Cheat/Free Day - Yes and No.

Rachiepie6

Q&A with Jillian Michaels. For anyone still battling with the idea.

Q: What is your opinion on "cheat days"? My friend's trainer says it's okay to have one cheat day during the week (as long as you remain on track the rest of the time). But I've been struggling with my weight for years now, and I'm wondering if it's because of my one day of food sin every week. Am I correct?

A: Great question. I am actually not a big believer in the “cheat day,” the reason being that psychologically, it messes with my head when I feel that I've binged. Plus, I don’t believe in a free day — I always need some boundaries.

I do believe in higher-calorie days, but I don’t call them cheat days — there is always a calorie limit. I just think that a blowout day of taking in 5,000 to 6,000 calories can throw off your entire week’s work. Some trainers believe the body will not absorb all those calories at once, but it's been my experience that extremely high calorie days can really throw off a diet. A regular higher-calorie day, with boundaries, can help a diet, though. I recommend 2,000 calories once a week, and I also recommend adding one “cheat food” to your calorie allowance every day. This helps keep you from feeling deprived and from waiting all week for a weekend binge.

snuggllepuff

I actually lost weight from adding a cheat day. I think it's really beneficial if you do it properly. When you have one day where you're carb loading and eating pretty much whatever you want, your body has to release certain hormones to deal with it and those hormones (leptin, T3, T4) aid in losing weight. In simple terms, your metabolism needs to speed up to burn it off. Cheat days are becoming very popular now because there's a lot more research backing them up.

And then there's the obvious mental benefits that allow you to have whatever it is that you are craving without feeling guilty.

As long as you're working out hard enough and your macros are in check all of the other days of the week, cheat days work really well! You just have to have enough will power not to cheat AT ALL on your normal days and know when to end the cheat day without it becoming an entire cheat weekend.