Cheat day has to go
tomcornhole
Posts: 1,084 Member
I have always had a cheat day every Saturday for the last 2 1/2 years. Epic cheat days were 6,000+ calorie events. Normal ones were 4,500. Never had an issue losing weight because my non cheat days were at 1500 net calories average. I thought I had outsmarted the system, but the weekly average always came out to about TDEE minus 500 / day. Went from 254 to 180 doing that. This worked great when I wasn't lifting and just doing cardio. I could live with the ultra low calories during the week and then stuff my face on Saturday.
But this is not working now that I am lifting. Lifting during the week results in not hitting my numbers. Lifts that were warmups are now fails. And I am beat up. Recovery is slow and I never really get fully recovered. Weekend lifts after better but not great.
So I changed to a different approach that looked less like an eating disorder. I now set my calories at sedentary TDEE minus 500 and then eat back my exercise calories every day. That is 1800 + exercise. I am averaging 500 cal / day exercise, so I am averaging 2,300 cal / day during the week (vs. 1,500). What a huge difference. Hit a DL PR today. I ran a 5k on Wednesday (gasp!). Energy level is up. Recovery is awesome. Aches and pains are going away. I am not hungry. The net caloric deficit each week is the same as with a cheat day, just every day is higher calories. That seems to be the secret to cutting and maintaining strength.
The big change will be not gorging myself tomorrow. This will be the first time in 30 months I will not cheat like a madman on Saturday. I have been eating all the foods this week (I'm normally low carb during the week and never eat sweets). Had an ice cream cone or cookie or actually ate the bread on a sandwich (I never do that). Wish me luck.
Thanks for listening. Enjoy the ride.
Tom
But this is not working now that I am lifting. Lifting during the week results in not hitting my numbers. Lifts that were warmups are now fails. And I am beat up. Recovery is slow and I never really get fully recovered. Weekend lifts after better but not great.
So I changed to a different approach that looked less like an eating disorder. I now set my calories at sedentary TDEE minus 500 and then eat back my exercise calories every day. That is 1800 + exercise. I am averaging 500 cal / day exercise, so I am averaging 2,300 cal / day during the week (vs. 1,500). What a huge difference. Hit a DL PR today. I ran a 5k on Wednesday (gasp!). Energy level is up. Recovery is awesome. Aches and pains are going away. I am not hungry. The net caloric deficit each week is the same as with a cheat day, just every day is higher calories. That seems to be the secret to cutting and maintaining strength.
The big change will be not gorging myself tomorrow. This will be the first time in 30 months I will not cheat like a madman on Saturday. I have been eating all the foods this week (I'm normally low carb during the week and never eat sweets). Had an ice cream cone or cookie or actually ate the bread on a sandwich (I never do that). Wish me luck.
Thanks for listening. Enjoy the ride.
Tom
0
Replies
-
Good luck getting through tomorrow. It might not be easy, but you can do it, and once you get through one or two Saturdays it will start to become routine.
I don't do planned cheat days. There are days when I have a special event where I know I'm going to go over, but I've never done the one day a week or even one meal a week planned cheat. It's just easier for me to eat consistently all the time, so I typically follow TDEE. I have roughly a 200 calorie range I can stay in where I'm eating enough to keep my energy up but I can still lose weight. If I'm smart with my choices I can get a lot of food in for those calories, although some days I really need the burger & fries for lunch so I need to have a little extra restraint the rest of the day.0 -
Yeah I think steep deficits followed by one huge calorie day probably doesn't lend itself well to good training. Now that you're deadlifting cars and houses and crap like that you should eat
0 -
I have the same exact story. I can maintain crazy deficits when I'm not lifting but if I want to lift better than SS's sad, sad weights then I need to have a more consistent intake. I used to do the weekend "binge" thing but my lifts have been stellar since I changed things up exactly as you have. I cut on almost exactly the same calories too, 2250 a day. It's slow but my lifts don't fall off a cliff.0
-
Wow, I thought my cheat days were awesome. That is a huge difference in intake from non-cheat days to cheat day. I wish my digestive system could take in that amount of food.
Good for you for realizing you had a problem and fixing it. Have fun reaching new PRs0 -
I have the same exact story. I can maintain crazy deficits when I'm not lifting but if I want to lift better than SS's sad, sad weights then I need to have a more consistent intake. I used to do the weekend "binge" thing but my lifts have been stellar since I changed things up exactly as you have. I cut on almost exactly the same calories too, 2250 a day. It's slow but my lifts don't fall off a cliff.
tough crowd!
LMFAO0 -
I have the same exact story. I can maintain crazy deficits when I'm not lifting but if I want to lift better than SS's sad, sad weights then I need to have a more consistent intake. I used to do the weekend "binge" thing but my lifts have been stellar since I changed things up exactly as you have. I cut on almost exactly the same calories too, 2250 a day. It's slow but my lifts don't fall off a cliff.
tough crowd!
LMFAO
:bigsmile: :smooched:0
