To all those feeling guilty after a Christmas calorie blowout, just remember, a couple of days of binging will not hurt your progress. The same way a couple days of eating will not help your progress.
I would suggest that you chill out, reset and put all that cake to good use during a workout.
Below are some Dos and Don’ts for after you felt you ate a bit too much.
DO
- Drink plenty of water
- Make your next meal better
- Eat extra veggies
- Crush your training session
- Reflect on what happened
- Learn from your mistake
DON’T
- Feel guilty
- Beat yourself up
- Bounce from one extreme to the other
- Eat as little as possible
- Do extra hours of cardio
- Give up on your goals
Most of us have probably had at least one incident of eating way too much. The good news is you can always come back from a nutritional binge.
You do want to drink plenty of water, get right back on track, have a stellar workout and learn from your mistake so you can do better. Some nonjudgmental reflection can provide insight as to why and how the overeating occurred, and then you can come up with a preventative strategy moving forward. For example, if you cleaned off an entire bag of chips because you waited too long between meals, you could make sure you keep a healthy snack on hand in the future to help tide you over so you can make more nutritious choices.
You don’t want to beat yourself up about it and then punish yourself with extreme cardio and calorie restriction. This will lead you down a very slippery slope. Overeating followed by over-restriction eventually begets more overeating. It’s not fun bouncing from one extreme to the other, and you’ll spend your days either immensely bloated and uncomfortable or weak and depleted. Placing unnecessary and ridiculous restrictions on yourself all the time is unhealthier than sneaking a piece of chocolate into your daily intake.
Starving yourself through the week and avoiding all the foods you enjoy only to binge on the weekend is unhealthier than satisfying yourself in moderation each day.
Practice compassion and gently nudge yourself back in the right direction. Remember, nothing with nutrition is ever unfixable.
