Cheat days

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  • gobonas99
    gobonas99 Posts: 1,049 Member
    I never have a cheat DAY, where I just say IDGAF and eat whatever I want. I sometimes have a "cheat" meal - and I put cheat in quotes because I still don't go all willy-nilly. I PLAN.

    For example Friday is "date night" with the hubs. We go out to dinner almost every Friday night (the exception being if it is a race weekend, and the race is on Sunday...then we go out on Saturday night instead so I can carb load). We have a couple of restaurants that we routinely choose from, and I have a couple of dishes at each that I know are super yummy but aren't completely outrageous calorie-wise (though we're still talking about an 1000-1200 meal between salad, bread, and entree, since it's a restaurant meal instead of homecooked)....I just make sure I plan the rest of my day around that - a banana for breakfast, a salad with veggies and low-cal/low-fat dressing (usually 100-150 cals - LOTS of lettuce, which is basically a free food)...sometimes I'll even skip breakfast and just eat lunch. It depends on if I worked out that day and have extra calories.

    For holidays, I try to get a workout in that morning - ie I run in a local turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning (usually a 5k...thinking about doing the 10k this year), and then head to my mom's for TG dinner. I don't deny myself anything, but I take small helpings and then if there's something I REALLY want more of, I go back for seconds of those couple of dishes. I only eat ONE piece of pie (or a half slice each of two different pies).

    Christmas cookies are my weakness though. The Christmas cookies we make are ONLY made at Christmastime. So everyone tends to go a little crazy over them (mmmm...almond paste cookies...mmm...whiskey cookies...mmm...biscottis...mmm...grape-filled cookies...mmm...peanut butter cups....om nom nom nom nom). What I've found helps me is to not make any at my house. I go to my mom's or my sister's and we make them there....then I take a FEW home for the hubs, and the rest go in mom's or sis's freezer to be brought out after Christmas dinner. And if we happen to go to mom's or sis's for a family dinner before Xmas, you can't "sneak" more than one or two cookies, because they're frozen and you need to wait for them to thaw before you eat them! LOL! :)

    It's all about eating in moderation (if I go over my calorie allotment for the day, I'm not over by more than 100-200 cals), instead "eat all the foodz" (a 3000 calorie day). :)
  • DeWoSa
    DeWoSa Posts: 496 Member
    gobonas99 wrote: »
    I never have a cheat DAY, where I just say IDGAF and eat whatever I want. I sometimes have a "cheat" meal - and I put cheat in quotes because I still don't go all willy-nilly. I PLAN.

    Totes agree. She's %100 right.

    "Cheating" doesn't work with food. You can cheat on your taxes or on a test or on your spouse and maybe never get caught, but not with calories. Food in = energy. Either that energy is expended (normal activities, exercise) or it is stored as fat. There's no way around it.

    If there were a way around, I'd be eating an entire cake right now.

  • tracie_minus100
    tracie_minus100 Posts: 465 Member
    My cheat days were turning into cheat weekends, and because of that, I was slowing my weight loss down to half a pound a week or less. (I'm obese, so that's bad!) So I had to rein it in.

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