What I learned from my first cheat day.

I don't do cheat days. I never understood the point. You bust your butt all week working out, measuring and weighing all your food, keeping your intake below that specific number you have set in your log, and then throw at least part of that hard work away over the weekend? I just never felt like it was worth it.

Well, I haven't given myself a break since May 1 of this year. I have definitely gone over my 1500 calorie goal a handful of times, but only by less than 100 calories each time. That changed on Sunday night. We had my inlaws over for dinner, and I decided to have a cheat night. I don't think I went over 2500 calories, but when you've only been eating 1500 a day for 4 1/2 months, 2500 is a lot of food!

But here's the thing........I learned a lot from having a cheat meal:

1. I don't need to do this every week. My body just isn't used to it right now. My guts were definitely churning the next day because 2500 calories worth of food is way more than I'm used to at the moment. When I get into maintenance I will have to up my calorie intake SLOWLY or I will probably feel sick a lot.

2. I don't hate myself afterwards or fall into a spiral of overeating and gain a bunch of weight back. I'm in the zone. I had a cheat day, I logged it, and I moved on. No biggie. I'm probably still at a deficit for the week, so I doubt it even mattered. The next day it was back to business.

3. This is the most important thing I learned. Over the last couple of weeks, I have felt myself starting to slip a little bit, at least mentally. My desire to eat has been INCREDIBLY strong. Not my hunger, mind you, just the urge to snack a lot, or finish all of whatever is left over after dinner. Even when my stomach feels totally fine, my brain just wants me to eat, eat, eat. Constantly fighting that urge makes me crabby. I snap at my family, I get irritated at stupid things, and I have no choice but to withdraw and get away from everyone, because I know I'm being insufferable. Luckily I have a wonderful wife who has been nothing but supportive during this entire process, but there have been days were I'm sure she's wanted to stab me. The cheat day helped with this. I ate a brownie and a cookie. I ate an extra cob of corn. I might have had one more beer than I originally meant to have. My brain and stomach were both satisfied at the same time, and it was a wonderful feeling. Just for one night, it was great to not have to fight either of them.

And that's what this is--a fight. It's a fight against your former habits, it's a fight against your brain trying to trick you into getting back to your old weight, and it's a fight for your life and health. It's constant. The closer I get to my goal, the harder it gets. The more weight I lose, the stronger the urge is to eat an entire pan of brownies and gain it all back. But I don't, and I'm not going to. I never want to be 250 lbs. ever again. I have 21 lbs. to go, and one cheat night isn't going to deter me. It was just a break.