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Cheat Meal....yay or nay?
cbl40
Posts: 281 Member
in Debate Club
Hey there! What are your thoughts on one meal a week where you don't log and eat whatever you want? I don't have much, if any, weight to lose, trying to get leaner and stronger, hence eating to meet macros. However, I didn't follow that night of Super Bowl and ate crap (not a ton of it, but enough) and the scale went up 4 pounds. I know it wasn't smart to weigh myself a day or so after bad eating but is that normal? I'm thinking it's not worth to mess up your hard work with one night of bad eating. What are your thoughts on cheats?
0
Replies
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I log everything.
I don't need to cheat. I just eat what I want and use a weekly calorie average rather than daily goal. If I'm going to have a high day, I eat lower the days leading up to it.
IF I did have a day where I blew it out? I'd log it as well as I could and get back to what I was doing before. I wouldn't try dropping to "make it up".
That 4 lbs is water and.. well.. what's left in your digestive system. You didn't gain 4 lbs of fat over night.
16 -
So we work hard to lose 2lb a week, exercising daily, sweating the hell out of your body and at the weekend put an extra 2lbs back on!?
I think it could work, as a total demotivation procedure!
Maybe it could work as a motivational concept, because we would have to work twice as hard to get rid of it all.
Nah, sorry wont catch on with me, I do eat any foods, but try to stay in my calorie count, did go over once by a few hundred calories and took over 2 days to get back to same weight. Maybe when Im a lot fitter and my metabolism has improved, I might try it again.
Everything in moderation they say and its a pretty good guideline.2 -
Hey there! What are your thoughts on one meal a week where you don't log and eat whatever you want? I don't have much, if any, weight to lose, trying to get leaner and stronger, hence eating to meet macros. However, I didn't follow that night of Super Bowl and ate crap (not a ton of it, but enough) and the scale went up 4 pounds. I know it wasn't smart to weigh myself a day or so after bad eating but is that normal? I'm thinking it's not worth to mess up your hard work with one night of bad eating. What are your thoughts on cheats?
Hi
IMO The four pounds is likely to be water retention as there is not way to gain 4 pounds real weight overnight. I have had 5 pound swings myself after eating Salty or sugary foods. Followed by a couple of days of releasing water and then a week to remove the weight gain. Is it worth it?
My feeling on cheat meals is moderation. if I eat some of the things I know I should not eat, I feel it for a couple days and sweet foods make me feel warm compared to how I feel without them for the same room temperature.
Good Luck
Roger4 -
For some it is a diet killer, for others a sanity saver. People are different. There is no one single best answer except on a personal level.14
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If a "cheat" day or meal helps you stay on plan the rest of the week *and* you aren't one of those people who are going to eat enough to cancel out your entire deficit for the week (it can happen), then it is compatible with weight loss.
However, if you're the type of person who can eat enough to cancel out a deficit or will be discouraged by the temporary weight gain caused by going over and struggle to stay on-plan afterwards, it can be counter-productive.
The thing is, none of us can know what type of person you are. That's something you have to figure out for yourself.
In the several months I was in a deficit, I probably went seriously over a handful of times. These were special occasions, not "just because" cheat days. I found it was better for me to just work things into my plan unless it was a truly special opportunity (like a chance to eat a favorite dessert my mom made or a dinner at a place I'd long planned on visiting in a city that I wouldn't visit again for a long time).5 -
Thanks so much for your insight. I think for me, it's not worth it to eat junk and not log. I'd rather log and see the RED, even though the red may make me nuts. Thanks again, everyone!4
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I don't schedule a cheat meal or call anything a cheat meal... I eat healthy on a day to day basis And if a special event comes up I eat whatever I want.
I feel no regrets doing it as long as I pick what is worth it and what isn't.... if it's just us being lazy and not wanting to cook I skip it and eat a veggie smoothie, if it's the friends Super Bowl party I indulge.
