Cheat day or strict 24/7 diet??

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  • Markguns
    Markguns Posts: 554 Member
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    Most attempts fail if they are too restrictive. Plan in your reward... have one cookie! Don't call it a diet, it's a fundamental change in the way in you eat / exercise. If you need a big day to go over in cals then do it once a month not every week. The more you go over the longer it will take....
  • Aviendha_RJ
    Aviendha_RJ Posts: 600 Member
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    OMG! Timbits at work this morning... the little donut holes? Brought in for a teenage co-worker's birthday. Package of 20, there's 7 people working in the office. I had ONE.... & a co-worker Melissa, is like, SCREAMING at me... "you can't do that! It's a gateway food! You have to be STRICT & follow your diet EXACTLY! You're going to blow your progress!!!" Yep. 90 calories worth of donut is apparently gunna kill me. I work HARD... I've seen progress. I'm not binge-eating the PACKAGE. I can keep it in CONTROL, and within my calorie counts. What the hell is wrong with ONE bite of donut?

    ANSWER: Nothing. If you want it, have it. Just keep it in moderation... or you'll just end up right back where you were. But if you deprive yourself until you want it SO BADLY that you'd do ANYTHING for it... you'll binge-eat and you WILL blow it.
  • IammeCA
    IammeCA Posts: 63 Member
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    I do a type of cheat day. My cheat days consist of staying within my calorie goal, but ignoring the macros.

    So on cheat day I can spend all my calories on a big plate of Fettucini Alfredo with cheesecake for dessert if that is what I want.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    amandabowen3154 wrote: »
    Im currently 205 and my goal weight is 150. So I have quite a bit to lose but wandering if you guys have a cheat day or stay to a strict diet 24/7??

    Some people do well one way, other people do well the other way. Most important thing is the average - find what works best for you.
  • bestmeicanbe1
    bestmeicanbe1 Posts: 160 Member
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    I don't have a cheat day, ever. I might eat a snack or fast food but it's one meal or snack and I'm always under my calories
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    I intensely dislike the term cheat days as it sets up a good/bad mindset that I think has no place in this.

    Useful to me today vs useless and unnecessary right now is OK. Good vs bad: not so much.

    That said it is inevitable that there will be days that you will be over your caloric goals: You didn't have time to do all your planned activities. A friend called and wanted to have a beer. You showed up and the client wanted to go for lunch. You were passing by a bakery and that croissant looked good.

    It really doesn't matter what brings it about, inevitably and even with planning, there will be days you will go over your goal unless you become an anti-social anal-retentive hermit (and some of my friends already think that about me and my calorie counting)!

    And, if you want to succeed in your weight loss you probably need to minimize these "goals not met" meals and days.

    So why the blazes would you intentionally pre-plan an overage?

    The only "valid" reason I can see is because your daily routine is so restrictive that you feel the need to put a relief valve in place.

    Well, I am not on a diet. What i am doing is just trying to figure out a new way to eat and move during the next five or more years. One that will result in me being more healthy and able than otherwise.

    If I feel the need for a pre-planned relief valve, it sounds like I haven't yet stumbled upon a sustainable path....

    +1

  • awnurmarc
    awnurmarc Posts: 125 Member
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    It all depends on how you define "cheat." From a calorie standpoint, there might be some meal you would like and it won't allow you to keep your deficit, so you might eat up to maintenance.

    But some views of healthy eating involve ideas of what should be predominate in your diet whether or not you count calories. Paleo and Ketogenic would be two that I know of. In general the issue will be how your body responds to those cheats (and how much cheating) etc. I suspect this varies from person to person and the only way you can know is to track how a cheat day effects your weight and energy etc. And usually, such people don't view all "cheats" as equal. (I know cavemen didn't have coffee, beer, or wine, but I drink coffee all the time, wine most nights, and beer almost never).

