I can't EVER have a cheat day? HELP

secretlobster

I can't see your diary so I can't be specific but here are the possibilities. Go back every day in your diary for the past three or four weeks and look at your eating/exercise trends. If you look at a weekly basis rather than daily, is your cheat day completely derailing you?

Most likely reasons you're not losing weight:
1) you are over-logging exercise calories. 5 hours of walking around and shopping doesn't burn 1000 calories. Not even close.
2) you are overeating.

Do you really think everyone gives themselves cheat days? Because that's not true, at all. A cheat day, and sometimes a cheat meal, has the ability to completely unhinge your deficit for the previous week. You're giving too much power to "cheating" and therefore you're not the type of person for whom the concept of "cheating" is going to work, because you are constantly working against yourself.

tmauck4472

I hate cheat days so in my life they are few and very far between. I usually make whatever we are having fit in my calorie count or I don't have it. Saturday being the exception, got up Sunday morning was up 3 lbs took a water pill because I knew it was from sodium from the tacos the night before. Drank a ton of water on top of the water pill but ate just like any other day and got up this morning and the 3 lbs were gone along with 1 lb more. I knew I'd lost the 3 lbs cause I jumped on the scales sunday night and was down to the prior morning weight. But I do feel the same as you, hate having to lose the same lbs over and over which is why I don't have cheat days. IMO they aren't worth being up in lbs and having to lose them all over again. Try to start making better choices when you are out and about. Be sure of those choices by checking the calorie count before you eat it. It's all about your choices and how you make things work in your favor.

wolfchild59

Number one - I'm very much the same way with cheat days/meals. When I started weighing myself daily I saw that I would instantly gain a few pounds of supposed "water weight" after a cheat day, but no matter how much water I drank, it didn't flush out in a couple of days like most people say. I would take the entire week of slowly losing the weight and then finally be back to where I was pre-cheat day/meal about a week later. So now instead of the whole weekly cheat day/meal suggestions out there, I limit them to maybe once a month, usually plan for it in conjunction with a specific event, and then just expect to be up on the scale that week.

Number two - where did you get that 1005 calorie burn for walking around shopping for five hours? That's really high for just walking around casually shopping. I say that because I walked around for four hours shopping yesterday and burned about 500 calories according to my Body Media Fit. And I'm heavier than you. So you're likely over estimating your calories burned and then eating too much because of that.

70davis

Bump

schustc

The whole cheat day is bad, cheat meal is ok thing has me a bit baffled. If you alot yourself say an extra 1000 calories on a cheat day, it doesn't really matter if you spread it out throughout the day or one meal. On the same hand, you can easily kill off MORE than an eextra1000 calories in one meal, if you have a shake and a buger or include alcohol. So its really a cumulative effect. I have cheat days. If I eat 4000 or more in a day, sure its going to hit me on the scale with a lower loss that week, but I shoot for about 2500 or up to 3500 in a worse case scenario so that it doesn't bite me too hard. I have more to lose, so I would say stick with about 500 over maintenance on a cheat day if you have less to lose and are working on a smaller deficit. Good luck!