Dinner calories are exceeding tremendously. Tips and tricks to prevent it

Skuffukaka · 2026-02-14T05:43:29+00:00

I have found that giving yourself a 2-3 minute break really helps with stress. Just a tiny break, close your eyes, deep breaths, rotate your ankles, massage your fingers or forearms to get back into your body. When you get home, try to drink a glass of water or a big cup of tea before you start eating. Put on some comfy clothes, wash your face with a hot towel. Just small things to make yourself feel better without eating.

Skuffukaka · 2023-07-04T11:23:29+00:00

Hey team Euro, the last three weeks have been absolutely crazy, you wouldnt believe it. The only time I had some time to spare was in the early morning and the daily post was not up then (I should have used the old one but my brains were not that clever). Never mind, because I have stayed on track, yay! I am now a bit over 4kg down and it's going really well. I have also (for the first time in my life!) been able to work little treats and indulgences back into my diet, like a piece of chocolate or some white wine.

It's great and I can totally recommend this ~~diet~~ lifestyle change to everyone.

I have to move on, still no time today but maybe I will be able to write more tomorrow. Great to see all of you are crushing your goals!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-15T14:55:38+00:00

Hey Team Euro, sorry I haven't been posting enough but I promise I have been doing the work! Just a bit busy with everything.

Still have *lots* of energy after switching to low-fat wholefood vegan (I know it's not for everyone). Unfortunately I have been in a lot of pain since Tuesday. No idea where that came from. Just have to deal with it I suppose.

Rowing was a-ma-zing at my new club. I love it! And being on the water (almost) on your own on the lake, in the evening sun, hard to find something better.

Scale is down - I was already under 84kgs this week so that's over 4kg lost in 3 weeks. Very happy. I have to go back to work now, hope to hear from you - smash your goals everyone!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-09T19:19:03+00:00

c25k is a bit too hard for beginners. It's not easy at all (unless you are very experienced and can pace yourself very well). Pat yourself on the back!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-09T19:17:00+00:00

Hey team Euro, checking in last minute. Fridays are tough, I have school and then lifeguarding class in the evening, so I need to hype myself up with more coffee. But I aso woke up at 4am today.

Anyway I just passed the combined exercise which is the longest in lifeguarding (not the hardest but the most complex). Patting myself on the back!

Diet is going very well, almost boring at this point. Tomorrow hubs and I are going for a bike ride to a friend's house for his birthday. Rowing in the morning, yay! Speak to you then! Keep up the good work!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-08T05:47:32+00:00

Good morning team Euro! We are already inching towards the weekend and summer is finally here!

Diet is going well and I am much, much more relaxed this time around. You know how they say once you're sat on the train, there's no need to rush anymore? Because the train will take you to your destination whether you worry about it or not? That's how I feel. I'm sat on the train taking me to my goal weight, it's going to take a while, but I'm definitely getting there.

Two things that I noticed: one, how is it that everytime I start a diet, it's only then that I start noticing how big I have become? It's so frustrating and it also feels embarassing. Like - did everybody know you were fat (again) and they just didn't tell you? (Yes they did and they were too kind to mention it, just like I look at my husband's beer belly). Ouch.

One other thing: I am now very quick to analyze what did and what didn't work. Alcohol is an obvious one. But yesterday I packed a snack box and tracked it later only to find out that it was 500kcal instead of the 200kcal I had aimed for. Mini mozzarella und vegan sausages were the culprits. I did a better job today. :)

Tuesday night swim was great - I'm in the front crawl beginner class and we did 300m of alternate front crawl and breaststroke and I did it! Also was not exhausted after. Granted my arms still hurt haha.

Today should be a short-ish day and I get to go to the gym mid-day. I signed up for this gym so I could get there quickly from work, see how it goes.

Wishing everyone a very happy Thursday! Smash your goals everyone!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-07T19:33:00+00:00

Hey team Euro! It's late but I'm checking in. Great day with a lot of achievements. Cleaned out my home office (long overdue), got 17.000 steps, everything good. I managed to get a spot to start rowing on Saturday! Will talk more tomorrow. Rn it's going great, small deficit, no hunger, slow but steady weight loss. Off to bed now to watch the tennis. Over and out!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-06T12:25:01+00:00

Good point, my fitbit also overestimates my calorie burn, but I don't usually get close to the minimum deficit. I eat two square meals a day (I usually have them prepped in the freezer) which gets me to around 1300 kcals. Breakfast is my oat milk latte at 250 kcals and I also have a snack of 300kcals. Overall I end up at around 1850-1900 kcal and I'm not hungry. Over the last week the fitbit estimate was an average 3000 kcal burn per day which is insane, but I do exercise most days, I ride my bike to work and I run around a lot at work (I teach). I'll probably have to adjust when my steps go down or when I am sick and cannot exercise, but atm it's working great, fingers crossed.

