Cheat days - do you or don't you?

I eat what want, when I want: but I track everything. Meaning things need to fit into my calorie goals OR I need to move more to still have my deficit. I do occasionally (1-2 times a month) allow myself to eat at maintenance, which amounts to an extra 500 calories without 500 extra calories burnt.

I can't cheat because I'm not taking a test, or doing anything wrong. Life, in my opinion, is a sum of the decisions we make. And I don't see food as good or bad. If your overall goal is to lose weight, be more healthy: find what works for you to accomplish those goals.

When I was in better shape I allowed myself a cheat meal...it keeps me sane. A cheat day is too much for me and would tempt me to carry it into the next day.

Since I have more weight to lose I allow a cheat snack. This weekend it was a piece of cake.


I am not a dog but I do support rewarding myself with food. I don't really care what people think about that. It makes me happy. I've found other ways for happiness but I'm not gonna lie...that cake was what I wanted. If that's once a week I'm okay with that.

I don't have a 'cheat' day in terms of what I eat, because I eat what I want worked into my allotted calories for the day. But one day a week I will allow myself to go over in calories by 200 maximum. That still only puts me at 1400 calories so I'm still in a deficit.

I don't get cravings really and I hate sweets and fatty or fried foods so if I wanted to "cheat" it would be like going out for some vegetarian green curry. But I don't do it, no. I personally think "cheating" is a sign of weakness in myself so I won't allow myself to do it. My friends don't really like being around me right now because I'll go out with them but I won't order anything usually, or if I do it will just be a small salad or something. They'll say "oh it's just one meal" but first its one meal, then what? Another and another? I won't do that.

I define "cheat day" as eating with wild abandon and not logging it or caring AT ALL about macros and going way over on calories if you do log.

By that definition, I don't ever have a cheat day.

What I do, though, is indulge in a lot more stuff on Saturdays when I get extra exercise. It would not be normal for me to eat 3 restaurant meals in a day or have ice cream AND pie or pizza AND a chicken sandwich in the same day...except on Saturdays. But I ALWAYS log and usually come within about 100 cal of my goal (after adding in exercise calories).

I do let the macros slide a bit on Sat. For example on a Tuesday if I was craving an ice cream bar and had the calories but was already over on sugar & fat by a little, I'd just have a string cheese and go to bed. But if that happened on a Saturday I'd enjoy the ice cream bar. It's just a "cheat day attitude" in some ways.

How about just a cheat meal to treat yourself. Then you can adjust the rest of your meals to allow for it. Remember, it's not a diet, it's a way of eating the rest of your life and you should not go without eating what you like or love. I love ice cream, cheesecake, pizza, brownies, chili dogs, subs, etc and I will be danged if I am NEVER going to eat them again. All things in moderation. You do not have to eliminate any one food; just moderate how you eat the sinful things. Right now, I am sticking to the good and healthy that will help me get to an acceptable weight, then I will indulge now and then with the "bad and fattening". You get what I mean?

I eat what want, when I want: but I track everything. Meaning things need to fit into my calorie goals OR I need to move more to still have my deficit. I do occasionally (1-2 times a month) allow myself to eat at maintenance, which amounts to an extra 500 calories without 500 extra calories burnt.

I can't cheat because I'm not taking a test, or doing anything wrong. Life, in my opinion, is a sum of the decisions we make. And I don't see food as good or bad. If your overall goal is to lose weight, be more healthy: find what works for you to accomplish those goals.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Since I'm just starting out (again, lol) I do not allow cheat days. I do try to leave extra calories for ice cream a few days a week though!

If I were to have a cheat day I'd want it to involve lots of pasta and french bread with olive oil and cheese. Since that is my binge trigger meal there is no way I can do that right now. I'm like a skid row addict with that stuff, haha.

I'm a random eater, meaning: my diet is just like my pre-weight loss diet, just more controlled (days vary in calories based on my appetite or occasions). I eat whatever I want whenever I want in whatever quantity I want and I don't consider it cheating. I don't keep to a certain daily calories budget, I actually keep a weekly calorie spreadsheet. I often ask myself two questions before eating something that has high calories:

1. Is it worth it? Do I want it badly enough to warrant eating less or exercising more?
2. Do I have enough calories "in the bank", or can produce enough calorie deficit to make up for it this week?

