Do you have your cheat day even just once a month?

dinia07

I am on a low carb diet and i feel so deprived of the food i love. I want to set a cheat day but i don't want to feel guilty afterwards.

goldenglitter83

I have one day a week where I can have one meal fast food! I started out only letting my son have his day on Friday but I also slow myself something! I think you have to, without guilt! As long as you are still accountable for the calories and exercising! As long as it's one day and not a daily thing! It's one meal for me though, not the whole day!

Ashtoretet

I've been letting myself eat at maintenance about once a month. This month I'm saving it for Thanksgiving.

nutmegoreo

If you are missing the foods you really love, are you doing yourself a disservice with your diet plan? Low carb works really well for some people. For me, I know it wouldn't work for me because, I like my carbs. They just taste so good. So for me, I know that trying to stay low carb would lead to cheat days, leading to cheat weeks, leading to giving up. What does work for me, is eating in a calorie deficit and enjoying all the foods, in moderation. This took some time to learn and adjust. If you are happy with low carb, then by all means keep at it, but if you're not, there are alternatives.

votkuhr

I have one or sometimes two, a week. The biggest hurdle you have to face is that it's REALLY OKAY to let yourself go once in a while.

Look at your caloric budget as a weekly currency. You're already on a deficit 6 days out of 7. Eating a bit more on the 7th day will still put you at a deficit overall for that week. You'll still have extra calories to play with. You'll still be okay. Just drink be plenty of water afterwards.

Note: You might gain water weight after a binge (I always do). But it's all part of it. It will disappear after a few days. Move on and go back to your usual routine / diet.

Restricting yourself too much from the things you love *may* unleash an inner binge demon one day and you *might* feel even worse.

Machka9

I have had diet breaks every 4 months. But then ... I haven't restricted myself. I've restricted the quantity of course, but I eat whatever I like and only what I like.

FatMoojor

Why are you setting yourself up to fail? If what you are doing isn't sustainable going forever then at some point you are going to go back to the things you "enjoy" and you won't have made the change to knowing how much of those to eat to lose/maintain.

There is no reason to do low carb unless you have been told to do so for a medical reason. Eat the things you like, just smaller portions of them.

FredKing1

If the low-carb diet is low enough to go into ketosis, that one cheat day throws you off for half a week to get back into that state. Successful diets are lifestyle changes where we practice habits we can follow for life. A diet in which I feel deprived is one which will not help me long term.

InsaneMissy

I find that a cheat meal or even one choc/biscuit leads to a cheat day, few days or weeks-and lots of self loathing. But I'm finding it hard to stick to a diet-low carb low fat, which leads me to gorge. I feel I can't win either way. And the weight isn't shifting

lithezebra

I don't have cheat days, however I'm going to eat whatever I want on Thanksgiving, which will likely include more carbs than usual. I'm not an overeater anyway, and I'm not worried about stopping when I feel full.

lithezebra

InsaneMissy wrote: »

I find that a cheat meal or even one choc/biscuit leads to a cheat day, few days or weeks-and lots of self loathing. But I'm finding it hard to stick to a diet-low carb low fat, which leads me to gorge. I feel I can't win either way. And the weight isn't shifting

You can't reasonably do low carb and low fat at the same time. The only thing left to eat would be protein. The usual low carb diet recommendation is to get 20% of your calories as protein, decide how many grams of carbs you're going to limit yourself to, and then get the rest of your calories as fat. You can go very low carb, or moderately low carb, but if you're going low carb, you're going to need more fat.

fiddletime

I try not to do a cheat meal because I can easily derail. However, I try to build junk food calories into my day, such as Halloween candy last month. I did overeat on it for two days and logged it honestly. That kept me from going into mindless binge mode. All in all those two days over (total of about 1500 calories) hasn't affected my 3 pounds a month weight loss plan. I've had a few mini-bars (left overs from Halloween) and have logged them. This is the first year I didn't detail at Halloween.

jenniferpiotrowski0

I don't do a low carb diet cuz I like to eat carbs and I don't like to deprive myself of foods I love,including dessert so I pretty much cheat whenever I want and if for some reason I happen to not cheat regularly then ill cheat on a holiday or when going out to eat. But I have heard if you are on a diet and using just specific cheat days to only cheat once or twice a week. I tried this method before and it didn't work for me cuz I would give up and crave to cheat more than twice a week..it was too big of a temptation for me so now I just try to stay under my calorie intake of 1450 calories everyday eating what I want. I know deep down its not the healthiest way but at least I'm not deprived with food at all,especially when I get offered a cookie or donut randomly and would feel stupid if I said no thanks then feel deprived that I cant enjoy what they are enjoying

WinoGelato

OP I agree with others, if you are finding low carb to be too restrictive and feel like you are depriving yourself, that may not be the best approach for you. What were your reasons for doing LC in the first place? Was it for medical reasons to restrict carbs, or was it simply for weight loss? For weight loss, a calorie deficit is all that matters, and going low carb is one way to create that calorie deficit, but it is not the only way and for many people, it is not the preferred way.

As far as cheat days go - I prefer to just work all the foods I like into my regular calorie allotment. I have wine and/or chocolate pretty much every day. I eat fast food or pizza maybe once a week. When there is a big event - holiday, birthday, special night out - I might bank some calories in the days leading up to it to offset a night of higher calories, but I still don't consider that a cheat day.

cwolfman13

I just eat food...for the most part I eat very healthfully and within the constraints of my energy requirements...occasionally I over indulge...holidays, birthdays, random Saturday nights out on the town, other occasions, etc and sometimes I have pizza or some other kind of "junky" type food, but I don't consider it cheating...it's all just food and occasional over indulgences, etc are pretty irrelevant to my otherwise very healthy way of living.

All that said, I'm not on any particular kind of "plan"...I don't low carb or otherwise participate in any kind of structured eating plan. If you're feeling the need to go off plan, then perhaps you should consider whether or not your plan is truly viable. If you're just doing low carb, a higher carb day isn't going to matter...if you're doing keto though, a high carb day is going to kick you out of ketosis and it'll take you a week to get back into ketosis...so obviously, it would matter there.

But like I said...if your plan isn't a viable one, you're never going to stick to it. I have no idea why you're doing low carb, but low carb is not necessary to weight loss. If you're doing it just because you've read a bunch of diet and fitness magazines and they all say that low carb is the way to go...you may want to examine the actual facts and adjust your plan as necessary for long term success.