Free Day?

BobbyClerici

I do a free day - it helps me psychologically and physiologically.
It's a fact that I crave - the heart wants what the heart wants, so I know I am never more than 6 days away from having it. That keeps me on track during the week. And human evolution is way behind social and technological evolution, so our bodies are still stuck in the same place humanity was 6000 years ago.

A good weekly feeding tricks our metabolism from going into shut down, starvation mode in response to its misreading of our diets. I've lost over 60lbs doing this, so the results are without question.

HAVE FUN - enjoy!

stevwil41

If you take a free day and go a little overboard you will see a difference in the scale but it'll be mostly water weight. If you think you can take a free day and not totally derail yourself or stay off the scales long enough to rid yourself of the water weight, then do it. As an earlier poster said, in order to gain 2 legitimate pounds you'd have to eat 7000 calories over what you would burn on a normal day. Personally, taking a day off a week keeps me from binging throughout the week. I still log and that helps me from going truly overboard most of the time (we won't mention the last time I was at Chili's and had the red velvet molten lava cake) but I don't really worry about it otherwise.

auntie_missy

Yeah, I completely agree. I almost had breakfast sausage this morning but gave them to my boyfriend instead, I thought I would be craving them once I gave them away but I didn't, they just looked too... heavy.

I don't take a "free day" for a few reasons. First, the idea of a "free day" goes along with being on a restrictive diet. I'm not on a diet. I'm making a lifestyle change. Yes, right now I'm trying to eat lower calories than I will be eating when I make my goals, but the foods I'm eating are the same. I need to work on learning to fit in the foods I want in a healthy way, not saving them for a "bad" day. One reason for that, and this is why I quoted what you said here, is that FOOD IS NOT THE ENEMY. There is nothing inherently wrong with sausage. It's food. I had sausage for dinner last night, and it wasn't heavy at all. There's something wrong with me when I start acting like something is poisonous because it has too many carbs or too many calories, and even more so when I feel like I can't enjoy something unless I gorge myself on it. I don't need a free day because there isn't anything I can't eat if I want it on my un-free days. A third reason I don't bother with free days is I really don't want to get in the habit of rewarding myself with food, especially rich, calorie laden foods. You aren't going to gain a few pounds in one free day, but you are going to play mind games with yourself, and if one of those mind games is convincing yourself that "I've been good, I deserve this" than you aren't really doing yourself any favors.

I've lost over 60lbs doing this, so the results are without question.

I quoted this to show that your mileage will vary, and the important thing to remember is that people have succeeded both ways. I've lost a good amount of weight without "cheating," but people have lost a good amount of weight zig zagging or having weekly cheat days. Heck, there's that professor who lost 27 pounds eating Twinkies. Find what works for you, make sure you are comfortable with the logic behind it, and give it your all.

TundraTed

This is a lifestyle change. Do you really never again want to eat something you really crave again because of the calorie count? I normally keeps under my goal and 2-3 meals a week I eat what I want. Some of those days I will work out extra to stay under my Net goal, other days I don't. I don't go crazy eating huge servings, but I do enjoy these meals.