That being said I don't go out with friends very often so I'm not easily tempted as much as some people I prefer a movie on the couch with the dogs and fiancé. 0 -
My cheats give me sanity and the ability to go out and just enjoy. I moderate my portions because I now just can't eat restaurant sized meals and I don't take anything home. I love going out once or twice a week and knowing I can have what I want "later" keeps me on plan "now". I know I will trend up for a couple of days but I'm right back on plan, get my fluids and it's working well for me so far!0
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I used to but now I instead make "room" having some spare calories on the week ( I mind a weekly calorie intake instead of daily ) so if I will have something that I usually don't eat, like...chips, then I can have some without going over
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Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »I wrote this on another thread, i feel very strongly against cheat meals or cheat days.. so i figured i would just post it here since my opinion is still very much the same lol
I call cheat meals or cheat days negative associations with food. There are a few kinds of negative associations and i am going to list them here.
1) The Lists we create in our minds of good and bad foods.
2) The Foods and Meals we place into the category of Cheat Day or Cheat Meal
3) Corrective Behavior
Sometimes we do one of these or sometimes they can all snowball together into one big issue.
We see people do these things all the time and sometimes we do them ourselves, sometimes its intentional and other times we do them and don't realize that what we are doing is actually a negative behavior.
Listing foods into categories of good and bad may seem like a great idea.. Lots of people jump into a diet this way.. They get really motivated and hyped up and go "Alright, time to lose weight! No chocolate, chips, cookies, cake, candy, fast food, fried food...." the list goes on. They have labeled these foods bad. These foods are the reason they are over weight and must be avoided at all costs. They go out to the store and buy nothing but fresh veggies and fruit, lean meats and get it home. Motivation still high as the sky this actually carries them through for a period where they feel like they aren't missing anything, not craving anything, this is going to be super easy!
So some time passes and theyre feeling good, confident, some weight has come off and they say to themselves it's time for a cheat meal or cheat day.
Cheating is all in all just a negative. There is absolutely nothing in life that starts with cheating or ends in cheating that is good. No one ever thinks someone cheating on them is good or congratulates someone for cheating on a test. No one is ever happy some *kitten* hat cheated them out of their money.
Very few people in life can actually have a cheat day or cheat meal and process it properly from a mental perspective. And in my personal opinion though if you still need points in your life where you need to gorge on a huge amount of food then maybe it's time to understand why that is. Calorie density overages are one thing but if you need a one day a week or one day every two weeks where you need to sit down and eat half a large pizza to yourself.. its time to do some soul searching.
More often then not though, people using cheat meals often find themselves feeling shameful, guilty, or just plain depressed. They ate, they log it and at the end they look at the food log and they see a big fat red number. Several hundred calories in the red.
These feelings often trigger corrective behavior.
Corrective behavior is not a positive but people on MFP who are also new on their journey often support people doing it. I won't.
Example of Corrective behaviors are posting statuses that tell people how awful they feel about what they did and immediately follow it by saying they are either going to eat less over a period of time depending on how many calories they were over, They are going to workout extra long and extra hard the next few days to burn it off, or they are never going to eat those foods again and avoid feeling that way.
The difference between a person putting in extra effort at the gym because they feel happy and healthy and a person putting in extra effort at the gym because they feel shameful for eating is huge. One of those things is a positive and the other is a punishment. Eating less over a period of time only says one thing, you can't handle your cheat meal. You are not ready to mentally process negative calories and all you are doing is further labeling foods as bad. Avoiding these foods is just walking in a straight line into stress and frustration and falling off a cliff.
There is going to be Birthdays. Holidays. Parties. Work Functions. Weddings. Baby Showers. Anniversaries. Family Visiting from Out of Town. Vacations. Are you just going to avoid every social function? Or Show up and spend the entire day/night doing nothing but avoiding the foods and feeling like thats all you spent your time doing rather then having a good time? Eventually something is going to come up where the foods you are avoiding because you have labeled them as bad are going to be there and the longer you avoid them because you have listed them as a negative or you had a bad reaction to your cheat day and are using negative correcting behavior the more likely you are to binge when the stress and frustration become the more dominate feelings. That Happy, Motivated person who started off doing great is struggling more then they ever imagined.
The binge is the worst. The loss of control and the calories consumed and the feelings swirling in your head are so great.. its hard to find something to grab on to, structure, you want to go back to that happy positive motivated person who was eating so good! However thats the whole reason you ended up in this *kitten* hole in the first place.
When people change something... The end result should be that there is some slight differences but it should still be the same. Like painting a table from blue to red and adding an accessory, Its still the same old table you had but its changed and looks better. You don't light the table on fire and then go out and buy a new one. Nothing was wrong with the old table, it still worked fine it just wasn't functioning the right way for your life now.
