I'm having a sleepover today (14th birthday was yesterday, yada yada yada), and I was wondering if I'd be okay eating whatever the heck I wanted. My mom made this insanely bad for you but oh-so-yummy red velvet cake (my favorite-haven't had it in like 5 years though) and we're getting pizza from this place down the street that I can always smell from my house and omigod it's amazing. Then we're having these really good bagels for breakfast, and my mother wouldn't buy anything but full-fat cream cheese and butter. And my mother bought Twizzlers, Lays, and some other assorted junk food.

My friends all eat their faces off, and I know I'll lose control. Should I be more careful the next for days, or just call today a crap day? I'm actually like 2 lbs below where I want to be, so I'm not too concerned.

Well, the first thing I'd suggest is stop telling yourself that "I know I'll lose control." That's more or less a way of mentally giving yourself permission to do just that! Tell it to yourself often enough and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What if instead, you told yourself "I know I'll KEEP control." What if you said to yourself "I'll eat ONE slice of cake and TWO slices of pizza and ONE bagel and skip the candy and the rest of the junk."

Wouldn't you reach your goals quicker if you were telling yourself other things than "I know I'll lose control."? Just a thought.


Otherwise, I'd say one day of eating crap food will not keep you from reaching your goals. Everyone can take a day off now and then. But I'd still say you need to work on that negative type of self-talk.

One meal/day will not destroy your health or conditioning; in fact one of my best pieces of advice for anyone is to "cheat" once a week. If you try to cut out the unhealthy things we love (bacon, buffalo wings, etc.) then eventually you'll "crash" and really lose control: when you finally do indulge there's a good chance it will lead to more and more indulging...

Enjoy yourself, it's your birthday... there's no way you're gonna put on any significant weight from one day... you need to eat 3500 excess calories to put on one pound of fat... that's a lot of pizza and cake!