Cheat/Free days, exercise calories & losing lbs

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  • craek
    craek Posts: 201 Member
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    Cheat days always help me as well! Good Post. Well said! I have the same feelings, just never knew how to say them without people getting offended...you wrote it well!
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    thanks for the tip. If you don't mind me asking, how long did it take you to lose 95lbs

    March 23, 2010 is when I started logging stuff on MFP. I actually started small changes March 1st, 2010 when I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. Having lost my father due to complications of it (scary!!) and my mother due to other health issues, it was time for me to take matters into my hands to not end up on their path of destruction.

    Just shy of 100 lbs in one year! Not too shabby! Congratulations... I hope you are VERY proud of yourself! Thanks for the great post. I have been using cheat days and eating exercise calories since I started. I have had great success as well! :) I have had two babies (the oldest is 20 months and the youngest is 7 months) and have lost all the weight I gained with them plus some! :) Cheat day/exercise calories just makes sense to me. It drives me crazy when (as you say) newbies get on here and say DON'T EAT THEM! Thank you for your great example. Hopefully it will help others understand how to take better care of their bodies! :)

    Thank you!! I'm not really proud of myself...won't be till the "job" is done. That's another story. lol

    I hope this will help others. I've seen so many feeling guilty of those "binges." People need to realize that we didn't get overweight by one day of "bad" choices. Not only that, the shock of changing things up, keeps the body guessing. Most of the "gain" people see from that so-called binge, is usually water retention. Mine was 12 lbs!! lol That comes off in no time by hydrating the body.

    I know a lot won't take heed to this but if even one does and gets results, that's great to me. :)
  • DebbieLaviolette
    DebbieLaviolette Posts: 89 Member
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    THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! This makes so much sense!!! and it also explains why I feel so worn out. I will start eating my earned calories today!!!!
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    Cheat days always help me as well! Good Post. Well said! I have the same feelings, just never knew how to say them without people getting offended...you wrote it well!

    Thank you! I'm sure I have offended people and I'm not apologizing this time, if I have. The results are proof and that's that. There will be some that won't listen and not much I can do there, unfortunately. Hopefully, this will get through to some of the skeptics. :) That's all I can hope for.
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! This makes so much sense!!! and it also explains why I feel so worn out. I will start eating my earned calories today!!!!

    OMG Yes!! I forgot about the fatigue I had been dealing with, too!! A lot of times, I'll chalk it up to my MS. That's always hard for me to figure out if it's MS, Diabetes or not eating enough. If someone isn't dealing with health issues and feeling worn out, EAT!! I do notice when I eat more, I'm not as fatigued. Eating is very crucial. MFP is already setting a deficit. That's prior to working out. When you work out, you create TOO MUCH of a deficit and that's why we need to eat those.

    That said, you may not feel instantly better and then again, you might. Do eat and your energy will get better. Mine has. I took a day of rest yesterday because my workouts started going down in burnt calories. Today, I'm feeling like I could take on the world. Keep in mind to eat and also rest days. I feel guilty missing workouts, but you shouldn't. Rest is just as important as eating those extra cals! :)
  • jeneey
    jeneey Posts: 48
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    Bravo! Thank you for the info and congratulations on your hard work!
  • DebbieLaviolette
    DebbieLaviolette Posts: 89 Member
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    I don't mean to be dense but can you explain to me how MFP figures in a deficit in my 1200 cal a day? what goes into that etc...I guess I still don't understand the whole formula...
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    Bravo! Thank you for the info and congratulations on your hard work!

    Thank you very much!! :)
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    I don't mean to be dense but can you explain to me how MFP figures in a deficit in my 1200 cal a day? what goes into that etc...I guess I still don't understand the whole formula...

    When we signed up on MFP, it asks for your information, age, sex, height... It also asked for your activity level. Based on all this and what you selected to lose per week, it set a calorie deficit for you. This is before any exercise that you do.

    If you were to eat just what the caloric intake set for you is, you should lose that amount of weight. When you add exercise into the equation, you create a higher deficit. One or two times a week isn't going to hurt you. However, over time, you'll hit that plateau and when you do that, it's harder work to turn things around. Trust me, that's what I've done.

