What's your excuse for a cheat?
 

Hello All:

Have you had a cheat and if so, what was your excuse? I have been on Atkins for 98 days. I have had two cheat days during the diet, although I made it 77 days initially without a cheat. I was looking over my own journal today and realized, like most of us, I have had my share of challenges over the period, yet have for the most part, stayed true to the diet. Sometimes I think our minds try to justify getting off the diet because of some event in our life that we think we can't handle without a cheat. Here are the things that have happened to me since I started the diet, and I was able to overcome the desire to use them as an excuse to cheat!

3 Birthday Parties (no cake, no ice cream!)
1 karaoke party
1 family reunion (out of town)
The FLU
1 Tooth Extraction
1 Trip out of the country for a week
5 Domestic Business Trips
A Vesectomy!

The last one, the vesectomy, I layed around and felt sorry for myself for two days. Several times I thought... who could blame me if I ordered a pizza and ate it in my condition? Yet, I realized I could fool everyone else, but not myself. Mike

Normally I have great will power. But going to the bar is truly my downfall. After a while I start drinking myers and coke or vodka crans. I seriously cannot control myself when I drink. Im gettng better though, Ive been sticking to my miller lights. Other then that I dont cheat, sigh it really sucks. Im in college, I like to go party sometimes (i know i dont have to drink, but sometimes its fun to be social), so hopefully Ill keep doing well.

Hi Skibunnie:

Haven't talked to you in a while. You know, if you mix the vodka with a diet drink there wouldn't be any carbs in it. My wife drinks Vodka with the Crystal Lite Cranberry with a lime. Maybe 1 carb per serving? When we go out to dinner or to a bar, she brings her mix with her and tells them to use it! Good luck... Mad

1 Baby Shower
1 Bar
3 Roadtrips
1 time just cause I wanted to eat Oreo's

My cheats have involved being around high carb food and the smell getting to me Chinese and Mexican food especially when I'm hungry. Also impulse eating, finding food unexpectedly at work like tortilla chips or chocolate chip cookies -their in my mouth before I realize what I've done.

My worst cheats come from rationalizing that I'll just have one of something.

What gets me is living in Vegas. Several years ago this town decided to change it's image from being the place to get a $3.99 prime rib buffet to being a world class dining destination. And that it has. My wife and I are slowly exploring the world of fine dining here and can almost always find low carb dishes that are truely excellent. The problem is the desserts. The resteraunts here make desserts that give new meaning to the word, where every bite is an explosion of sinful flavor. We try to resist but occasionally we must indulge ourselves in these masterfull creations. The up side is that they have completly ruined dessert for us at any ordinary resteraunt and we are never tempted to cheat for some piece of key lime pie or fried ice cream.

My cheats have been because I had that one beer more than I should have--you know the one that takes your brain & turns the smart thinking button off. No more for me during the week at all! I know if I stick to this during the week & show some weight loss that even if I have a couple beers on the weekend I will be too happy with the sucess to let the beer ruin my eating habits----think Im trying to talk myself into believing this or what???????!!!!!!! :lol:

Never have cheated, not even when I had a miserable virus and couldn't stomach the thought of anything but tea & toast. H found some Arnold's LC wheat bread, and a piece of that toasted took care of me for several days. My big fear is that "one" bite will doom me to posting a thread similar to "I lost 70 lbs and then cheated...and then gained it all, plus more, back." There really is a thread or two like that on the board. When I even think of "one bite" I race to the laptop and read that post. Takes care of me just fine.

My cheats have been when I have gotten drunk and forgot i was on the diet. oops!

I cheated this last weekend... I think i had alcohol poisoning... <see journal> and I ate a chicken pot pie... couldn't keep water or anything else down for 48 hours... and stayed in bed on top of that... the only thing i could think that would be gentle on my stomach was the pot pie in the freezer... It did settle my stomach...
Plus i was down 5lbs from Friday morning til Today... I am sure it is water weight... no liquid or food for 2 full days... i will not update my stat's... since not sure what the scale will do tomorrow..

I am such an idiot... :(

I liked the advice I read somewhere online:

"You can cheat whenever you want...you just have to eat it naked, in front of a mirror."

Works for me!
However, I have been:

on a road trip...three green apple martinis
dinner at my Dad's...my stepmom's world class lasagna
brother's birthday...B&J's Pistachio Pistachio ice cream

However, each time there was at least three weeks since any cheats...I got right back on the wagon...and I didn't do it again for at least three or four more weeks.
I think the biggest danger is not being able to stop.
As long as I keep my portions small and don't indulge for more than one meal, I am still losing. Or getting smaller, which is the main thing. Also, I am very fussy. I don't Indulge for just anything! It has to be what I consider fantastic stuff.

My only departure from this WOE was a planned cheat, a homemade "refeed" to try to break a stall. I had breaded chicken fingers and a slice of garlic bread. Still stuck with Diet Coke, though, because I really do feel like sugar is poison to me now.

Anyone out there considering this? Don't. It was a disasterous flop!

Groggy60 posted this info on a thread about refeeding. Anyone thinking of "cheating" because they want to try a refeed might be interested. It isn't as simple as eating high carb. Go to the thread "Anyone tried a refeed" and see Groggy60's links explaining the proper way to do it.

I've been on ATkins for just 3 weeks but I ended up cheating this last weekend. My very sweet bf came over to visit and insisted on baking a chess pie for me coz he knew I love when he bakes me chess pie.

We were so debating about the ingredient substitutions. We compromised and used some liquid syrup instead of regular sugar. I just started with Atkins so my pantry wasn't well lc carb stocked yet. We ended up using a pre-made pie crust. Eeww. We baked the pie around 2 a.m. so no point on going out to find lc substitutes as well.

But it was his gesture that really made me crack and give in to eating the pie. Added to the high carb pre-made pie crust, he insisted on adding 2 tblspn flour to hold the pie together! We were chuckling over that.

We actually made two versions of the pie. One high carb which ended up perfect as usual and was his and mine turned out a lumpy marshmallowy chess pie!!!

I ate half of it during the weekend but was just scraping off the filling from the crust. LOL :) And knocking out myself for the 2 tlbspn of flour in the filling!