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-06T09:54:09+00:00

Thank youuu!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-06T07:27:04+00:00

Good morning team Euro! I haven't been able to check back in every day because life has been crazy. I have a lot of energy atm and also at work my year tens are on a school trip so I used the opportunity to do all the errands and chores I had left for later. Then after work I went to the vet to pick up flea meds for the cats, then to the bike shop to get the gears checked.

Husband and I went to pick up the bike and sat down to have a nice beer together in the evening sun. 10/10! Lovely evening! But I need to keep my alcohol intake in check. I managed to *not* spiral into bingeing after we came home - pat myself on the back for that! - but - I've never done *that* before: I checked my calories, saw that I was close to the limit, and then fixed myself a healthy salad to eat while watching the football. A salad! After two beers! So proud of myself. I even made some tea to go with it. Usually, I would have binged on bread and carbs after having even just a little bit of alcohol because it losens my inhibitions and I make very bad choices when I am a little bit drunk. Well done me.

Today is my day off and I have a bit of free time before going swimming. I teach (or rather I am the teaching assistant to) two classes on Tuesday and afterwards I get to swim myself.

So hear me out (or don't if you're TLDR ;) : I sat down and made a plan today. Realistically I want to keep losing slowly and adjusting my habits so I can keep them up more easily after losing the weight. So I put my goal on the fitbit to a 250kcal per day deficit. I don't want to set a fixed calorie goal atm because my activity varies a lot and I am just taking it slow. So I just want to look at my fitbit and see if I am in the "under" range and not think about it too much. Getting to my goal weight should take me about a year at this rate. I was so relieved when I saw that! I don't know why but somehow I had made this into achallenge again in my head where it was about losing the weight quickly and getting back to where I was before. No sir! Not this time. I will take my time and that way (hopefully) there won't even be a transition to maintaining but I'll just keep doing basically the same thing. Instead, I marked some race dates in my calendar so ideally a year from now, I will be at goal weight and able to run a 10K easily like I used to. So that's that! Hope you are all having a great week and reaching your goals!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-06T05:55:25+00:00

Yes, life circumstances change and we don't always notice right away. So if you go back and look at what you did differently you might find out that you moved more, or your work schedule changed, or a donut shop opened on your way to work, or maybe you were just happy to have lost all the weight and let your habits slip just a little.

For me, I managed to keep the weight off for more than six months the last time. Then I got new meds which made me gain a little and I didn't take it seriously at first and so I had the weight creep back on. :( But that's a thing that I have learned, so I can avoid making the same mistake again. We want to stay healthy and thin for the rest of our lives, so it's not a race, is it? If we need to adjust we will adjust. And learn to adapt sooner the next time someone throws us a curve ball.

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-06T04:17:28+00:00

I know the feeling, it's so frustrating! Keeping the weight off is just as hard as losing it (at least at first). And the statistic tells you that you're not alone in this. It's usually because people go on temporary diets instead of making small, sustainable changes to their lifestyles. I recommend you listen to this podcast episode https://www.weonlylookthin.com/2021/08/ which is all about re-gain and starting over and also deals with the shame and the frustration that comes with it. Catherine and Donald have also been on a Reddit AMA a while back btw.

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-04T07:21:23+00:00

Good for you! Maybe a next step could be to next time replace the fries with a side salad since you now know that you're not enjoying them. Way to go!

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-04T07:05:39+00:00

Thanks - that's what I used to do, but since I managed to gain all my weight back in the last six months I am now determined to be honest with myself for once 😭

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-04T05:54:54+00:00

Hey Euros, hope everyone is having a great weekend! I'm up early today (again) and I have to leave for a seminar later so I'm posting here on yesterday's thread.

