How often do you have a cheat day?

Archerychickge

The word "cheat" has negative connotations to me so I don't "cheat". I eat what I want and don't deny myself anything that I want. Granted I may only take one bite, but I eat what I want, when I want. If you look at it as "cheating" then you'll do it more and more and more until it's habit and then you're back to square one.

Don't "Cheat"

sarahrosheen

once a week on Fridays! it's not really a cheat day though it's a cheat item on that day so maybe a can of coke or a chocolate bar or something

littleburgy

I'm maintaining but Friday nights and sometimes Saturdays I cut loose. The rest of the week I'm very disciplined.

365andstillalive

I don't call them cheat days because I'm not really cheating, I'm just eating at less of a deficit. So basically, I never go above maintenance.

I eat small portion of unhealthy food all the time though haha

50sFit

kmurphy798 wrote: »

I usually do one every other Friday. But today I'm going to eat pizza (not a lot, and it fits in my day) I'm thinking of having a weekly cheat day now that I'm almost to my final goal of 40-41 pounds down. I've lost 33. So how often is your cheat day?

I lost over 90 pounds with a weekly cheat day and have kept it off for 3 years. There is no way I can stick to clean eating all week without knowing that my food binge is just a few days away.
Food is a huge weakness for me. I envy you folks who can eat right day in day out.
I can't, and again, my results are stellar anyway.

kelly_e_montana

The thing that was different about this time I lost weight vs. the other 6-8 times I lost 60 pounds was that I didn't go on a diet. I just decided I was going to think about what a healthy person would do in terms of how they managed food and what they would do for activity. Then I started doing that. The fat came off. I don't have cheat days because my diet is mostly filled with so many good foods and I am so active that I can pretty much fit in a treat here and there. However, my tastes have changed quite a lot to where I no longer like fast food and processed junk. I do love homemade ice cream and decadent treats from good bakeries. I love going out for sushi or slabs of BBQ'd meat. I just splurge when it's appropriate and eat well most of the time. I don't consider it cheating. I don't consider food a battle anymore. I know what makes me feel good in and what doesn't and I try to eat mostly foods that nourish me. But, my calorie allowance is 2700 per day so it's not hard. Mostly I just need to make sure stuff roughly fits my macros. I can't have all carbs and no protein, which is what a cheat day would often spiral into for me.

kelly_e_montana

TMM211073 wrote: »

I'm not taking an exam, so I don't have cheat days.... I eat what I want, when I want it and it generally fits in with my numbers - not always, but oh well one higher calorie day here and there is not going to cause me to put 164lb back on.

If people are looking at this as on or off thing, then they are setting themselves up for failure; I'm not on a diet, I am living my life and some days that involves eating higher caloried food, purely because I want to, or because I can't find the calories for every single morsal that passes my lips and food is a sociable thing, we all enjoy eating out and sharing a nice meal from time to time, don't we....

I've lost 164lb by not dieting, not cheating and not worrying about the numbers - if I do have a few days where my calories end up in the red, then I might increase my exercise accordingly, but not always.

If you want to succeed at losing/managing your weight stop looking at it like some sort of test or conquest - it is food and we all need to eat to live, so start living and enjoy long term weight management.

xXx

winning post!

sarahb2023

once a week, I look forward to it and personally it helps me through the week. I make better choices when Im feeling weak because I know I will be a fatty on Sunday, and I mean fatty. Last Sunday was a bbq bacon cheeseburger, fries, beer AND onion rings, there was ranch somewhere in there too...Im not sure if Im impressed or appalled with myself. Anyways, it was so much food I had left overs which I ate for dinner, so its a whole cheat DAY but 1 fatty meal lasted all day.

T1DCarnivoreRunner

I give myself a cheat day whenever I meet certain goals. I have to lose extremely slowly because of some medical issues, so that is not very often. However, when I say "cheat day," it is not just a maintenance day or something like what some of you count as a cheat day. When I do a cheat day, I eat whatever I want as though I hadn't been dieting.

Last time I let myself have a cheat day, I logged it and was at about 11,000 calories I believe (I will have to go back and check). The amazing thing is that my stomach is smaller so I planned to eat a whole lot more than I really was able to eat. However, it took me from 6/1 to Mid-August to make that. Then not long after, I let myself have a small cheat day and was at 3,000 calories or something like that... only because I was really strung out and got a pizza for emotional reasons.

