Preparing for cheat day/meal/buffet

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Theres this local chinese buffet and my neighbor helped me paint my house so I wanted to treat him to a meal and he said he wanted a buffet. Now I know theres a concept of weekly calories and even monthly. How should I prepare my meals before the cheat day considering i go ham wild at buffets?

Should i just eat minuscule amounts of carbs and just do protein and veggies or should i just eat 70% or some percent less than maintainence calories the days before the buffet?
Also this buffet meal will be on a rest day so is this bad? I hear something about having cheat meals right after exercising a lagging body part so the calories go to more muscle than fat. So if it's a rest day will the calories go to fat?
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Replies

  • PlasticGains
    PlasticGains Posts: 76 Member
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    Well, going into a special meal/buffet underfed is -- for me -- a recipe for disaster.

    I do better when I'm beginning the meal at a normal level of hunger.

    My instinct: for one meal, you're overthinking it. Eat what you enjoy, don't worry about it being your rest day, get back on plan after the meal.

    You aren't going to gain fat from a single meal.

    I probably or even most people in general consume like 5000-6000 calories in a buffet. Isnt that nearly 2 pounds of fat?
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Well, going into a special meal/buffet underfed is -- for me -- a recipe for disaster.

    I do better when I'm beginning the meal at a normal level of hunger.

    My instinct: for one meal, you're overthinking it. Eat what you enjoy, don't worry about it being your rest day, get back on plan after the meal.

    You aren't going to gain fat from a single meal.

    I probably or even most people in general consume like 5000-6000 calories in a buffet. Isnt that nearly 2 pounds of fat?

    I don't know what the source is for that statistic, but we commonly have people here who log larger calorie counts for holidays (like Thanksgiving or Christmas) and it has no overall impact on their long-term weight.

    If it's something that you're determined to worry about, I'd just save a few calories (think 100-200) in the surrounding days to offset what you're going to be eating at the buffet.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
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    You are definitely overcomplicating it. It will not turn to fat overnight. I refeed every weekend in a deficit so I eat at or above my maintenance. Sometimes I get a workout in, sometimes I do it the next day.

    If your maintenance is 3000 let's say you are only consuming an extra 2000-3000 calories, and depending on how the rest of your week looked and how much surplus you are in (if I'm not mistaken you are bulking right?) that is not much extra gain. If you go back to normal the next day you will be fine. It takes time to build muscle and gain fat it doesn't happen after one day of eating. Do your workout the next day and shoot for some PRs.
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
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    Just avoid the dessert section of the buffet if there is one. The cakes there are usually stupidly caloric!
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
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    I plan my cheat days out at least a month in advance.
    They start at Midnight and end the next midnight. At 12:00am back to my normal proper eating and start planning my next cheat day :)
    If I cheat at any point during that month I cancel the cheat day. But on the day I go as crazy as I want. I order food in advance and prepare for it all month. I then don't have any guilt on the day when I am eating what ever I want.
    I do try to keep track of what I eat though more for fun then any other reason.

    If I'm given the choice between A) not feeling guilt when I eat what I want for one day a month and b) not feeling guilt over what I eat during any day of the month, I'm going to go with "B."

    Seconded!

    Thirded! I'm losing about 1-1.5 pounds a week, eating *entirely* what I want.