A Cheat Meal IS a Cheat Meal

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elbaldwin0525
elbaldwin0525 Posts: 159 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I always hear people say that they either eat what they want but in moderation or they fit whatever they want into their daily caloric intake. Then they will say that they hate the word cheat because it sounds too restrictive...or something?

Lets be clear here......


The reason most of us on on MFP is because we were too loose with what we ate. Cheat Meals... are meant to restricted because it helps calm our binge trigger. Eating micro-dense foods throughout the week and having a whatever you like for one meal will decrease the trigger in the back of our minds that wants us to stay fat by gorging on high calorie foods. It also teaches self control and prepares you for the maintenance phase when the hard part begins by keeping the weight off.


Opinions?
«134

Replies

  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    How does restricting "trigger" foods help you prepare for maintenance.

    ETA: for me preparing for maintenance means I am preparing to eat how I live the rest of my life.

    Do you plan on only eating your favorite foods once in a while at maintenance? Continuing with the "cheats"

    Cheat sounds like you are doing something wrong...it indicates to me that the relationship with food is off. That eating the foods you want/crave/love makes you bad.

    I love chocolate...I will not be giving up my chocolate nor will I be happy with only having it once a week.

    In the summer if I feel like having ice cream for dinner or after dinner every night because it's hot why not?

    and then what happens when you have your "cheat mea" or "cheat day" and something else comes up...what are you going to do then...moderation in eating all foods allows for me to go with the flow, have my meals as I see fit without having to say no to other things that may come up.
  • beautifulwarrior18
    beautifulwarrior18 Posts: 914 Member
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    I agree. The cheat meal is about moderation. It's teaching you that you can have those foods that aren't always the best option in moderation. So, when you're at a kids birthday party and the parents order pizza, you can have a slice of pizza. It does not however mean that you can eat an entire pizza in one sitting. I find people's biggest problems with "cheat meals" is they turn them into bottomless feasts, cheat days or cheat weekends. Unfortunately, weight loss doesn't work if you're only 70% comitted to it.
  • xsmilexforxmex
    xsmilexforxmex Posts: 1,216 Member
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    "cheat meals" work for some people, I personally favor the "moderation is key".. but at first for me that meant restricting some foods to a cheat meal until I am able to eat the appropriate portions of them and not have fast food 5x a day. It was about cravings for me and craving Mcdonalds french fries and sushi 6x a week isn't healthy, especially days I would have both and consume easily over 3000 calories. Limiting myself to once a week taught me to fix other things for lunch/dinner and control my cravings. Now, I don't consider them cheat meals because I have learned to fit them into my counts for the day, when I do eat them, and use moderation.
  • _Zardoz_
    _Zardoz_ Posts: 3,987 Member
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    It also teaches self control and prepares you for the maintenance phase when the hard part begins by keeping the weight off.


    Opinions?
    How does having a binge once a week teach self control. Self Control having one Oreo on a normal day then carrying on with that day. When you reach maintenance are you going to have a binge once a week? Cheat meals to me imply a very bad relationship with food that you are avoiding because you compartmentalise it into one day or meal in order to justify your excesses. I always find it funny the amount of people who suddenly have a very bad day eating so half way through the day then classify it as a cheat day and eat even more. That shows to me that what your doing is not working
    Whatever works for you but I can't see it working long term
  • Faye_Anderson
    Faye_Anderson Posts: 1,495 Member
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    Who or what are you cheating?
  • astronomicals
    astronomicals Posts: 1,537 Member
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    I correlate "cheat days" with "clean" eating.

    Both poor practices.

    These "clean" eaters WILL go crazy without a "cheat day" because they havent learned jack **** about moderation. They learned two extremes.

    I've seen the two intertwined many times. Im not saying all clean eaters have cheat days or all people who have cheat days are "clean" eaters, but, they commonly sync.

    ETA:
    I balance my week,period... youd probably say I have more than two "cheat meals" a week.. i wouldnt cuz thats not how I approach things.. I enjoy life, period..
  • summertime_girl
    summertime_girl Posts: 3,945 Member
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    I usually have my all out cheat meals on a day of epic workouts. Run a half marathon, I'm having a cheeseburger covered in bacon, with cheesy fries and as much beer as I want. Otherwise, I try to stick to my plan. If I know I'm going out, I usually do a longer workout. I rarely go over my daily calories, even with small cheats, because I balance with exercise.
  • elliej
    elliej Posts: 466 Member
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    Eating is not cheating.

    Calling it a "cheat" is inflammatory - as if you're doing something wrong. If you're losing weight healthily and steadily but eat a huge piece of pizza and then a huge piece of chocolate cake on your birthday you shouldn't be made to feel guilty about that.

    What's the point in never eating nice food? Are you planning to cut them out of your diet for the rest of your life? Not likely.

    I would also argue that eating the things that made you fat in the normal portion amount helps to teach you about portion control and stops you feel so uncontrollable about those foods. Don't demonise them. If you know that it has X calories which will take you X amount of time to burn off and it's X amount of your suggested fat intake for the day then you can make an informed choice whether you have it/have half of it/not bother.
  • rduhlir
    rduhlir Posts: 3,550 Member
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    The dictionary definition of cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation.
    Eating micro-dense foods throughout the week and having a whatever you like for one meal will decrease the trigger in the back of our minds that wants us to stay fat by gorging on high calorie foods.