Just the same as you shouldn't go from who you were before your diet to a 360 degree change. Being a picture perfect model of health and eating nothing but fruits and veggies and lean meats is a nice fantasy but honestly, its not reality. Some people can do it.. but for most of us, we like chocolate, we like cake and we like pizza. You are no different that that table. You need to stay you but you just need to customize yourself.
There is 7 days in a week with a lot of opportunities. There is no reason why pizza can't be worked in, in a reasonable serving. You put those foods in and then you plan around them.. Healthy salads, wraps, great snacks, lots of veggies, lean meats, Etc and suddenly you've got a great week planned and have something to look forward to each day. And funny things start to happen.. The more you start just having these things on a regular basis the less they happen to be heavy on your mind, Why do you need a cheat meal? You can have pizza any time you want. Youve made it work and fit it into your calorie goals. The more things you start fitting into your calorie goals the less times you end up seeing red. Now you can go to a party and if they are serving pizza, you have 1 or 2 slices and are good to go, cause hey, you worked in pizza lots over the last few weeks, its not something youve been avoiding so the need to shovel it in your mouth is gone now.
You get home from the party and you log that pizza but you've barely gone into the red because you had calories already set aside for dinner and the amount of pizza you ate was reasonable, you've had so many days in the green now that you know that if you continue with your well thought out meal plans that include the things you love that the few calories you were over will be erased simply by waking up the next days and carrying on with your new lifestyle change.
Weight keeps coming off. And suddenly all those bad labeled foods that you kicked out of your life the first time have kept you more on track then any cheat meal could have and now they are doing nothing wrong, they are actually helping, not only from a weight loss perspective but from a mental one. Your relationship with food has become better then ever. Because food is just food. A good healthy balance of nutrition and what we love makes the months that pass during our weight loss journeys feel a lot more enjoyable rather then long and hard.
I will always promote and encourage Healthy food relationships.
THIS, all of this, is how I stopped "cheat meals" and planned some treats instead, very well written thank you so much!!! I'd like to post an excerpt on my blog, if that'd be ok with you, if not it's ok!!!3 -
Normally i save cheat meals for dinner. I'll eat relatively clean most of the day and maybe for dinner I'll have pizza or nice cheesesteak. I just keep it in moderation. But to be honest I cant really pig out as much as I used to so my cheat meals dont even always put me in the red1
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Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »I wrote this on another thread, i feel very strongly against cheat meals or cheat days.. so i figured i would just post it here since my opinion is still very much the same lol
I call cheat meals or cheat days negative associations with food. There are a few kinds of negative associations and i am going to list them here.
1) The Lists we create in our minds of good and bad foods.
2) The Foods and Meals we place into the category of Cheat Day or Cheat Meal
3) Corrective Behavior
*deleted for space*
I will always promote and encourage Healthy food relationships.
Not everyone that has cheat days thinks of foods as good and bad. Not everyone that thinks of food as good and bad has a 'poor relationship with food".3 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »I wrote this on another thread, i feel very strongly against cheat meals or cheat days.. so i figured i would just post it here since my opinion is still very much the same lol
I call cheat meals or cheat days negative associations with food. There are a few kinds of negative associations and i am going to list them here.
1) The Lists we create in our minds of good and bad foods.
2) The Foods and Meals we place into the category of Cheat Day or Cheat Meal
3) Corrective Behavior
*deleted for space*
I will always promote and encourage Healthy food relationships.
Not everyone that has cheat days thinks of foods as good and bad. Not everyone that thinks of food as good and bad has a 'poor relationship with food".
But most do, I did for sure, I had my good food list, bad food and had serious mental struggles when eating something "I should not eat". It was a taco with purslane for crying out loud!
It does happen a lot, maybe not to all, but it is a not so good approach.1 -
My thoughts on it are this...you have choices every day. You can stay in a deficit, eat at maintenance, or be in a surplus. But you should always log. You want DATA. When you hit maintenance or goal, you want to look back on how you did that so that you can create a sustainable diet at your new weight.
I also think that calling it a "cheat" whatever is silly. Why is it cheating? It's food. It's your body. It's your decision.