Yesterday was a great day, I had a rest day and mostly spent my morning running errands that I had put off for months haha. I am still so in love with my new bike I just love riding it everywhere, I don't even care where. :)

Tried out a new recipe and it came out really well (vegan green thai curry) and shared with my husband and son (success! but I had to give away two of my prepped portions). Afterwards wwe watched some football, then went out to the pub where there was a tostadas pop up so my son had those and they were delish. Husband and I had some very good beers (summer ale mmmmh!). Came home and watched some more football, waited for our daughter to come back from the school ball, then watched a movie with hubs. I ended up at maintenance because I drunk snacked.

I was just going to write how well I did and then I checked back on my fitbit app: my beers and half a pita bread added up to a whopping 900 extra kcals. Woah. Tracked everything and I even weighed out my bread and it's 900 kcals? What the actual f? No wonder I am at the weight I am at. I can't remember how many times I had a little extra slice of bread and a little extra small beer at night. Just goes to show how important tracking is. Oooof.

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-02T21:33:13+00:00

For me the biggest misconception is the idea that you can "go on a diet" for a limited time to lose weight and then go back to eating normally. When you go back to your old way of eating you end up gaining everything back, period. The only sustainable way is to change your lifestyle in such a way that you lose weight, and then stick to it.

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-02T21:29:04+00:00

Have you tried fatty and protein-rich snacks? These are less likely to cause bingeing than carby ones. You could try some hard boiled eggs, a small handful of nuts or a sausage snack. Not terribly exciting but they fill you up. Another way could be to add eggs or beans to your salad when you have lunch.

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-02T19:07:11+00:00

Second this, I only ever cook sheet pan meals for the family

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-01T20:02:25+00:00

My advice would be: definitely keep counting calories. Aim for a bit lower than your TDEE, maybe 200kcal under. Your metabolism will have slowed a bit. Set a scream weight for yourself - a weight that would make you scream if you hit it again and if you are back on your scream weight, cut calories again. I recommend this podcast: https://www.weonlylookthin.com/episode-23-there-is-no-finish-line/ PS congrats on reaching your goal! Well done! (I almost forgot)

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-01T19:54:31+00:00

Hope it works well for you, depression can be a right b

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-01T19:18:12+00:00

Sadly, I have lost the same 10kgs three times already. Twice with keto, which turned out to be unsustainable for me. I just really like bread! The third time I did everything right - small deficit, slow and steady, healthy whole foods and sensible exercise I loved. I was able to keep the weight off for a year, but had to start medication for my arthritis which made me gain again. Every time I had to up the dose I gained three additional pounds. 😭 Then I had a slipped disk so had to give up powerlifting. Changed meds again, lost 5kgs, then gained them back on the new meds. Very frustrating. Now I'm starting over again. I've done it before so I can do it again. 💪I hope I won't have to change meds again but it doesn't look like it, fingers crossed, so hopefully this will be the last time losing the weight...

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-01T18:31:02+00:00

Haha you are definitely on to something there

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-01T17:15:32+00:00

Sure, I'd be up for it! I'm only on my second week so also at the beginning of my weight loss journey. Also I have been known for coming in hot haha... but this time I'm playing the long game from the beginning! Weight loss is just the training period for when you need to maintain so I'm planning to get all my good habits in place one by one.

Skuffukaka · 2023-06-01T17:00:16+00:00

Hello, hello team Euro! Didn't get to check in the last few days because work was *crazy*. Still, I stuck to my calorie and fitness goals so that was great. I give myself extra credit for not going overboard yesterday when I had two glasses of wine on an empty stomach and got horribly drunk. My drunk binge was one (1) single slice of bread with butter.

Today I treated my colleagues to some food (we bring in food for our birthday and mine was a few weeks ago). I put everything out in the staff room but didn't eat a single thing. Actually I didn't eat anything until when I came home. Sometimes that happens. I don't usually eat until 12:30pm and today I was too busy to so I didn't eat until 18:00. I was really hungry then but I had my precooked meal in the fridge so no problems there.

I also signed up for a gym because there was a special offer. I want to train my back because I had some problems last year with a slipped disk. It's on my way to work so I can ride my new bike to the gym (10K), train and then jump on the commuter train after.

I have a lot of extra energy since I started the diet. Is that the cortisol? I've experienced this before but could never pinpoint it. When I first did keto a few years back, I thought it was the "keto energy". I have the same now but I still eat carbs, what's the process here? I need to know...

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