Does Anyone Else Record Their Free/Cheat/Flex Days?

janejellyroll

I log everything, including the days when I eat more than my goal (I don't really do "cheat days," but I do have days where I sometimes go over). It keeps me accountable and helps me spot trends. It also lets me know how I'm doing on meeting my nutritional needs -- I track those in addition to just paying attention to calories.

nealwalk

I’ve really appreciated so much feedback everyone thank you! A common question many of you posed was what are my goals? I’m actually trying to lose fat and gain lean muscle. I want to drop my bodyfat percentage down to 10% or less ultimately. Right now I am at about 22.3% bodyfat and 185 pounds.

I began my journey on May 8, 2017 weighing 213.2 pounds and I didn’t calculate my bodyfat at that point, but I’m going to assume I was AT LEAST 35% bodyfat. Since then, I’ve had myfitnesspal settings set to lose 1 pound a week. I exercise intensely 6 days a week with 4 days using weights and 2 days of HIIT cardio workouts. Additionally, I do 30 minutes of cardio on a life cycle after each workout.

After reading what everyone has said and studying my own results over the past 6 months, I think I will try lowering my free day caloric intake by quite a bit. It seems that many of your responses would encourage that and again I appreciate the feedback. I’ve had excellent results so far, but lately things have slowed and I am positive it’s the free days that are the obvious culprit.

The reason for the free days is based on a program I have done off and on over the last 15 years called Body For Life by Bill Phillips. It has always given me excellent results and I’ve never had any problems with the program at all. The program basically has you workout 6 days a week eating a healthy diet of 6 smaller meals. On day 7, you rest and have a free day eating as much or as little of whatever you want. I’ve always been able to still lose bodyfat while incorporating the free day no matter how crazy the calorie count got on those days.

HOWEVER, lol...I AM 43 years old now. That inevitably means my metabolism has slowed down from when I was 29, 33, even 38 years old when the free day never seemed to affect my fat loss efforts. I think nowadays, that may not work in the same way unfortunately. But seeing how I’m 43 now I suppose it just comes with the territory and that’s ok, I’ll just need to adjust accordingly. So I think what I’ll do is try incorporating only 2 free days a month instead of 4 and instead of 5000 calories on those days, perhaps keep it to 2500-3000.

At the end of the day, like many of you said, it’s about creating a caloric deficit and I won’t get to my goal if I keep shooting myself in the foot with those massive caloric Free days. I’m very appreciative of everyone’s posts thank you so much for the good ideas!

kellyjellybellyjelly

I try not to have cheat days, because that will only set my progress back rather than forward with seeing the scale go down.

What I've been doing is at the end of the Fitbit week (Saturday-Saturday) on Sunday or Monday I'll look at my burnt calories & if I have a lot leftover then I'll treat myself with a pint of Talenti or Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Occasionally, if I have more than I intended during the regular week, I'll move around some of the calories to other days, but still allow myself enough calories to eat so I don't get overly hungry.

missevil

As long as I remember what I ate (cheat days are often related to buffets) I write everything down. Well, as good as possible, due to guessing and trying to find similar things, when I had something prepared in a restaurant.
And while the number is gigantic (2-3 times my regular allowance) it not only keeps me in the "flow" of logging but it also keeps me realistic. The 3 pounds + on the next day? That's not fat, but only sodium/carb related water, waste mass, or whatever. I might have had 3 times my allowance, but I didn't even have enough to re-gain one real pound of fat. (3500 calories). So yes, I'm hard on myself and log everything.
Currently, I've more and more days with too many calories. (more or less maintenance) I'm near the end of my weight loss and my TDEE is so damn low (1500) that I have a hard time to create a deficit and that frustrates me and I eat even more... The obvious solution here is more sports, but the weather is not very inviting anymore to commute by bike.

nealwalk

@JerSchmare If I remember correctly, in his original book Bill outlined the program where you could eat whatever you want and as much as you want on the free day only. During the rest of the week of course it has you stick to portion control with protein the size of one’s palm and carbs the size of one’s clinched fist. I take it a step further and weigh everything.

I hear everyone loud and clear though and agree that I need to scale back on my calories plain and simple. I’ve been able to get my muscular frame back every time I’ve stuck with this program and this time it’s a little different. Only thing I can think of is my metabolism slowing down a bit with age but it is still working regardless. Just not as fast as it used to lol. I guess Bill is writing another Body For Life book so it will be interesting to see what he changes lol. Thanks for the reply!

Fitnessmom82

I always log. Like others said, those calories count, even if it is your cheat day!! As someone who is newer to this i find it helpful to log cheat meals because I see how many calories I am taking in (even if I'm not worrying them that day). I've even found that some cheat foods really aren't as bad as I thought, and can then work them in to my "good" days.

unfair_mom

You could make your week start on Monday then check your weekly averages (Monday - Saturday) before the cheat day starts. ... I do the opposite. I start my week on Friday so I can make sure I do enough healthy eating the following week to make up for my cheat day.