Can someone explain a cheat day

To cheat or not to cheat is that the question?
I eat what I want for the most part. But I do have some days when I do step outside the lines but I try not to do that often nor do I stray too far. If for instance it's a special occasion, then I might exercise more so that I'm not actually cheating, I'm able to eat what I want without any concern.

So perhaps that might help you.

triciab79 wrote: »

Allowing yourself a cheat day to reward your efforts defeats the goal of breaking the abuse cycle. You just reinforce your body's association of food = happiness.

Damn straight, happiness is *kitten*! And what's the deal with kids having fun playing? Life isn't about playing and kids shouldn't associate playing with happiness! Playing is about the biomechanics of physiologically induced beneficial health changes, PERIOD. Same with cartoons - if I see my kids enjoying cartoons I slap them to discourage happiness, because media is for LEARNING ONLY. On Christmas my family celebrates with a group bonding session shared over public criticisms for self-improvement and diclosures of our retirement savings plan details with no exchange of gifts or any happiness, because we are a pragmatic family, just as god intended.

/sarcasm.

Being happy from eating food is bad because we are addicted to rewards? How is that different from being addicted to pleasure from play time, entertaining media, or gift exchanges?

dbmata wrote: »

Merkavar wrote: »

My understanding is one day a week or month you just eat what you want as In not count calories etc.

From the sounds of it this seems like a gateway to undoing all your weeks work.

Are you meant to just relax a bit and maybe eat to maintenance or a bit over? Or is a cheat day all about eating as much as you like and not feeling guilt or remorse?

Say on a normal day your eating 1300 and maintence is 1800. On a cheat day would you tend to eat 1800ish or 2500+

For me a cheat day, going over would be like undoing the past 2-4 days of eating less/exercise.

I would prefer to lose an extra chunk of fat than eat enough to undo the previous day's work.

Seems like cheat days are popular but just reminds me of the song that goes one step forward two steps back you don't get very far like that.

Or maybe I just misunderstand what a cheat day is.

It's where you sleep with one who is not bae.

I'm wondering what kind of calorie burn I'd get for smacking you for using "bae."

dbmata wrote: »

I had to. I had to.

Stop cheating on the English language. You're only hurting yourself. And me.

I logged every day when I was very fat and starting out here, but in recent months I am near my target weight and allow myself a couple of days off a week generally, as well as holidays. As long as my calorie deficit and macros are sensible the days I log and I stick close to them, I haven't had too many problems continuing to lose.

And if you track your weight regularly its easy to know when things are going pear shaped and be that little more strict for a while until things get back on track.

But I do think one should break the back of their weight loss before doing this regularly.

For me, "cheat" meals or days mean I am going to consume something I normally wouldn't because it doesn't fit my macros or ideal criteria for my sustainable lifestyle and weight loss. For me, this had included a date night for beer & burgers, but I ate sensibly the entire day leading up to that meal. Ive also had cheat days, which involved a beer and cheese festival so that was just a day of enjoying whatever was around. Clearly, one meal or one day is not going to undo all my work. Even if I DID consume about 4000 calories my cheat day (between all that beer and cheese I imagine I came close), I have a TDEE of about 1900, so being over 2100 calories for the day mean I still didnt eat enough to gain a full pound. So, I didn't really UNDO anything.

i don't like the term "cheat day" because it puts a negative connotation on the rest of your dietary habits. If you cheat, it's because you're rebelling against some restriction that you don't truly accept or value.

Rather than adopt a diet you don't truly accept, learn a little about nutrition and establish a healthy lifestyle (including dietary routine) that you CAN accept. Then there is no need to "cheat."

For me, this has meant to learn portion control, and find things like subbing zucchini cut into strands for pasta, and subbing quinoa for rice. I'm not totally cutting out carbs, i'm not avoiding any food group. All i'm doing is NOT stuffing anything in my face without consideration. I eat within a healthy caloric intake for my body, and lose 1/2 - 1 lb per week.

When i do over-indulge, there is no guilt; i don't 'make up for it' by punishing myself later. In fact, i take pleasure in noting that my over-indulgences now are remarkably healthier than my routine a year ago.

The concept of cheat days does not appeal to me...if you eat dramatically more you can easily erase an entire week's deficit...especially if, like many people on this site, you don't like large deficits to begin with. I believe the way you eat should be long term ...you should eat in a way that makes it easy for you to not need to "cheat" from your normal habits. If you need to cheat while losing, how do you stick with it your new healthier habits for decades once your reach goal?

What I do is look at calories on a weekly basis. Depending on your preferences, if you prefer to eat less on most days and more on one or two, then you haven't done any damage at all. I often find that eating a few hundred calories more than usual will result in a large loss in the next few days. Of course, I realize that this is my body releasing excess water it has been retaining...but it was excess water I didn't need to be holding that had been masking the loss of fat. And those few hundred calories aren't really extra...they are just calories I didn't eat on other days.

If you decide to eat to your calorie limit every day and then eat even more periodically, that is fine as long as you accept that you won't lose as much weight as mfp predicts. And you take the risk that you will cheat more and more often and end up causing a lot of damage.

Timorous_Beastie wrote: »

triciab79 wrote: »

You just reinforce your body's association of food = happiness.

Everything I eat makes me happy. I'm not putting a damn thing in my mouth that doesn't bring me enjoyment. (Take that however you want.)

That doesn't mean I eat nothing but cookies and ice cream, but I'm not going to never eat cookies and ice cream again, either.

Absolutely. On limited calories, I'm not going to eat a single thing that doesn't contribute to my happiness.

my "cheat days" are planned. I don't just decide one day that I'm not going to count calories. we go out to dinner once a week, on Fridays, so I know that every friday night I'm going to eat a meal that I can't count calories for. Sometimes, I do order a burger and fries or chicken parm. Other times I try to keep it healthier. But I also don't go pigging out all day long just because of that one meal.