Cheat days

No "Cheat Day" think of it only as a cheat meal once in a while. I do one every 3 weeks about. I try to pick one meal to cheat on and I tell myself I can't have it all. So I may have a cheat dinner with a cheat drink but then no appetizer or dessert. I tell myself pick 2 (1 felt too restricted).

Log it. I have high calorie days here and there, no "set" cheat day/meal. But when I do feel like eating extra some days, I still log it all as accurately as I can.

Unless you are morbidly obese a cheat day should be fine once or twice a week.

How about tracking everything in your cheat meal or day and making it fit your macros!!?

I agree with this. If your meal has too many calories to fit you daily calorie/macro goals, you can switch to weekly calorie/macro goals instead. With weekly goals, its easy to have a 5,000 calorie day and still stay on target for the week.

Intermittent fasting can be helpful for compensating for "cheat days" as well

'Cheat day' is dangerous. Think of your deficit in terms of a weekly number not daily and then you'll see that you can easily undo all of your progress in a 'cheat day'. I have a cheat meal on Saturdays, either a nice meal out or a takeaway with a few beers. Although, usually I can keep this either within my allowance or only go over by 200cals or so.

How do you keep cheat days from getting out of hand?

By NOT having any! ... Who do you think that you are cheating? Stop messing around with fads and change your whole eating lifestyle.

I did a few cheat days and gained 5 pounds back. and fast.

Track everything and use the numbers to consider the worth of your splurge. If you shoot over your calorie mark by thousands in one day, the deficit for the rest of the week may not result in a net loss.

For example, I ate out last week and didn't look up calories in advance because I still had 1200 calories left for the day (lot of exercise earlier). I had a 1,100 calorie appetizer - tasted great, of course. But then I came home and when I logged my appetizer, cocktail and entree on MFP, I saw the number.

Since my daughter was with me and ate fried green beans for 900 calories a plate, we went for an hour-long walk, and then I was up early the next day walking again. If I had not eaten out, those walks could have been helping me lose weight by adding to my regular deficit rather than burning off the tasty goodness of my splurge to prevent the scale from creeping up.

Cheat days are a bad idea. If you want to eat unhealthy food, make rules for when and how much you can eat. personally i don't do it with anything i feel i can't control.

hmm.. cheating is never a good idea lol.. however if you feel the need to have some days in the week to introduce some extra calories in the way of extra food, why not? Decide what extra foods you intend to have that day, but instead of every meal being an overload of max calories its probably more reasonable to have a couple of high calorie meals like breakfast & lunch as an idea. I love food and so I am very selective when it comes to my chosen higher calorie foods and so I know exactly what I want on my higher calorie days - and surprisingly its as plain as specialty bread for a gourmet sandwich or mashed potatoes & gravy! lol.. and I always plan a dessert once a week I do this because I want these foods included in my diet from time to time, but I don't think of it as cheating. You do need to be specific and selective, so take a minute to think about what foods you really love and enjoy and differently include them How I work my higher calorie days in is around how I train. I hope this helps and whatever negatives are created around eating the foods you love are better put into perspective and you can enjoy your food without the guilt!