Having a day off?

I've not eaten anything I wasn't supposed to since Jan, sometimes drank a little much wine, and once went out of K through eating some chicken wings that I didn't realise had carbs in the sauce (duh!) Tonight I've been invited to my friend's house for dinner, she doesn't know I am low carbing, and I wasn't cheeky enough to tell her and expect something cooked to suit me. Consequently, I've a feeling when I get there it will be caribbean curry with dumplings, rice and peas. Will it harm to just eat it all for once? I am hardly going to gain the three stone back with one meal am I? Whats the worst that can possibly happen? Can I swim it off during the week? How do I shake the feelings of guilt I have for even considering eating forbidden food, let alone eating it?

Firstly remind yourself that you have come a long way and congratulations on that!

It will probably kick you out of K. But you have probably learnt many things along the Atkins journey; only eat until you are satisfied. Drink lots of water and dont drink too much alcohol. Eat slowly and try and enjoy yourself. I chose this diet as you can fit it into your life. This is one part of your life that you will need to encounter after you reach goal. Think of this as a trial meal.

Just get back on the Atkins plan tomorrow and dont let your mind make you feel guilty.

Be strong and eat sensibly where possible. You can do this.

Bren
X

Atkins himself acknowledges that there will inevitably be times in life when you will fall off the low carb wagon. If you're going to break the diet, just enjoy it and DON'T feel guilty about it!

On the other hand, if you don't feel you can shake off the guilt or if you really don't want to deal with the inevitable gain, do you think you'd be able to tell your friend about your diet? You've lost such an incredible amount already and that will be obvious to her so I'm sure she'd understand. If you wanted to try and stick to the diet, maybe you could take along a bag of salad and have just the curry without the dumplings, rice and peas. There may still be flour in it but it wouldn't be a complete carb overload.

Personally, when I go on my holidays (in t-minus 9 days and counting...) I'm also having a complete holiday from Atkins. I know I will gain, but I don't care - this is my reward for being good the rest of the year. Psychologically, I know I couldn't stick to this diet if I thought that I could never ever have fish & chips again. Having a "diet holiday" to look forward to actually helps me to stick to it the rest of the year. Now, that's quite a controversial POV and I can totally understand people being resistant to it, for a lot of people 'rewarding' yourself with food is exactly the sort of behaviour they've worked hard to free themselves of. But I also think that for this diet to work in the long term, you've got to have very positive mental associations with it and not see it as limiting or punishing. So if that entails having the very occasional (planned) break from it, then that break is actually a positive thing, an important part of your weight loss journey. Maybe looking at it like that will help you to avoid drowning in guilt?

(Sorry for rambling on a bit! )

How was your dinner???

Bren
X

Thanks guys xxx. Bren, I didn't really enjoy it, I think because I actually view carbs as poison now, and I didn't much care for the sloppy taste of everything (no sauce etc for six months). We had corn on the cob to start, then lasagne with garlic bread (nobody noticed I skipped that) salad with bits of tomato in and nobody noticed I skipped those either! Then bread an butter pudding with double cream for desert. I felt like I was on a liquid diet, it was all so wet and nothing to chew on. I am well and truly out of K now, but had a lovely night catching up with the girls, so I am on a high today regardless I will go swim for an hour today and do some freestyle, the cardio work out might help burn the glycogen a bit faster I hope!

(oh, and I think I convinced both of them to start Atkins when they saw how much I'd lost!)