If the answer to both questions is yes, I eat and log whatever high calorie food I want. This has been an eye opener for me, as I find myself saying no sometimes and losing interest without that festering feeling of hate and envy you get when you deprive yourself. If my answer is yes, I find myself enjoying my food choice without that feeling of guilt and regret. If the answer is yes to the first but not the second, I downsie the quantity to something I can handle and eat it.

Here's an example of how this week looks like for me with the goal of losing 1/2 a kg (about a pound) this week, so you could get an idea of what it's like:



As you can see, I went over my goal twice this week but I'm still well within my weekly goal with a few calories still left in my "bank" to spend later if I feel like it. Chocolate mousse cake today was totally worth it even if I did not have enough extra calories available. I would have happily worked out double in the next two days to make up for it!

I try not to have cheat days, but I probably will when I go to the dog show in August unless I scope out the area well enough to plan and pre-log meals. I do have occasional cheat meals, like the hamburger and tater tots I had last week or the IHOP breakfast I had on Sunday. Generally, though, I manage to come in under my calorie ceiling even when I do. I don't see anything wrong with having cheat days, if you can just log your food and get back on track the next day, but personally I find it hard to go completely off the wagon and then expect to climb right back on. I plan to make exceptions for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but by then maybe I'll be able to schedule sufficient exercise to make enough of a deficit for the week for me to still lose or maintain my weight.

I prefer "free" days.
I fit everything into my macros, but there's some days where I don't care. I create enough of a deficit and am on my feet enough that I don't feel the need to "cheat" (and hate the word). It never throws me off.
Those days I tend to eat around maintenance, or close to it.

I do have cheat days. They are normally not planned. Its like oh we are eating out twice today... It only happens once or twice a month. But I allow myself to have whatever I want in large amounts. Like Mexican food. Ummm... I eat way to much. But I do not say no to whatever I want on a daily basis. I have it and include it in my daily intake.

I'm not taking a test and I don't believe in diets, so no I don't believe in cheat days, I simply eat what I want and log everything, I do try to restrict the amount of food I eat after 8pm, but in my job that isn't always easy.... Some days my diary is shockingly *kitten*, but usually within my calories and other days it's healthy, but it's over my calories - people can judge me for the food I've consumed, but they can never take away my accomplishments!

I do sometimes do extra exercise of I've had a particularly high calorie day, or I know I'm going to have one (we had a family BBQ on Sunday, so I got up earlier than usual and did 90 minutes at the gym, instead of my usual 60 minutes)....

That said, I do have one major weakness - McDonald's milkshakes, so I only allow myself one of them on my official weigh-in day every month (my next weigh-in/milkshake day is Monday 30th June and it can't come round fast enough, I've been craving a Maccies milkshake for days).

It's each to their own, you have to learn what is best for you.

xXx

I don't know, I mean I do have a higher calorie day or two every week, but I go by weekly averages, so I don't really care if I go higher one day as long as my average at the end of the week comes out to under my TDEE. I usually aim to average 2000 calories. So usually I'll have one 3,000 calorie day and then maybe 1800 calories for most of the rest of the week and it works out fine, or I'll just eat closer to 2000 every day. It all works out the same in the end, as long as you take in less calories than you burn, you'll lose weight.

So for example, I'm going out to dinner this week (Thursday night) and I already know that I'm going to have a higher calorie day because of it - I've already calculated the calories in the meal I plan to order, because they have their nutritional info online, and my dinner comes out to about 2000 calories. So that day, I'll probably have a normal breakfast and lunch, and my total will come out to between 2500 and 3000 calories. I'm still going to stay on track the rest of the week and make sure to stay low enough the other days to come out with a low enough average at the end of the week. It's never hindered my progress, and giving myself a little bit of freedom within reason makes the restriction the rest of the time a lot more bearable.

Everyone tracks differently, but however you choose to look at your calories, I'd suggest that if you do cheat days, not to go completely off the rails. Have a higher calorie day within reason. Track everything, just like you normally do. It's very easy to go overboard when you're not tracking, especially when you've been keeping to a strict deficit for a long time.

I do have a cheat day, two in fact. However, lately I have just been exercising for what I crave or just fitting it in to my allotted calories which might result in eating a smaller lunch and dinner...