Cheat Meal Set backs

Kingdodd24

Soooo I’m consistently losing .8-1Lb per week. However when I have my cheat meal (which is only 2k calories). I gain everything back and it’s annoying!!

ANY ADVICE??

janejellyroll

A 2,000 calorie meal, plus whatever else you're eating in the day, is probably a lot of food. So you're seeing a bounce on the scale because you've got more food traveling through your body and you're probably eating more sodium and carbohydrates than usual (both of which can cause temporary water weight gain). It's also possible that your meal is cancelling out a big part of the deficit you're creating the rest of the week.

So is the "cheat meal" worth it to you? Ultimately, your body knows how much you're eating and how much food it is processing, even if you choose to call it a "cheat." You can't really cheat when it comes to how your body is processing food and using energy.

CupcakeCrusoe

1) If you have a weekly deficit in line with 1 lb per week (3500 calorie deficit over the whole week including the cheat meal), then the weight you are seeing directly after is water/undigested food.

2) If you are eating at a weekly deficit in line with 1 lb per week (deficit 3500 calories) but not including the cheat meal day, you have to recalculate what your deficit is weekly including the cheat day.

3) If you are not logging your cheat meal accurately, you should start doing that to make sure your expectations are in line with your results.

Cheat meals are fine, but like everything, they should be logged and you should calculate your weekly deficit including the cheat meal so you know how much you're losing or not.

MidlifeCrisisFitness

Cheat meals or celebration meals are fine. But you need to have realistic expectations. If you are going to eat 7 slices of pizza every Friday you will see saw up and down. This was the case for me. I know if if don't want to see saw I can only have 2-4 slices.

Holidays and Family celebrations are also a challenge. Leave the second piece of cake. Only have the lemon mergange and skip the apple.

Yesterday I had two servings of homemade chicken and waffles and chocolate cake. I know this will be at least a week of work. That's ok, I chose to do and plan to deal with it. What should be avoided is unintended overeating and over reaction to fix it because of guilt.