I ate 2000 calories worth of pizza, whiskey, and pasta last night. I call it "oops".2 -
KatzeDerNacht22 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »I wrote this on another thread, i feel very strongly against cheat meals or cheat days.. so i figured i would just post it here since my opinion is still very much the same lol
I call cheat meals or cheat days negative associations with food. There are a few kinds of negative associations and i am going to list them here.
1) The Lists we create in our minds of good and bad foods.
2) The Foods and Meals we place into the category of Cheat Day or Cheat Meal
3) Corrective Behavior
*deleted for space*
I will always promote and encourage Healthy food relationships.
Not everyone that has cheat days thinks of foods as good and bad. Not everyone that thinks of food as good and bad has a 'poor relationship with food".
But most do, I did for sure, I had my good food list, bad food and had serious mental struggles when eating something "I should not eat". It was a taco with purslane for crying out loud!
It does happen a lot, maybe not to all, but it is a not so good approach.
Most do? Is that based on data or just an opinion?1 -
Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »I wrote this on another thread, i feel very strongly against cheat meals or cheat days.. so i figured i would just post it here since my opinion is still very much the same lol
I call cheat meals or cheat days negative associations with food. There are a few kinds of negative associations and i am going to list them here.
1) The Lists we create in our minds of good and bad foods.
2) The Foods and Meals we place into the category of Cheat Day or Cheat Meal
3) Corrective Behavior
Sometimes we do one of these or sometimes they can all snowball together into one big issue.
We see people do these things all the time and sometimes we do them ourselves, sometimes its intentional and other times we do them and don't realize that what we are doing is actually a negative behavior.
Listing foods into categories of good and bad may seem like a great idea.. Lots of people jump into a diet this way.. They get really motivated and hyped up and go "Alright, time to lose weight! No chocolate, chips, cookies, cake, candy, fast food, fried food...." the list goes on. They have labeled these foods bad. These foods are the reason they are over weight and must be avoided at all costs. They go out to the store and buy nothing but fresh veggies and fruit, lean meats and get it home. Motivation still high as the sky this actually carries them through for a period where they feel like they aren't missing anything, not craving anything, this is going to be super easy!
So some time passes and theyre feeling good, confident, some weight has come off and they say to themselves it's time for a cheat meal or cheat day.
Cheating is all in all just a negative. There is absolutely nothing in life that starts with cheating or ends in cheating that is good. No one ever thinks someone cheating on them is good or congratulates someone for cheating on a test. No one is ever happy some *kitten* hat cheated them out of their money.
Very few people in life can actually have a cheat day or cheat meal and process it properly from a mental perspective. And in my personal opinion though if you still need points in your life where you need to gorge on a huge amount of food then maybe it's time to understand why that is. Calorie density overages are one thing but if you need a one day a week or one day every two weeks where you need to sit down and eat half a large pizza to yourself.. its time to do some soul searching.
More often then not though, people using cheat meals often find themselves feeling shameful, guilty, or just plain depressed. They ate, they log it and at the end they look at the food log and they see a big fat red number. Several hundred calories in the red.
These feelings often trigger corrective behavior.
Corrective behavior is not a positive but people on MFP who are also new on their journey often support people doing it. I won't.
Example of Corrective behaviors are posting statuses that tell people how awful they feel about what they did and immediately follow it by saying they are either going to eat less over a period of time depending on how many calories they were over, They are going to workout extra long and extra hard the next few days to burn it off, or they are never going to eat those foods again and avoid feeling that way.
The difference between a person putting in extra effort at the gym because they feel happy and healthy and a person putting in extra effort at the gym because they feel shameful for eating is huge. One of those things is a positive and the other is a punishment. Eating less over a period of time only says one thing, you can't handle your cheat meal. You are not ready to mentally process negative calories and all you are doing is further labeling foods as bad. Avoiding these foods is just walking in a straight line into stress and frustration and falling off a cliff.
There is going to be Birthdays. Holidays. Parties. Work Functions. Weddings. Baby Showers. Anniversaries. Family Visiting from Out of Town. Vacations. Are you just going to avoid every social function? Or Show up and spend the entire day/night doing nothing but avoiding the foods and feeling like thats all you spent your time doing rather then having a good time? Eventually something is going to come up where the foods you are avoiding because you have labeled them as bad are going to be there and the longer you avoid them because you have listed them as a negative or you had a bad reaction to your cheat day and are using negative correcting behavior the more likely you are to binge when the stress and frustration become the more dominate feelings. That Happy, Motivated person who started off doing great is struggling more then they ever imagined.
