Nobody's perfect.  This is especially true when dieting.  It is almost impossible to restrict your caloric intake to 1200 calories per day without an occasional slip-up. But, as long as the slip ups are relatively infrequent ,you'll be successful in achieving your dieting goals.

If, however, you do not allow yourself to the leeway to fail occasionally, you'll become disheartened by your imperfection and probably quit your diet altogether.  When this happens, you'll not only fail to achieve your weight-loss goals but will probably end up gaining further weight.

Let's say you're on a 1200 calorie per day diet.  Then, during the day, someone offers you your favorite snack or dessert.  You can't help yourself and you consume the entire treat.  Or, perhaps, you simply overeat a meal.  As long as you do well with your diet and portion control throughout the remainder of the day, at worst, you have probably sustained minimal damage.  Remember that it takes approximately 4000 calories to equate to 1 pound of fat.  Also, keep in mind that the average person burns 2000 calories per day. The odds of you consuming more than 1500 extra calories during that errant meal or snack are fairly low.  But let's assume that you did eat 1500 extra calories. Your total caloric intake on the day would be 2700 calories.  That means that you would have roughly  over eatten by 700 calories that day.  As long as you stick to your diet the following day (burning 800 extra calories more than you consume on a 1200 calorie per day diet), you will have erased the damage sustained the previous day. This will put you back on track for dieting success.

This blog entry isn't designed to give you a cop out excuse to overconsume on any particular day but is instead meant to be an encouragement to stick to your dieting plan even through rough patches.  Keep in mind that losing just 1 pound per week will net you over 50 pounds of weight loss per year.  Weight loss requires long-term focus and cannot be achieved overnight.  Stick to your plan.  Do the best you can and the results will follow.