question about cheat meals

GauchoMark wrote: »

animall wrote: »

ndj1979 wrote: »

animall wrote: »

TimothyFish wrote: »

Making a meal of cake isn't the healthiest thing to do, but for weight loss, there's no reason why you can't do that. (I've done it more than once.) Whether or not you call it a cheat meal, that is up to you. But if I were allowing myself a cheat meal every week, I wouldn't call this one a cheat meal because I could still have my cheat meal and meet my calorie goal for the week.

Sevendust912 wrote: »

If you are under your calorie allotment, it's not a cheat.

On a side note, calling meals "cheat meals" is dumb IMO, if you go over your goal, just make up for it the next day or days if it can't be made up in a single day.

ndj1979 wrote: »

cheat meal implies that you did something wrong, and there is never anything wrong with eating cake, especially if you stayed within your calorie goal..

there is nothing bad/cheating/whatever about eating cake, ice cream, cookies, pizza, etc…they are all just food that your body uses for energy. Stay within your calorie and macro targets and you will be fine…

why shouldn't you eat two slices of "the cake"?

Guess i shouldn't call it a cheat meal then. But i can't help myself but feel bad because of the fat content of the food. But i understand that i have to move on and eat ''cleaner'' tomorrow. Thanks.

fat is not "bad"...

and eating clean has nothing to do with anything..

my two cents - eat the cake, enjoy it, and don't worry about if it is clean or not, or having to "make up for it"....This kind of thought process leads to restriction which tends to lead to binging, in my opinion.

GauchoMark wrote: »

animall wrote: »

rabbitjb wrote: »

the problem is there's too much noise

I only became successful once I got rid of all the noise and went back to the very basics

calories in < calories out = lose weight

I'm quite a slow learner so i just want to clear this up -- as long as i hit the calories goal, what i eat won't matter AT ALL? If it won't affect my weight, will it affect my body shape? Of course, i know that i have to eat healthy food to get the nutrition. But what if i eat a lot of high carbs food (under calories goal), surely i will accumulate some fats right? sorry i'm just confused by what i was raised to believe.

Its not quite that black and white...

From a weight loss standpoint, yes, all you need to worry about is creating a caloric deficit.

Me personally, I'm not concerned with weight loss - I want FAT loss. I don't want my muscle to go away, so I create a caloric deficit AND a minimum protein requirement to fuel/build/maintain my muscle mass.

I also want to be healthy so I throw in a few healthy fats.

If I have calories left over, then I eat plenty of carbs and unhealthy fats because I also want to be happy and sane.

As a summary, here is what I care about prioritized from highest to lowest:

1) Net calories
2) Protein intake
3) fat intake

So, eating cake to get to your calorie goal - thats fine for that day. If you do it every day, you'll end up losing a lot of muscle mass along with your fat. The effect will be a "skinny fat" look and a slower metabolism in the long run. However, doing this on occasion is totally fine as long as your nutrition is OK the majority of the time.

Ohhh noo. Then i think i got all this wrong from the start. I'm actually quite comfortable with my weight (hell my BMI is close to underweight) but i have those stubborn fats all over my body (stomach, thigh). I thought if i lose some weight it will go away so i started counting my calorie, but today i lost 4 kg my waistline didn't reduce AT ALL. However, overall i do look better and that day I managed to fit into pants that was too small for me. Now my main problem is my stupid belly fat. What should i do. Should i still continue the calorie deficit thing or just do the protein/fat intake?

So what are you trying to accomplish?

Here is what I gather - you have a low BMI but you want to lose fat around your stomach and thighs.

What this is telling me is that you are already probably in that "skinny fat" category. In other words, you are not "overweight" according to the weight charts, but have fat to lose, meaning you are probably small framed and probably do not have that much muscle mass.

Just to clear it up - you can't just lose fat in an area. You lose fat in general and it will come off those areas eventually. So, although you may be fine in the BMI chart range, you might have a higher body fat percentage than most people. What you probably need to look into is body recomposition - gain some muscle, lose some fat.

What should i do. Should i still continue the calorie deficit thing or just do the protein/fat intake?

If you want to lose fat you need a calorie deficit. If you want to retain muscle, you need protein and weight lifting. So, do both.

As far as losing 4kg for a day - it is called water retention.

EWJLang wrote: »

Sounds to me like you should look in to building muscle mass rather than focusing on reducing fat alone. I spent almost my whole life just like that -- "skinny fat" Even pregnant, my BMI didn't leave the underweight or healthy zone, but I had lumpy jiggly bits all over.

I arrived at 40 and weaned my youngest child at about the same age and my underweight days were soon behind me, LOL. I didn't know my condition for what it was until I started trying to lose those extra pounds. Now I'm working on losing extra fat, yes, but building muscle mass is more important.

And, I'll also note, small framed "skinny fat" women are at extremely high risk for future bone density loss. Muscle building weight-bearing exercise is one of the best ways to help fight that!