cheat meals?

thebrainstorm215

ok, so i'm new to all of this, but i heard about cheat meals. To my understanding, i am allowed to eat anything i want for my cheat meals, but my question is this: Do i still have to stay under my calorie goal for the day when i eat a cheat meal? ...also, i have heard that 2 cheat meals a week is ok, but not completely sure about that, so i been doing just 1 for now.

MKEgal

The idea of a "cheat meal" or "cheat day" is that you don't pay attention to calories.
This is stupid. Here's why.

If you're say 500 cal under your BMI every day, you'd lose about 1 lb a week.
If you have a big mac (over & above your normal calorie allowance), you've undone one day of eating reasonably.
It's really easy to eat an extra 1000 cal (have a shake & fries with that hamburger).
It's really hard to exercise them away.

It's better to include things you like in your normal daily intake, within your calories, so you don't feel the need
to "cheat". I like peanut butter. Very calorie-dense, very tasty. So I have _some_ with breakfast pretty much every
day (usually on toast). I also like chocolate, so I keep some _good_ dark chocolate on hand and have _a_ _piece_
when I want chocolate. (There's also fat-free sugar-free chocolate pudding, or 50-calorie fudge pops, or hot
cocoa, or...)

Also, what are you "cheating" on?
Are you on a diet, or are you changing your eating habits for good, for the rest of your life?
People go off diets. They're temporary. When you go back to eating the way you were eating, you'll also
go back to weighing what you did weigh.


.

PinkPixiexox

The idea of a 'cheat meal' is that you don't really pay much attention if any at all to what you are taking in. Some people have cheat meals, some have cheat days, some - neither. I personally don't have either purely for the fact that it almost certainly affects my weekly deficit and I end up not losing or even gaining. Cheat meals, in my opinion, aren't necessary if you are eating at a sensible deficit. I've found - with a reasonable deficit, you can fit anything in to your day - and it also teaches you to make overall better choices.

The way I handled it - I ate at maintenance for a day. This isn't cheating.

Machka9

See my replies in this thread:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/34432244#Comment_34432244