You know that feeling when you get home from a party, or night out, and you ate so much good food that all you want to do is change into sweats and lay on the couch until you feel good again? I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there! The problem with being in that place isn’t that you overate, it actually has nothing to do with food! The problem with being in that place is how we talk to or about ourselves when we’re there. The weight loss industry is full of myths, and today, I want to debunk three of the most harmful myths around overeating so you can lose weight and enjoy food!

Overeating isn’t something that I recommend because it doesn’t leave you feeling good, but the extra calories consumed aren’t as big of a deal as some people make them out to be! One night of bad eating won’t ruin a week, a month, or a year’s worth of hard work!

What does hurt your health is going back to old habits and thoughts that haven’t been serving you for years! Instead of falling prey to these three myths, I want to give you new truths to lean into and use so that you don’t have to feel guilt, shame and regret when you overeat!

Myth 1: You have to workout harder to burn off the bad food you ate

Raise your hand (or tell me in the comments) if you’ve ever guilted yourself into going to the gym or doing double workouts because you overate the day before - or so that you could overeat?

I’ve been there too, mama! I used to believe that I HAD to hit the gym extra hard to make up for my bad eating. But do you know what that belief did to me? It made me hate the gym! And I love a good workout! For those of you who already struggle with working out, that isn’t going to make building healthy habits any easier!

Truth: You have extra energy waiting to be put to good use:

Instead of making working out a punishment, make it something you do to feel better! Because you ate more, you’re going to have more energy to burn, which makes this an opportunity to hit a new goal!

If you’re a runner, see if you can hit a new mile PR. If you like to lift, see if you can up your weights a little! Whatever you want to do for exercise, try to push yourself just a little further than your comfort zone! You might even be amazed when you realize how good your workout feels the day after consuming some extra calories!

Now, you might be thinking, isn’t pushing myself to work harder the same as the myth, working harder to burn off the extra food? And that’s a totally valid question! The difference between the myth and the truth is how you think and feel about it!

With the myth, you believe that you’ve done a bad thing (making you a bad person) and you need to punish yourself for that. But, with the truth, you’re accepting the choices you made and turning a situation that could have brought you down into an opportunity to succeed!

How you think about your actions is so, so, so important!! I talk about mindset with my Macros Made Easy mamas all the time because how we think and feel about ourselves and our actions is the difference between success and failure!

I would still encourage you to put that extra food to use by moving your body, but I want you to do it in a way that builds a better relationship with healthy habits, like exercise! If that means you take the family ice skating the next day to get extra movement in, awesome! If that means you add 10 minutes to your workout because you feel like you’re crushing it at the gym, great! Do whatever feels good for you!

Myth 2: You should skip meals to make up for it

Please, please don’t restrict yourself tomorrow because you enjoyed some food today!! This is the recipe for binge eating which doesn’t help you lose weight.

Binging like this sends your body into stress mode. It doesn’t know when it’s going to get enough food, so instead of burning the extra calories that you consumed the day before, it holds onto them causing you to gain weight! It’s a vicious cycle that never serves you!

Truth: Get back to your normal asap

What your body actually wants from you is consistency. It wants to know what it can expect from you each day. When you eat a consistent amount every day your body can leave that fight or flight stress behind and it will do what it’s meant to do!

Start your day with a protein-packed breakfast. Make smart food choices during the day. Eat the same amount that you normally do! If you do these three things your body will realize that it just got a little extra energy and it will take care of it on its own!

Your body was literally built to process food into energy so allow it the chance to do that! You may see the scale go up for a day or two, but as you return to your normal eating patterns, the weight will come off!

Myth 3: You need to avoid carbs since you overate

Oh, carbs. We are so mean to carbs! We’ve made them out to be the villain that is solely responsible for our weight gain. But carbs are absolutely necessary for sustaining life!

If you grew up in a generation where you were told carbs were terrible for you and would make you fat, then you probably are going to feel a lot of resistance to the idea that you need carbs to live a healthy life.

It’s important that you work on that thought process because carbs are going to be your body, and especially your brain’s, first source of energy! Limiting them can make you feel more sluggish the next day!

Truth: Eat a normal amount of carbs

Another truth that is probably going to blow your mind, is that overeating in carbs occasionally can actually help you lose weight!

For real!! I will use this tool with my clients to help them get over a hurdle in their weight loss journey. It’s called a refeed. What I typically do, is give my clients an extra 20-30 carbs for one day. When they weigh up the next day they might see the scale go up a pound or two because carbs attract water and it causes some slight inflammation.

But then, over the next few days, they will hit their lowest weight yet. This works is because when you’re eating in lower carbs and then increase them your metabolism revs up and uses the quick burning energy to power your life!

Hardly anyone believes me when I tell them this, but they do their refeed and then 2-3 days later they freak out when the scale drops! It’s the best thing.

Just because you were taught something about nutrition growing up, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true! And most of the myths we talked about today are proof of that!

I help busy mamas learn about nutrition on a personal level so that they can lose weight and have the energy to keep up with their kiddos. If you’re struggling with nutritional myths and are stuck in the yo-yo dieting cycle, let’s chat!

I can help you lose weight in the new year without having to restrict yourself! I’ll even encourage you to eat carbs again! Schedule a free discovery call to see if Macros Made Easy is the program you’ve been searching for!

3 Overeating myths you have to stop doing to lose weight and enjoy food!