Sorry for asking but...

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thelostbreed02
thelostbreed02 Posts: 87 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I think I may have indirectly asked this before but can someone please explain to me the whole thing about having cheat meals or a cheat day after a very heavy and intense weight training?
Something about your muscle receptors being primed and your insulin very sensitive so it uses the extra calories more for muscle than fat?
And how bad would it be to have a really big big cheat day without lifting weights? How about a really big and bad cheat meal without having lifted weights?

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  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
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    I am not sure where you first heard about that concept, but it seems overly complicated and not really applicable in practical gains. I am guessing the idea behind it is that since your body most optimally builds muscle in a surplus, if you do heavy lifting, and then eat a bunch of calories, your body will use that protein towards muscle building. I am not sure how applicable that actually is in real life though. Your body does protein synthesis for at least 48 hours after you exercise, so if you've worked out in a couple of days, some of your heavy day will go towards muscle building. But really, building any sort of significant muscle takes place over a long period of time, so one day regardless of how you do it is not going to make much of a difference. You are talking about potentially fractions of a pound in a best case scenario.

    So I would not worry too much about it. We all have days were we eat a lot. My days where I have eaten the most are not days that I have exercised or even done heavy exercise close to them, because they are usually related to social things/vacations, etc, where I am less likely to be doing heavy exercise. It hasn't done anything to ruin my diet. Weight loss is something done over long periods of time. It can't be undone in a day or two. So if you have an unintentional binge, or have a day you plan to eat more for enjoyment/social reasons, don't worry about it, and just focus on getting back on schedule afterwards.
  • thelostbreed02
    thelostbreed02 Posts: 87 Member
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    TonyB0588 wrote: »
    Don't overthink it.

    And morally, cheating is never right. So I don't endorse that concept.

    Can you clarify and expand your answer. So how worse is it to not lift
  • californiagirl2012
    californiagirl2012 Posts: 2,625 Member
    edited May 2019
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    thelostbreed02 wrote: »
    I think I may have indirectly asked this before but can someone please explain to me the whole thing about having cheat meals or a cheat day after a very heavy and intense weight training?
    Something about your muscle receptors being primed and your insulin very sensitive so it uses the extra calories more for muscle than fat?
    And how bad would it be to have a really big big cheat day without lifting weights? How about a really big and bad cheat meal without having lifted weights?


    I always hate calling eating cheating.

    I call deficit days, deficit days.

    TDEE eating up to what we need, any day, not cheating because it's what we need.

    I think you are possibly referring to what we were taught in nutrition college as the anabolic window immediately after an intense workout. It's when the muscle glycogen is depleted.

    Workouts and hard training sessions substantially reduce or deplete liver and muscle glycogen stores. Insulin plays an important role by facilitating uptake of glucose into muscle cells and by activating the enzyme responsible for glycogen resynthesis, glycogen synthase. A substantial amount of research supports the following:

    To maximize the rate at which muscle glycogen is replaced, a high-GI carbohydrate should be consumed as soon after the exercise bout as possible. This is the one hour window right after your workout.

    This is the one situation in which a high-GI carb in the post-exercise recovery period can enhance the resynthesis of muscle glycogen. The best carb is a monosaccharide which is 6 times the GI compared to table sugar (sugar and gummy bears honey are not a monosaccharide). Also important is to consume protein isolate to aid in reducing protein breakdown and stimulating protein synthesis during recovery from exercise.

    The monosaccharide will create the insulin spike which is the vehicle to get the protein isolate into the muscle for repair as well as the carbohydrates to replenish the muscle glycogen.

    It's not cheating, it's just eating smart for your goals.

    So, some people think they are cheating because they eat gummy bears. They are cheating themselves out of an opportunity to really take advantage of the anabolic window, so yeah, cheating.


  • thelostbreed02
    thelostbreed02 Posts: 87 Member
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    MikePTY wrote: »
    I am not sure where you first heard about that concept, but it seems overly complicated and not really applicable in practical gains. I am guessing the idea behind it is that since your body most optimally builds muscle in a surplus, if you do heavy lifting, and then eat a bunch of calories, your body will use that protein towards muscle building. I am not sure how applicable that actually is in real life though. Your body does protein synthesis for at least 48 hours after you exercise, so if you've worked out in a couple of days, some of your heavy day will go towards muscle building. But really, building any sort of significant muscle takes place over a long period of time, so one day regardless of how you do it is not going to make much of a difference. You are talking about potentially fractions of a pound in a best case scenario.

    So I would not worry too much about it. We all have days were we eat a lot. My days where I have eaten the most are not days that I have exercised or even done heavy exercise close to them, because they are usually related to social things/vacations, etc, where I am less likely to be doing heavy exercise. It hasn't done anything to ruin my diet. Weight loss is something done over long periods of time. It can't be undone in a day or two. So if you have an unintentional binge, or have a day you plan to eat more for enjoyment/social reasons, don't worry about it, and just focus on getting back on schedule afterwards.

    Thanks! So it wouldnt make a difference if I somewhat lifted yesterday and had a cheat day today where I didnt lift? And I assume that's because you said the extra calories would go to building the broken muscles from yesterday?

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