cheat day once a week????

Why would you not count?

If your daily deficit is 500 calories and once a week you go 2000 calories over, you're basically spinning your wheels.

I have one cheat day every other week. I still write everything in my journal. I don't go crazy. Stay about 500 to 1000calories over. For example, today I had some tortilla chips and salsa. For dinner I had a piece of pizza and some dark chocolate. This will satisfy me now. I will do a deficit in calories the next couple days to equal what I ate over my normal calories. I think it is important to log everything. You have to accountable for what you eat.

Hey!...so I just started a little over 2 weeks now, and I have 2 cheat days, so once a week. I didn't count any calories! and I alwayyssssss goo off.
Am I suppose to have cheat days where I dont count cal or eat food that I wont normally eat...so confused.
Is MFP giving me the right cal intake? 1200

I have a different perspective to offer you.

Let go of the diet mentality that you must deprive yourself 99 percent of the time and then have all out "cheat" day one percent of the week and step into the new revolution where you can eat whatever you want while staying within your calories goals.

What this means is you don't have to "cheat" and "go off" in order to enjoy your food.

In fact, I'll be what you are doing is killing your calorie deficit.

Also, accountability means logging every single thing you put in your mouth.

Everybody goes over calorie goals sometimes, just like we go under sometimes. In fact, it's a rarity that people are exactly on their calorie goals all the time.

The best of luck to you.

I usually have cheat meals, and I still log them and try to make sure I stay under my daily calorie goal. Also, instead of cheating, I have learned to pick out something healthier than what I'm craving. Still close, but way better calorie nutrient wise. Or possibly even just getting a smaller portion!

I tend to eat and drink over target at the weekends not for the sake of cheating but because that's when we have a big family meal and that's when I'm likely to have a bottle or two of wine in the evening and I have least opportunity to exercise if the kids are competing.
Logging helps me keep on track and I tend to average on target across the whole week.

I am perfectly capable of eating the entire weeks deficit in a single meal. I log it and move on. Any day that I'm over by less than 500 calories is still a weight loss day - just slower than I've set up for. This week, I've had a day that I wasn't very hungry and I net 851 calories for the day (how in the hell did THAT happen?) and one where I happily munched through 3 buckets of popcorn and came in a 3040 for the day (yum). But if I eat my allotted calories for today in a reasonable way, I'll have an average for the week of 1750 calories per day. And I'm pretty damn pleased with that.