For my weight loss journey, (since September '18, down about 30 lbs), I decided to do CICO and aim for around 1500 calories a day, considering my weight and activity and all that. I've been great at writing down my calories (I tried the Lose It app but it tended to overestimate my TDEE and I ended up only losing 1 lb one month, so I'm back to pen and paper which works for me.) I have noticed a couple of things about my experience with cheat days, cravings, etc that I wanted to share here:
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About once a month, I do a 'no counting' day. I don't necessarily binge or go crazy, but if I know I'm going to a party, or somewhere special with high calorie stuff, it's nice to have that room to just enjoy the day without fussing. I heard someone once say that something to this effect - "one day's food isn't going to make you skinny, and neither is one day's food going to make you fat." I had a no count day a few days ago, had some donuts I haven't had in months, and loved them. They were horribly bad for me, high in calories, and absolutely delicious. And surprisingly, I was glad to get back to saner eating and counting the next day.
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I heard something else that made a lot of sense - don't screw up twice. We all have off days, off meals, cravings, bad decisions. Allow yourself the 'mistake', but don't compound it by giving up and making that same mistake the next day, and the next day. That's how we slip back into bad eating, is by saying 'well I screwed up by having that xyz yesterday, I'm useless, might as well have another one today."
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No food should be off limits - sometimes a small bag of cheetos is exactly what you need in your life. Just add it to the calorie count and keep going. I find that even though it's a bit more expensive to have smaller servings of things around, it's better than having the jumbo bag around that's all to easy to keep dipping into while watching tv.
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I don't 'eat back' calories from exercise, even on days when I swim and bike. It's really not a good idea. Exercise is great, but it's not a huge factor in weight loss.
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I'm somewhat of an emotional eater, and sometimes I really crave things just based on wanting them, not on hunger. I have great willpower, but sometimes I sort of know I won't be in the right frame of mind to 'resist'. So sometimes I thwart myself a bit - I pop a Halls lozenge and let the strong menthol flavour sort of 'ruin' the tastebuds temporarily. Just try eating something yummy after you've had a lozenge. You either won't do it, or you won't eat much more of it.
I don't know if these are helpful, I just wanted to share my thoughts after having (finally) some success losing weight.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2D4CgFe
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