    If you're only concerned about calories, then I don's see how an maintenance day could hurt you. It would slow you down but it might help you persevere. Up to you.
  • barbecuesauce
    barbecuesauce Posts: 1,779 Member
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    I don't believe in a "cheating" mindset. Want to eat at maintenance one day a week? Have a special event where you know you'll blow through your calories? Log them and move on. But the idea that you can cut corners or cheat yourself doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

    I currently eat anywhere from a -500 deficit up to maintenance. I am careful not to eat over maintenance because I have such a slight deficit right now. I was much stricter in the beginning, to the point where I wouldn't go to family dinners or to restaurants. Looking back, that was even crazier than cheat days.
  • mirlredmann
    mirlredmann Posts: 28 Member
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    In summer 2014 I weighed 105 Kg, when I started mfp this January I was down to 95, Kg now 88. I admire my losses, which have been consistently at 1-2Kg per month and I am happy that mfp helped me figure out a way to become more conscious about my dieting and exercise choices over time. I want to achieve long-term change enabling me to keep my goal weight, preferably for ever.. Strict dieting though isn't for me, I regularly exceed my calorie deficit because I want to be social or because I am traveling again or because I crave something that won't keep me full for long. In order to achieve my goals and stick to my initial plan I have set mfp to a larger deficit than I want to achieve (0.5Kg instead of 0.25Kg per week). Thus I have no "cheat day", rather I log consistently and approximate eating at a slightly lower rate than I normally would, with perennial overeating being accounted for. This helps me acknowledge the patterns and reasons for over-eating without cheating on myself.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    No cheating, but I wouldn't consider my diet "strict". I fit foods into my calorie goals. If I go over? I make sure I'm within my weekly goal.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    Neither. Eat what you like within your calories/macro.
  • SergeantSausage
    SergeantSausage Posts: 1,673 Member
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    You're only cheating yourself, right?

    If that's OK with you ... but I tend to think that if you feel a need to cheat, you are definitely doing it wrong. Way wrong.
  • fgleiser
    fgleiser Posts: 16 Member
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    malibu927 wrote: »
    No cheating, but I wouldn't consider my diet "strict". I fit foods into my calorie goals. If I go over? I make sure I'm within my weekly goal.

    Same here, I dont eat all of my running valories back so i use them as a "bank" for weekends. On weekends, I relax a bit and eat a bit more, trying not to go over maintenance.

    It helps that I usually run 20km (12.5mi).

    So far it's been working for me
  • Seigla
    Seigla Posts: 172 Member
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    I focus on changing my lifestyle. I get some foods out of my regular diet. I allow myself to eat most of these foods on special occasions, like parties, or just once a week. And on some days I feel more hungry I allow myself to eat more, I don't have to lose every day. So I am not that strict. The result is that I don't lose very quickly all the time, but what I lose I keep off, because my lifestyle is sustainable; I don't get frustrated with it.

    I only need to lose 5 kilos or so, which will probably take 2-4 months or so. If I were very strict I am sure that I can do it in a month, but then I would be much less sure that I will be able to keep that off and I also think that it would cost too much willpower, which is a precious resource that I also need in order to finish my studies in the coming weeks.
  • daaaaaanielle
    daaaaaanielle Posts: 114 Member
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    The closest thing I have to a "cheat" day is when I deliberately skip breakfast and eat a light lunch (usually 300 calories or so) in order to have a really big dinner or a big portion of ice cream or lots of Doritos. Or reduce my calories on previous days to account for going over one day. It still comes in under my daily or weekly calories, so I still end up with a deficit, because I plan ahead for it.

    But I try to avoid thinking of it as a "cheat" meal/day and more of a "Treat Yourself" meal/day.

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  • Glinda1971
    Glinda1971 Posts: 2,328 Member
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    Yesterday was my birthday and I went 1,080 calories over my limit. But- I'm still 2,000 calories under my limit for the week because I planned for yesterday.

    I don't consider it a cheat day, sometimes in life you are going to have a special occasion, etc. And so for me, it was just a day that I consumed more than usual. And over the course of a year that 1,000 calories isn't going to make much of a difference.

  • raelynnsmama52512
    raelynnsmama52512 Posts: 1,184 Member
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    Neither. I eat what I want, just in moderation, and do what I have to do to make it fit. For example, tomorrow I will be taking my daughter to a birthday party for one of her friends. I know there will most likely be cake and ice cream, and probably pizza or some other kind of party food, and I've already planned for a light breakfast and light dinner to accommodate. I've found planning ahead and making things fit works better for me than having "cheat" days or being "strict". Just my $0.02

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