1 Cheat meal a week?

If you aren't going over your calorie goal, sure why not?

I posted a few questions about this a few days ago. The title was "cheating". There were mixed answers. Some were all for it, some were completely against it...and some began to argue about it. We are all so very different and we know our bodies best. If you can have one meal and get right back on track and it doesnt affect your weight loss I would say go for it. I wish I could do that. If I eat bad one meal...I eat worse the next. So a bad meal turns into a bad day and so on. I hope this helps a little. You should read the post if you can find it (I dont know how.)
~Rebekah~

I have a cheat meal once in a while, it's no biggie. You gotta live,,, Just don't do it every day - that's how we got here!

I went out for Italian on Friday night and had a few vodkas that night also. I still lost half a lb over the rest of the weekend. If I didn't have my cheat treat I'd have given up the week after I started LOL!

I enjoy having a "cheat meal(s)" on the weekend, but I usually know that I will be eating out and know that I need to make sure I workout for at least an hour that day to give me some extra calories. But even doing that I still try not to go crazy because so many of the choices out there have sooo much sodium and of course all the extra exercise calories do not equal extra sodium. Another thing I do to help have extra calories is eat lighter for my other two meals, for example, I may just have shakeology for one and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for another.

Hope this helps.

I have just had my weekly 'cheat' meal and it was delicious.

I think I enjoyed it even more because I was really ready for it. Lemon Possett and shortbread for dessert...to die for...absolutely gorgeous but I couldnt eat it all...a few months ago I would have - there's progress

since the point of this entire website is to encourage and inspire a LIFESTYLE change, and this sounds like it would definitely be a healthy change for you, then i say go for it! cheating isn't for everyone, but it's worked for me. and i don't think staying within your calorie goal FOR THAT ONE MEAL is 100% necessary... that's kind of the point? but i would add it to your food diary for that day.

I don't see why not. You are only human.

I've heard that if you eat well 6 days a week and have 1 entire cheat day, then you're more likely to succeed on your diet. Don't be so rigid with yourself - that sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

I actually am with the others, I have been going out with friends on Fridays or Saturdays a lot lately either to a ball game or a wedding or some kind of gathering where I KNOW right off there would be NO WAY IN %^&*# that it would even be possible to stay within my normal calorie count for a normal day. So, I get up early that morning and spend some extra time at the gym working out so it makes the cheat meal all that more rewarding to me when I do get to enjoy it later on that night. I actually had my first piece of pizza in about 8 months earlier this month at a baseball game, and it was HEAVENLY at the time I was eating it, however, my stomach was none too happy with my later:sick: if you catch my meaning.
"Cheating" is not a bad thing, just make sure that you either have the calories for it, or have a way to balance them (i.e., find a healthy way to order [take half of your meal home and have it another day, thus getting twice the enjoyment out of it!])

Just a thought.

I have a cheat evening every Friday because I have a very long drive home. I stop off at the services every Friday and grab a KFC and a couple of redbulls to keep me going.

Even though I was in lifestyle-change-mode I was still having the full meal (zinger burger, 2 hot wings, fries and coke) but then I thought "If I eat a good salad in the afternoon I'll be fuller and salad has so few calories it won't impact the calorie count". So because of the Salad 3 hours earlier I'm a lot fuller so all I fancy now is just the burger on its own.

I'm sneaky like that

I don't call it a cheat meal. Cheating implies that it's not allowed. It also implies that I am trying to "diet" but that's not what this journey is about. This journey is not just about losing weight, but learning how to fuel my body properly. It's also about learning how to do so while also enjoying the sweets and less-healthy meals within reason. You can't just say "I'm never going to eat Mexican again." You know that you will! You've got to learn _now_ how to incorporate a high-calorie meal into your life without going off the road and into a week of poor food choices.

My advice! Don't do something just because someone says to....Do what works for you. Some people can't "cheat" once a week b/c then they go overboard afterwards too....Others can. Personally, I'm most successful when I allow "cheats" here and there..not a set day or meal just when I really want to like when I'm craving pizza. It's worked great for me. So try it out & see how it goes.

Just be careful eating out because sodium content can be extremely high in restaurant food....High sodium equals water retension which equals bloated weigh in numbers...So I tend to skip my weekly weigh in if I've recently eaten out b/c no matter how much water I drink I always seem to have no weight loss that week only to lose a couple extra lbs the week after....so keep that in mind when planning weigh ins

Hey, I think I like what hill242 said best!!! I'm gonna work on adopting that attitude.

Thanks Shameka. It is not easy to adopt this approach overnight, and I will admit I have to work hard on it still. But I really feel like it is starting to "click" for me and I am very optimistic about maintenance based on this attitude. I have lost the weight and regained before -- so I know where my pitfalls lie. Taking on this approach is my response to correcting those pitfalls.