Now, I'm about 4-5 lbs. from a real cheat day again, which could be Jan. However, I am going to be busy with some traveling in Nov. and may have trouble logging if I don't have a good cell phone connection, or with eating within calories depending on what food places are available (I move FAST - drive at night, see/do stuff during the day for 10 days, so I'm thinking I won't have time to log or find low cal food, so I'm just going to eat and probably just slack off during that time). Then I'll be camping for a couple days later next month to where I won't have cell service or battery probably... and I'm going to be hunting and camping in December, so same deal. The next couple months just are going to have all kinds of cheat days due to lack of ability or priority in logging.

rides4sanity

I stick to a pretty strict set of guidelines 6 days a week. One day a week I have a scheduled reset day where I eat at or above my TDEE and don't worry about my macros... It isn't a "cheat day" just part of my program. I like it, no guilt, no worries...

mgibbons22

I never plan one, they always seem to come by accident. That's fine.

50sFit

mgibbons22 wrote: »

I never plan one, they always seem to come by accident. That's fine.

Dude, I totally feel that!

Chezzie84

I eat what I want, when I want and make it fit into my day. This way I don't have to have a cheat day.

BenjaminS_Fitness

On a bulk: once a week at most. i simply subtract 500cals from my goal and get a burger and a cookie or something like that (even if that is like 800cals - the 300cals don't make a huge difference since i workout a lot and my caloric need is pretty high to begin with) and i always have it after i've trained my weak point because i train like a maniac which obviously burns more calories.

On a cut: never because it hinders my progress and i don't cut for a long time.

50sFit

rides4sanity wrote: »

I stick to a pretty strict set of guidelines 6 days a week. One day a week I have a scheduled reset day where I eat at or above my TDEE and don't worry about my macros... It isn't a "cheat day" just part of my program. I like it, no guilt, no worries...

I like that term..."reset day".... (*)
That's my new term from now on. No more "cheat days". That's kind of negative and self-shaming.

earlnabby

I never have a cheat day. Occasionally I will have a day where I overeat, but "cheating" makes it sound like I am doing something wrong. When I do overeat, I just log it and continue onward and downward.

Paul_Collyer

Basically if there is a day where I go out for a nice dinner, or drinks etc, I just won't log that day and perhaps make up for it with a long run or something. Perhaps once a week on average. It does slow down weight loss a bit but if you behave most days and stick within your limits I think it's ok. You gotta live, right?

Also I'd never log on holiday. Try to make sensible choices within the context of it being a holiday but a couple of kg can easily be lost with a couple of weeks MFP afterwards! Most of it is probably water retention anyway ;-)

T1DCarnivoreRunner

I think the terminology can be used to describe where I'm at within a range. For me, I cannot have a cheat day every day. I cannot have a cheat day every week, even if I eat within my diet every other day. I might be able to get by with a cheat day every month, but it is going to greatly slow my weight loss and perhaps even stall it completely. So for me, a cheat day is fine when I meet an achievement. An over-eat day is ok perhaps once or twice per month. A maintenance day is acceptable every week or 10 days. And that is it. If I give myself a cheat day every week, I will gain weight.

Find whatever works for you, and do that for you. I'll find what works for me, and do that for me. It took me nearly a decade to figure out what worked for me, and I'm losing weight now that I figured out what worked. I'm losing slowly, but I'm at least losing.

xtiansalcedo

When I was trying to lose weight, almost never, save for a couple of holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Super Bowl).

Nowadays, I'm logging for maintenance, and I'm more concerned with weekly stats rather than daily stats. I'll generally have two or three "cheat" days a month, usually weekends. I'll plan for it by eating less and upping my exercise for the days before and after, so even though I might have one day when I go over (even way over, by like 500 or more calories), my calorie intake for the *week* is still on target.

I guess I don't think of them as "cheat" days but "treat" days. You're not going to gain three pounds of fat over the weekend unless you eat like 10,000 extra calories in two days.

snowflake930

I don't have them. I had decades of them, that was the problem. I pretty much eat what I want and stay within my calorie budget for the day. Cheating, to me, means I am doing something I shouldn't be doing. I like where I have gotten to in the 31+ months I have been on MFP, do not EVER want to go back to where I was pre-March 12, 2012.
It works for me, and I will stick with it. It is just the way it has to be for me now.

jorge_ta83

I have a cheat meal once a week usually, just to take a break from cooking going outside and have lunch. But even those days I try to keep my calories in the right limit.

I might do some fast food once a week, at most.