What does a "cheat week" do to you?

Simbii95

Hey everyone! Ive been working and eating clean for like 2 months now. Been under the weather this past week so zero workouts and eating like a pig. Just wondering what sort of affect is this gonna have on whatever progress I have made. Plan to get back on track this coming Monday! Thanks a bunch!

SuzySunshine99

Depends on how many calories above your maintenance calories you ate. It's just math...you gain about a pound for every 3,500 calories you consume per week ABOVE your maintenance calorie level.

In any case, you can expect to see some water weight gain if you are consuming more carbs and sodium than usual.

AnnPT77

Yes, to the point about calories: That's what matters for fat gain/loss, calorie balance.

If you've been "eating clean" - whatever the heck that poorly-defined but widely-used term means to you - that's probably not very important, when it comes to the effects of what you're calling a "cheat week" - another poorly defined term.

If "clean" involves low carbs (real carbs, not the mis-definition of "carbs" meaning "treats" that people sometimes seem to use), then increasing your carb intake when "cheating" will add some water retention, but that's not fat so really doesn't matter in the kind of weight management most of us really care about. Increased sodium could have a similar effect on water retention, but that's still not fat. Those things just make the scale a misleading guide, when it comes to fat gain/loss, which is what most of us actually care about when we try to manage our bodyweight.

Similarly, if your "eating clean" involved a lot of high-fiber foods, you could have reduced the average amount of stuff in transit in your digestive tract, if your "cheat" week involved much lower-residue foods. That would tend to lower scale weight, but it's still not about fat gain/loss, so who cares?

On the other hand, dropping workouts could reduce water retention (used in muscle repair, essentially), and maybe cause scale weight to drop, but make you see a scale-weight jump when you resume exercise.

No way for anyone else to tell you how these effects (or similar others) will apply to you - you didn't give us enough information, they tend to balance out in different ways in different people, etc. Get back on track, and you'll find out - could be useful knowledge in future. Don't fall for nonsense about "don't weigh yourself for a week", unless you're OK with losing that learning opportunity.

I don't believe in "cheating" (in pretty much the same sense that as an adult, I don't believe in Santa Claus), but I do periodically engage in very indulgent eating, eating calories way over my maintenance calories. For your amusement, here's a detailed case study of doing that for a long weekend.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10603949/big-overfeed-ruins-everything-nope

I don't think, in the 5 years since I started losing weight (4+ years of maintenance), that I've ever done a whole continuous week of over-maintenance eating. I've done a day or two of it quite a few times, similar to what's in the thread linked above, with similar results.

The link below might shed some light on your situation. Or not.

https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

Just get back on track; long run, everything will be fine. A week is a drop in the ocean of your life.

P.S. Don't wait until Monday. Do it now. Think of it as resuming your regular life. That's my advice, as your concerned old internet auntie.

joyanna2016

I'll tell you what a cheat week does for me....it turns into a cheat month. 🤦‍♀️

PAV8888

Cheat week and will start again Monday after the weekend = end of this iteration of a weight management attempt... see ya again after the regain.

Resumption of normal MANAGED eating starts with your ***next meal*** or even snack!

You DON'T HAVE to eat at a large deficit in order to be actively MANAGING your weight. You can eat at a small deficit, at MAINTENANCE, or EVEN at a small SURPLUS if that is what it takes to get back into the swing of things.

But it doesn't involve continuing to eat like a pig (whatever that means to you) for another 2+ days.

You may also want to review your goal setting to ensure that your deficit goals and methods of achieving them are reasonable enough that you can keep at this till the expected end of weight loss and a couple of years into maintenance...

Lietchi

Either you are really feeling under the weather, in which case eating at maintenance is warranted. But not 'going crazy' and, I presume, not even logging.

Or you were too restrictive during those 2 months and it caught up with you. In which case pigging out for a while week won't solve anything. Choosing a more sustainable way of losing weight will. You don't need to 'eat clean', whatever that means for you, you just need a reasonable (not excessive) calorie deficit and eating foods that satisfy and satiate you. Making sure to eat mostly healthy foods is good too of course, but cutting out foods you enjoy is not sustainable long-term.

ReenieHJ

joyanna2016 wrote: »

I'll tell you what a cheat week does for me....it turns into a cheat month. 🤦‍♀️

Yep. Or in my case a cheat spring and 20# gained. It took a lot to get me back on track and after 3 weeks I still feel like I'm on very shaky ground. Sticking to my calorie limit and so far so good. Be careful with a cheat week if your mindset is as weak as mine or if you're a binge-eater like me. So hard to crawl back from.
Good luck on Monday and get back to it!! Hope you're feeling better.

cmriverside

I know how you can find out.

Step on the scale.

When I have weeks like that (and I do, even now at 12 years in Maintenance) I just get back to the plan and it drops back off in a few days.

I mean, we know nothing about you so it's all a guess.

Step on the scale.

AnnPT77

Lietchi wrote: »

Either you are really feeling under the weather, in which case eating at maintenance is warranted. But not 'going crazy' and, I presume, not even logging.

Or you were too restrictive during those 2 months and it caught up with you. In which case pigging out for a while week won't solve anything. Choosing a more sustainable way of losing weight will. You don't need to 'eat clean', whatever that means for you, you just need a reasonable (not excessive) calorie deficit and eating foods that satisfy and satiate you. Making sure to eat mostly healthy foods is good too of course, but cutting out foods you enjoy is not sustainable long-term.

This is very true. I don't know why anyone would click disagree.

springlering62

We took a three week vacation to Eastern Europe last spring, staying in small family guest houses. Food was home cooked, fresh from the garden, homemade cheeses, wood stove baked breads, homemade vodkas. Not only was it all new and I wanted to sample everything, it would have hurt our hosts’ feelings if we didn’t eat. I came back five pounds heavier.

In December we spent nearly a month in Germany for a family wedding. Our air bnb host would leave plates of homemade cookies and Christmas candies out for us. Our room was next door to an irresistible bakery. We had several large and extraordinary meals, including a particularly memorable Swabian cuisine wedding dinner.
I came back eight pounds heavier.

However, over the past twenty months, I’ve also lost a net over over 90 pounds. So I guess you could say I’ve really lost 110, lol.

Just because you take a week, or two, or three off, and throw all planning to the winds and literally eat ALL tha food, if you have the mentality, you can get right back to it, rather than using it as an excuse to stay off the wagon you fell out of.

It’s on you to make it what it’s gonna be.