I recently received an email from someone who had understandably enjoyed a festive meal with their family over the weekend. She’d had fun, but she was worried that she’d “cheated” on her Medifast diet and that it was going to ruin her entire hard-loss and week’s weight loss. He wanted to know what was the best course of action to take after this. I will tell you what I told him in the following article.

First of all, everyone cheats. It is highly unrealistic to think that you will be able to skip every holiday and special occasion and not partake in normal things from time to time. Sometimes you can use a “lean and green meal” on these occasions. Many restaurants can certainly accommodate this. But, there will be other times when you simply won’t be able or even want to follow the plan (at least temporarily).

This is totally normal and there is no reason to get angry or completely derailed. One of the possibilities that can happen is that you go out of ketosis and have to go back in. (This should only take a few days or about the amount of time it took you to get to this point when you started the diet.)

Or, you may find that at the end of the week, you didn’t lose as much as the week before. None of these things have to be the end of the world. And there’s no reason to get upset or even change your routine. The best thing to do is resume your regular regimen as soon as you can. The real danger isn’t in cheating, it’s in cheating and eventually getting you off the diet. Many people get angry with themselves, get frustrated, and give up. This is the worst thing you can do. Cheating is not.

Because honestly, it’s the long-term cumulative effects that often make the difference. Think of it this way, if your goal is to lose 50 pounds of weight, realistically you can break it down to three pounds a week for about 16 weeks or a little over 4 months.

Now, within those 4 months, you may have days or even weeks that don’t go as well as others. But usually I find that you’ll also have days and weeks that go better than expected, so the average usually goes back to what you’ve been seeing all along. This has been my experience. So it’s also my opinion and my experience is that if you quickly resume your normal routine, you should be back in ketosis in a day or two and resume your regular pattern in about the same amount of time. It doesn’t need to be a big problem. And over the course of the 4 months in that example, most people will cheat multiple times with little to no consequence, as long as they don’t make a habit of it.

People often ask me if they should try to “make up” for cheating by eating fewer calories the next day. I don’t think this is the best idea. Just going back to the five Medifast meals and one lean and green meal should be fine, in my opinion. You shouldn’t cut your calories too much. Your body needs fuel and some calories to get into and stay in ketosis.

It is very important that you do not beat yourself up too much. You want your experience with Medifast to be a positive one and that you don’t mind staying. But if you get mad at yourself or panic over every little thing, you undermine your abilities. I’ve learned that there’s no need to overthink or get angry or panic if I’m having a bad day. I just dust myself off, shrug, and move on. And you know what? In the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t made much of a difference. My results are still very good and I don’t feel miserable worrying about a few days off.