New and looking for advice

I don't have a cheat day but I do have a cheat meal every 2 weeks or so. I still do my regular workout and everything so it doesn't interfere with my weightloss. And it keeps me going...if I didn't have that pizza or those cupcakes, etc to look forward to I don't know what I'd do! Lol

I actually have one cheat meal a week----I usually try not to do a whole day, but sometimes I do. I have found that this cheat meal helps me focus on eating healthy throughout the week. I have lost 70 lbs so far sticking with this plan. I have a small treat (Figured into my calories) everyday and one cheat meal on Saturdays (Sometimes I eat this meal on other days but Saturday is the day when my family likes to eat out). It helps me to avoid those awful binges and guilt cycles when I mess up.

I have been logging daily for about a month and a half now, and I would not recommend a cheat day where you decide to eat anything you want and not log it. I have had a couple of "bad" days, like a "girls' night in" party with all kinds of drinks and yummy snacks. :drinker: I ate more than I should have BUT telling myself that I was going to do my best to log everything kept me from a full blown "pig out". I am sure my logging for that day wasn't very accurate but it was better than not logging at all. I would just have no self control if I allowed myself a day to be completely unaccountable. I am trying to change my habits for every day, every occasion, even if that isn't always "being good". Hope that helps.....

I personally don't really believe in a cheat day for myself in the sense of not logging any food. If I choose to eat what I want regardless of the calories I'm still going to log it. I think once I feel it's okay to not log things I will cheat here and there all the time. That's just me. I'm sneaky and love to eat so I have to be honest all the time!

I don't believe in cheat days. I think it's the wrong mental approach for me as it sets up this false dichotomy with food. It really feeds into the idea that dieting is depriving yourself and that you do that for a while and then you get to eat whatever you want. I think that leads to yo-yo dieting. I also think that it plays into this idea that there are good foods and bad foods (i.e., on your "cheat" day, you "cheat" by eating "bad" foods and that leads to a messed up relationship with food. Food is fuel. Some of it is more nutritious than others and some is more tasty than others, but it has no intrinsic moral value.

I also think it's important to be honest with yourself about what you eat. I've seen cheat days backfire on people because they end up eating as many calories on that one day as they deprived themselves of on the other 6 days.

I also think cheat days interfere with our minds ability to develop new habits. Setting habits requires laying down neural pathways in our brains. Every time we go outside for a walk instead of eating when we are bored (as an example), that reinforces that neural pathway. But every time we reach for food when we are bored, we reinforce the existing, already strong, neural pathway. If we "cheat" enough, we'll never make the new habit stronger than the old one.

I have to say that when I got to my goal weight, I did have this idea that somehow I needed to do everything differently now. What I found that worked the best for me was to keep doing what I was going when I was losing only eating more calories each day. I still have a protein shake for breakfast in the morning. I still workout. I still eat mostly what I ate before, only more of it.