    There are other topics on here about starvation mode. Those might be worth looking up. There's a lady on here that has bravely put herself out there to show what can happen. Essentially, that's what I was doing when I wasn't eating those earned calories. To look at me, a person would think how?!?! I know I did. But, it does happen and you'll stall your losses out. Not to mention, the damage you do to your body from it trying to get energy from other areas...like organs and tissues...because it's not getting what it needs.

    Don't create a bigger deficit than what's given here. Yeah, I remember those days of losing like 5 lbs. a week. That was awesome!! It wasn't healthy, though. Due to my stupidity, I hit that plateau and have struggled to move the numbers. If you want the numbers to move in a good way, eat those calories you've earned.

    I hope this helps. :)
  • DebbieLaviolette
    DebbieLaviolette Posts: 89 Member
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    Excellent!!! Thank you that is exactly what I was looking for. NOW I understand and it makes absolute sense.....the body will rebel with only 600-80 net cals a day consistently.
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    Excellent!!! Thank you that is exactly what I was looking for. NOW I understand and it makes absolute sense.....the body will rebel with only 600-80 net cals a day consistently.

    You're welcome and I'm so glad I could help. :) You hit the nail on the head with the body doing that.
  • kintegra
    kintegra Posts: 1,026 Member
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    BUMP
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    Also, like to add what I did last night to dispel a myth for many!!

    ONE HOUR before BED!!
    I ate 443 calories WITH CARBS, that was my dinner and last snack combined (to meet my caloric needs)!! I woke up with a LOSS!!

    Do not fear eating late if it fits into your numbers. (Cheat days, I don't care, I'll eat whenever.)

    Something I keep quoting from my Diabetic classes I had to take last year:
    "You can still eat the things you love. You just need to determine HOW MUCH you can eat without throwing your numbers out of whack."
    They meant blood sugar numbers, but it works for calories, carbs, sodium...all the same.
  • TonyaJ83
    TonyaJ83 Posts: 155
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    Awesome post! Thank you for that. And WAY TO GO!
  • kelika71
    kelika71 Posts: 778 Member
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    Awesome post! Thank you for that. And WAY TO GO!

    You're welcome & thank you, too!! :)
  • rockerbabyy
    rockerbabyy Posts: 2,258 Member
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    thank you so much for this! ive been pretty confused about ti since i started poking around on here. im still not sure if my activity level is right, but i guess ill see how i feel over the next week or so.
  • Hardemanwifey
    Hardemanwifey Posts: 261 Member
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    BUMP. THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS POST CAUSE I HAVE BEEN HAD A ROUGH FEW DAYS WITH MY EATTING SO I REALLY NEEDED TO HEAR THIS. I WILL REFERENCE THIS QUITE OFTEN. AND CONGRATS ON YOUR LOSS.
  • Debx12345
    Debx12345 Posts: 210
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    Bump
  • wildon883r
    wildon883r Posts: 429 Member
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    I think cheat/free days is a bad perspective when it comes to weight management.. It's about as bad as the word DIET is. Common knowledge is that permanent weight loss and maintenance means making a lifestyle change entirely. We can never go back to just eating what we want, whenever we want and still maintain our healthy weight. We always have to count calories and keep track of our weight and adjust accordingly.

    My grandfather now gone probably survived 20+ years on TV dinners alone ;). They are not the most healthy meals but if you look at them they have perfect sized meal portions. We look at them and say, That's It lol.. We Americans are fat because we are food gluttons. It's why we are the fattest nation in the world now. All you can eat buffets EVERYWHERE and in every food type. You know every thing we buy has a serving size. We all really need to start following those *using portion control* to break this slopping the hogs style of eating we've become accustomed to over the past 20 years or so. Good luck with you weight loss achievements!
  • PaulineHol
    PaulineHol Posts: 5 Member
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    Thank you for this insight. I new to this site only joined on Monday 21st March but I was wondering if those exercise calories should be eaten and now I now you can. Good luck with the rest of what you have to lose. :smile:

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