    There is just as much theory and studies to support that restricting causes issues. That is why Nutrisystem, Atkins, etc... all have what one might call "junk" food worked into everyday meals.
    It also teaches self control and prepares you for the maintenance phase when the hard part begins by keeping the weight off.

    Cheat meals actually do not teach self control. If anything it sets someone up for binge more than encorporating everything into a sustainable lifestyle. Learning how to encorporate cookies, cakes, pies, etc..., learning how to tweak them so that a calorie count is lower or macro density shifted for a person's needs is a smarter way of going about it than trying to "...calm our binge trigger."
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,014 Member
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    I don't use the word cheat meals - not because it is too restrictive but because it makes treats sound a bad thing.

    But I do have treats - not on a set cheat day, just whenever.
    And I do log them.

    I think doing this for the 10 months that it took to reach my goal helped me to continue with it in the 4 months since then, when I have been in maintenance.
  • SonicDeathMonkey80
    SonicDeathMonkey80 Posts: 4,489 Member
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    I notice a lot of people schedule cheat meals, days, etc. At the point where you schedule it, I don't feel it is a "cheat" anymore, but a habitual thing, and kinda defeats the purpose. A cheat to me is the random social gathering, holiday party, etc, where I just say "screw it" and eat what I want, always to excess. I incorporate the "bad" stuff into my days and I don't feel like I'm missing out, and go figure, I don't really get in the mood to cheat very much.
  • graceire
    graceire Posts: 323 Member
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    I don't have a binge trigger (have never binged actually, not by the definition of it), please don't assume that everyone is dealing with the same thing, or that "we're all here for the same reason."

    I might have a treat meal a couple times a week, but stay within my goals for the day/week.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    I don't really understand your point.

    Although I do use the word 'cheat'. My goal is my contract, so I cheat myself if I go over. That's just the truth, no matter what people want to call it. It's not necessarily a big deal though. And I don't consider anything 'cheat foods'.
  • BrainyBurro
    BrainyBurro Posts: 6,129 Member
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    I always hear people say that they either eat what they want but in moderation or they fit whatever they want into their daily caloric intake. Then they will say that they hate the word cheat because it sounds too restrictive...or something?

    Lets be clear here......


    The reason most of us on on MFP is because we were too loose with what we ate. Cheat Meals... are meant to restricted because it helps calm our binge trigger. Eating micro-dense foods throughout the week and having a whatever you like for one meal will decrease the trigger in the back of our minds that wants us to stay fat by gorging on high calorie foods. It also teaches self control and prepares you for the maintenance phase when the hard part begins by keeping the weight off.


    Opinions?

    if your mindset includes the concept of "cheat meals" then you are already dangerously close to binge behavior IMHO.

    i say this because i believe you must knowingly be depriving yourself to the point where you are obsessing about food frequently enough to actually need scheduled "cheat meals" to alleviate these food obsessions. that's mentally disordered thinking in my view.

    instead, plan your dietary intake around your micronutrional and macronutritional needs and then choose whatever foods you want that meet those needs. if you sometimes want more calories to eat, then offset those calories with extra exercise. if you still come in over your calorie goal some days, then offset it by coming in a little bit under on other days.

    this isn't rocket surgery. some people make it much too hard by holding themselves to unrealistic expectations.
  • kk_140
    kk_140 Posts: 518 Member
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    I have noticed that I hit weight loss plateaus if I don't have a trick day. I call it that because I am tricking my body. I am 'lucky' enough to have a body that is very good at famine response. So if I have one day a week where I eat maintenance, it tricks my body into realizing it ius not the apocolypse then I can continue to lose without hitting a brick wall.

    I do admit, I think it is fine to eat maintenance for a day, it certainly won't be detrimental. But I am not a fan of the all out 4000 or more calorie binges that some people go for. It just sets you back and only hurts you. But I can't argue with results, a lot of people have had very successful weight loss that way. Go them!

    I don't know why people Gert so mean about this topic, to each their own.
  • somefitsomefat
    somefitsomefat Posts: 445 Member
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    So to be clear, is eating cheating or not?
  • sarahertzberger
    sarahertzberger Posts: 534 Member
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    I agree but also disagree, I am now at a place where I can eat some "unhealthy" foods in moderation throughout the week and stay within my calorie goal, used to I couldn't do that if I ate those foods at all, I would go and end up eating way too much and would go way over my calorie goal, but now that I'm able to I do so if I want ice cream or something I'm going to eat it but I'm going to measure/ weigh it out and eat a correct portion and stay within my calories it just depends on how it works for you, it took a while for me to get to the place where I could do that
  • tedrickp
    tedrickp Posts: 1,229 Member
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    I hate cheat meal/day threads on MFP. Always devolves into a semantics argument about the term cheat. In that regards - who the **** cares - call it what you want. It's just a word.

    As for cheat days/meal concept - have at 'er. Whatever works for you. If you find it easiest moderating your favorite foods - do that. If you'd rather avoid trigger foods altogether - do that. If you want to eat clean during week and have cheat meals - do that.

    None of the above are inherently more sustainable than the next - totally depends on your personal preference and comfort. Whatever helps you sustain your caloric deficit long term - do that one.
  • shellbatronic
    shellbatronic Posts: 193
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    I think you're arguing semantics here. Personally I don't like the word "cheat" because it only has negative connotations and implies I'm trying to get away with something or I'm being "bad". No thanks. Just own it and move on.

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