Does a cheat meal once a week hinder weightloss?

courtneytrisha · October 2013

I know that to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit, basically -3500 cals a week for a lb. I usually have a cheat meal once a week, but I feel like all my progress from the week goes down the drain since I'm ingesting so many additional calories. Granted, I have lost a lot of weight, but very slowly. So I'm wondering if a cheat meal is the reason why. What are you opinions?

jenifr818 · October 2013

Lets say you're at a 500 cal/day deficit 6 days a week, and you have one "cheat" day a week. You'd have to eat 3000 calories over your "maintenance" calories to undo all that. One cheat "meal" will not hurt you. Any "gain" you see from that is nothing but sodium bloat, which will disappear over 2-5 days, quicker if you pound a lot of water.

I think I've even seen someone post that a "cheat" meal or day can sometimes help weight loss by helping break out of a plateau. Don't have links or anything though, just something I vaguely remember seeing

shadow2soul · October 2013

Unless your eating at maintenance + eating the extra calories to get to maintenance in that one meal, then your not undoing all your progress. Example:

MFP set to lose 1lb per week.
You follow it for 6 days and then eat maintenance on the 7th day.
You still have a 3000 calorie deficit for the week.

~~~~~~~

MFP set to lose 1lb per week.
You follow it for 6 days and then on the 7th day you:
eat maintenance + 3000 calories or more
Now you are either going to maintain or possibly gain.

So really it depends how much over your calories you are as to whether or not it upsets the balance.

PinkCoconut · October 2013

I lost over 100 pounds and had cheat meals the entire time! Sometimes ya just lose weight slowly!

That being said, on those days are you eating WAY too much or just one actual meal? That could be a culprit!

Quite frankly, I'd rather lose weight slowly and still get to eat some of my fav foods then to lose it fast and never eat them again!

astronomicals · October 2013

a surge of calories helps to raise your falling metabolism, drop cortisol levels, and help level out other hormones.... in laymans terms, it helps to tell your body that it wont be starving indefinitely... thus, cheat meals can actually help and be beneficial in avoiding plateaus....

while on that subject... i suggest everyone return to maintenance every 12 weeks for a week or two.... it will also probably get you to the "finish line" faster

ETA: dont forget your maintenance has changed

feelin_gr_8 · October 2013

I've only lost 20 pounds so far (started 7/25/13) but I have a "cheat day" every week. I don't track my calories at all on Sunday (for me, it's a day of rest physically and spiritually)....so I'm not clutching my scale and laptop all day for at least 1 day of the week! That being said....I know that grape juice and brownies and that second helping of soup don't fit in my 1500 calorie limit. Just this week I decided to manually lower my daily intake for the other 6 days by 100 calories each to offset over-eating on these days. But even without the compensation calories, I lost 20 pounds in 12 weeks, so over 1.5 lbs a week.....works fine for me

Francl27 · October 2013

It really depends on how much your cheat meal is. But if you go 1000 over, and your deficit is 2500 the rest of the week, you'll still lose 3 lbs a month or something.

littleburgy · October 2013

Some people find "cheat" meals helpful in the longer term, because it helps add variety and balance to a diet, rather than ending up bored and feeling constantly deprived.

pastryari · October 2013

Does a cheat meal once a week hinder weightloss?

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