The realization that you can’t be on/off track and you are ALWAYS doing CICO, whether you’re tracking or not, has been helping my weight loss efforts tremendously.

The realization that you can’t be on/off track and you are ALWAYS doing CICO, whether you’re tracking or not has been helping my weight loss efforts tremendously.

I figured I’d share a mindset tip that has been helping me a lot! Hopefully it will resonate with at least one person, but if not, it will probably help me just writing it out!

So just a very brief background on my old mindset! I was EXTREMELY all or nothing. I would set my calories super low (underestimating my activity levels and choosing to take a 1000 cal/day deficit). I would do great for awhile, staying “on track” and losing 2-3 pounds a week. Then I would have a day of very strong cravings, hit my low calorie goal by noonish, then say “fuck it” for the rest of the day and binge on take out. The next day, I would swear to get right back on track but I would still be having strong craving from the day before. I would do the exact same thing and binge that night. Eventually, I would be completely off track until my next burst of motivation came to lose weight. I would usually be “off track” for at least a couple months at a time.

Now for how I think about things now.

Because of how biology/physics work, humans are ALWAYS on CICO, whether they’re tracking their calories or not. Why am I constantly in a cycle of either eating at a deficit or not tracking and gaining back 20 pounds at a time?? I have literally never maintained one weight for a significant period of time in my entire life.

I’ve decided to switch my calories to my maintenance calories on days that I’m have strong cravings and/or struggling with emotional eating. There are still days that I eat well over maintenance calories, but I’ve still set a minimum behavior goal of tracking my food ALWAYS, even if it’s way over my goal. Because like I said above, our bodies are always tracking our calories, so it’s good to be aware of the number (for me, at least. Please don’t listen to this advice if you’re prone to be obsessed with numbers).

When I have a day that I’m not able to control binge eating, I just track my binges, and set my calories for maintenance the next day. It usually takes me a couple days to stick to my maintenance calories just because I tend to have strong cravings for a while after binging, but I DO NOT try to go straight back into a deficit. Once I’m able to hit my maintenance calories for a few days in a row, I go back to a 500-750 calorie/day deficit. It works every time I’ve done it! No more getting “off track” for months at a time and gaining back 20+ pounds. I may put back on 5 pounds, but they come off fairly quickly and the binging cycle is so so so much shorter.

Tl;dr We only have one life and every action we take in a day is either moving us towards or away from our weight loss goals. There is no “on track” or “off track.” We make several decisions every single day that affect our weight, but as long as we don’t just say “fuck it” and binge eat for months, we will all eventually hit our goals :)

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