekend of my life in terms of eating. I've gone so far off of the ship that I am damn near looking at it, and it's about 2 miles away from me. My goal was to meet my mini goal by the time my wife and I go on vacation in 4 weeks, and now I am completely discouraged.
I don't even know how to jump back on the wagon, and if I can even reach my mini goal over the next 4 weeks after messing up. (By the way, I weighed myself this morning, and I am LITERALLY 4 pounds up from where I was on Friday. HORRIBLE!!)
Right now, i'm up to a disgusting 251lbs. My mini goal was 230lbs at the least. Is this even attainable, or should I just start over after vacation?

[not2late]

It's up to you, whether or not you are willing to continue with Atkins or wait until after vacation.

Butt he most important thing for you do to now, is to sit down and figure out what exactly made you fall off the wagon. And then figure out coping mechanisms to deal with those triggers the next time. If you don't do this now, you'll end up as one of those people who are constantly restarting and restarting and restarting. Don't let that happen to you.

[kibskix]

you shouldn't start over after vacation, you should start over right now!

the first thing you should do is get all this self pity and aggrivation out of your system. yeah, you messed up. it made you gain (which btw probably isn't fat unless you ate a 4lb cookie). that shouldn't be a surprise, you knew cheating wouldn't do you any favors. feeling sorry for yourself and being angry at yourself won't do you any favors either, from what i've seen that attitude is one of the biggest reasons people -keep- cheating, because they get mad and go well screw it i'm not strong enough! its just an excuse to give up, don't do it! to me, a person who cheats and learns from it and keeps trying even if they mess up, isn't weak.

i know its discouraging when your take a step backwards, and you want to give up, but really think about that for a minute. its that little devil on your left shoulder using your guilt about cheating as an excuse to do it more. that really doesn't make any sense. would you cheat on your wife even more because you did it once and figured oh well whats the point? thats a stretch i know lol, but my point is the only person who will suffer if you give up because of 1 cheat is you! if you want this, you shouldn't let 1 mistake derail all the work you've done, because it -does- still count!

the secret to people who keep losing weight, and keep it off, is they keep going even in the face of hard times. don't look at this as throwing away all your hard work, because it didn't. if you didn't eat 4lbs of cookie, then you haven't gained 4lbs of fat, so don't freak out about the scale. drink a lot of water, and get back on track, up your workouts, and that cheat will only set you back a few days before ketosis is back and you're back on your way.

another idea would be to change your goals. saying you'll lose X amount of weight by X date is a dubious business. your body will lose when it feels like losing. i for example would have liked to lose 20lbs by my birthday which was about 40 days away from when i started on march 12th, because i lost relatively quickly the first time i did this, even though i cheated a few times and didn't work out.
this time, i work out and havent cheated once. my birthday is 5 days away now, and i'm only down 12lbs, so there's no way i'll be getting to 20. however, i changed goal to being smaller on my birthday this year than i was last year, and i'm going to do it.

so perhaps you should change your goal to not cheating the rest of the time before your vacation comes around. think of how crappy you'd feel if you went on vacation even heavier, you'd probably feel unhealthy, unhappy with yourself, and eat badly on vacation just to come back heavier still. but if you stay cheat free from now till then, think of how proud of yourself you will be! you'll feel more confident on vacation too!

[SunnySmile501]

It was probably the "Atkins friendly" lunch that did you in. Everything at Applebee's has sugar from the steak to the roasted veggies.

I don't like to eat out much, but my youngest brother likes to get together once in a while at a restaurant. He lets me pick, since he knows I do Atkins. I picked Applebee's the last time, thinking I could get a steak and salad.

I wasn't really hungry when we arrived. I was long past having cravings and hadn't had anything off plan in many months. I ordered the house steak (10 oz. sirloin), roasted asparagus and a side of veggies instead of potatoes. The veggies looked dry so I asked for butter, but it never came. I started eating my veggies and was surprised that they tasted so good when they looked dry and naked. Since I was talking, I ate most of my meal before I noticed that I was so stuffed that I was very uncomfortable. I hadn't really eaten that much, but I stopped just short of being sick I was so full. At that time, about 8:00 p.m., we left the restaurant and I went home.

I have a rule of not eating after dinner or after 7:00 p.m., which normally wouldn't be a problem, and since I was stuffed, shouldn't have been a problem that night. Within 30 minutes of leaving the restaurant, I suddenly was so hungry that I felt like I was starving. I started eating and couldn't stop until after 10:00 p.m., when I just forced myself to stop. It was all legal, since I didn't have anything that was not Atkins legal, but I was literally stuffing my face with food.

This took me totally by surprise, so the next day, I called Applebee's and talked to a chef. He stated that all veggie dishes contained sugar and that the steaks are coated with a glaze of salt, fresh ground pepper and SUGAR. He said that was how they finished all of their steaks. Soooo my pick of restaurant and "Atkins friendly" meal was loaded with sugar--enough to make me crave and binge eat after being crave free and on plan for over a year (with a loss of 120 pounds).

I never trust any restaurant, so I stay away as much as possible. If you are looking to be down in weight, you had better think about avoiding eating out until that time. You are not far enough into the program not to be undone by sugar in your veggies and meat.

[kibskix]

why the heck would you coat a steak in sugar!! thats the dumbest thing i've ever heard. ugh. makes me glad i never eat at applebees, but makes me worry about the carne asada steak i had at chilis last month...

[Zarabelle]

You know what? I don't think you should beat yourself up BUT I think you should understand something.... you are addicted to sugar!!! You couldn't resist that cookie and ice cream and I can 100% understand why..... Please, look after yourself and put it down to an addictive urge and get back on plan. You could put up to 1 pound a day on otherwise and I feel sure you will regret that. Anyway, good luck xx

[liv]

All veggie dishes contained sugar???? They literally added sugar to the salad?

teqnic - keep going. We all have our bummer moments what makes us successful is that we keep going.

[SunnySmile501]

Originally Posted by kibskix

why the heck would you coat a steak in sugar!! thats the dumbest thing i've ever heard. ugh. makes me glad i never eat at applebees, but makes me worry about the carne asada steak i had at chilis last month...

Many restaurants do this. It gives the steak a "crust" so they say. Sugar is also a tenderizer. Meat tenderizer has sugar as the second ingredient after salt and the papain (real tenderizer) as the last ingredient after food starch.

[SunnySmile501]

Originally Posted by liv

All veggie dishes contained sugar???? They literally added sugar to the salad?

teqnic - keep going. We all have our bummer moments what makes us successful is that we keep going.

I didn't get a salad that night, but I'm sure the salad dressing had sugar. Besides the roasted asparagus, I got the mixed grilled veggies: broccoli, summer squash, red peppers and carrots, which I didn't eat.

[kibskix]

remind me not to eat out ever again!