The binge is the worst. The loss of control and the calories consumed and the feelings swirling in your head are so great.. its hard to find something to grab on to, structure, you want to go back to that happy positive motivated person who was eating so good! However thats the whole reason you ended up in this *kitten* hole in the first place.
When people change something... The end result should be that there is some slight differences but it should still be the same. Like painting a table from blue to red and adding an accessory, Its still the same old table you had but its changed and looks better. You don't light the table on fire and then go out and buy a new one. Nothing was wrong with the old table, it still worked fine it just wasn't functioning the right way for your life now.
Just the same as you shouldn't go from who you were before your diet to a 360 degree change. Being a picture perfect model of health and eating nothing but fruits and veggies and lean meats is a nice fantasy but honestly, its not reality. Some people can do it.. but for most of us, we like chocolate, we like cake and we like pizza. You are no different that that table. You need to stay you but you just need to customize yourself.
There is 7 days in a week with a lot of opportunities. There is no reason why pizza can't be worked in, in a reasonable serving. You put those foods in and then you plan around them.. Healthy salads, wraps, great snacks, lots of veggies, lean meats, Etc and suddenly you've got a great week planned and have something to look forward to each day. And funny things start to happen.. The more you start just having these things on a regular basis the less they happen to be heavy on your mind, Why do you need a cheat meal? You can have pizza any time you want. Youve made it work and fit it into your calorie goals. The more things you start fitting into your calorie goals the less times you end up seeing red. Now you can go to a party and if they are serving pizza, you have 1 or 2 slices and are good to go, cause hey, you worked in pizza lots over the last few weeks, its not something youve been avoiding so the need to shovel it in your mouth is gone now.
You get home from the party and you log that pizza but you've barely gone into the red because you had calories already set aside for dinner and the amount of pizza you ate was reasonable, you've had so many days in the green now that you know that if you continue with your well thought out meal plans that include the things you love that the few calories you were over will be erased simply by waking up the next days and carrying on with your new lifestyle change.
Weight keeps coming off. And suddenly all those bad labeled foods that you kicked out of your life the first time have kept you more on track then any cheat meal could have and now they are doing nothing wrong, they are actually helping, not only from a weight loss perspective but from a mental one. Your relationship with food has become better then ever. Because food is just food. A good healthy balance of nutrition and what we love makes the months that pass during our weight loss journeys feel a lot more enjoyable rather then long and hard.
I will always promote and encourage Healthy food relationships.
Brilliant!
Very much in agreement. The very idea of cheat meals goes against the grain of MFP.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »KatzeDerNacht22 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »I wrote this on another thread, i feel very strongly against cheat meals or cheat days.. so i figured i would just post it here since my opinion is still very much the same lol
I call cheat meals or cheat days negative associations with food. There are a few kinds of negative associations and i am going to list them here.
1) The Lists we create in our minds of good and bad foods.
2) The Foods and Meals we place into the category of Cheat Day or Cheat Meal
3) Corrective Behavior
*deleted for space*
I will always promote and encourage Healthy food relationships.
Not everyone that has cheat days thinks of foods as good and bad. Not everyone that thinks of food as good and bad has a 'poor relationship with food".
But most do, I did for sure, I had my good food list, bad food and had serious mental struggles when eating something "I should not eat". It was a taco with purslane for crying out loud!
It does happen a lot, maybe not to all, but it is a not so good approach.
Most do? Is that based on data or just an opinion?
Saying most don't is an opinion as well ¬_¬
1 -
if you want a cheat meal i say yes, here why lets say your maintenance calories are at 2500 and you weight is 170 if you stay at your maintenance calories you will maintain 170 now lets say your in a calorie defecit lets say its 1500 calories lets say you have a cheat meal, you have a 1000 calories to play with just to reach your maintenance just dont go over your maintence even if you went over your maintenance calories 1 or 2 times a week i dont think it will make that big of a difference in the big picture over time, now if your in really good shape and your getting ready for a show or a photo shoot thats different then i would say no to cheat meals until you get done with what ever you are doing good luck0
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