What cheat day does to you

ok so its weekend and I just had one of the biggest CHEAT DAY ever. It wasnt a cheat meal, it was a cheat day, i ate "dirty food" all day long.

I had coconut sugar cupcake and peanut butter toast for breakfast, and then i had big japanese meal (tons of mayo and sodium) for lunch. Went to watch movie and had chips and popcorn and roasted nuts. For dinner I had chinese fried rice.
And now i feel so bad and bloated and probably gained 5 pounds from these food.

How many cheat meals you have in a week?
What kind of food?
How does it feel afterward?
Do you weigh yourself after cheatmeal?
Any tips to minimize the damage?
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Replies

  • PinkPixiexox
    PinkPixiexox Posts: 4,142 Member
    Move on from it - you're a human being. Track it and educate yourself for next time. It's okay to eat over your calorie allowance from time to time, just be aware of it. Also - try to change your attitude about this being 'cheating'. You haven't cheated anything, You've just eaten how you felt like and not made choices to the best of your ability. I don't have 'cheat meals' - because I believe I can fit every thing into my calorie deficit as it's sensible and I'm not eating 1200 or anything like that (Hence why I don't really feel the need to 'go overboard')
  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    Move on from it - you're a human being. Track it and educate yourself for next time. It's okay to eat over your calorie allowance from time to time, just be aware of it. Also - try to change your attitude about this being 'cheating'. You haven't cheated anything, You've just eaten how you felt like and not made choices to the best of your ability. I don't have 'cheat meals' - because I believe I can fit every thing into my calorie deficit as it's sensible and I'm not eating 1200 or anything like that (Hence why I don't really feel the need to 'go overboard')

    So basically you will eat whatever thing you love to have just never go overboard ? Mine is the same 1200cal , and today i ate about 2000. I dont usually count too much if i ate whole foods and homecooked food. But today was a disaster
  • vivmom2014
    vivmom2014 Posts: 1,649 Member
    Something seems amiss. You don't want to be eating to the point of "damage" and feeling sick, so bad, etc. Maybe you are too restrictive during the week.

    If you think you have a chronic problematic relationship with food, give some thought to seeking professional help.
  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    vivmom2014 wrote: »
    Something seems amiss. You don't want to be eating to the point of "damage" and feeling sick, so bad, etc. Maybe you are too restrictive during the week.

    If you think you have a chronic problematic relationship with food, give some thought to seeking professional help.

    I dont really deprive myself that bad, i will have abit of chocolate once in few days etc but today was kinda too much food for me
  • vivmom2014
    vivmom2014 Posts: 1,649 Member
    Well, in that case, log it and move on. Maybe you'll see some patterns that you can adjust - which is the beauty of logging everything. But make sure you're not overly restricting calories, because that can have disastrous results.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    Move on from it - you're a human being. Track it and educate yourself for next time. It's okay to eat over your calorie allowance from time to time, just be aware of it. Also - try to change your attitude about this being 'cheating'. You haven't cheated anything, You've just eaten how you felt like and not made choices to the best of your ability. I don't have 'cheat meals' - because I believe I can fit every thing into my calorie deficit as it's sensible and I'm not eating 1200 or anything like that (Hence why I don't really feel the need to 'go overboard')

    So basically you will eat whatever thing you love to have just never go overboard ? Mine is the same 1200cal , and today i ate about 2000. I dont usually count too much if i ate whole foods and homecooked food. But today was a disaster


    You ate more than 2000 today, most likely. Unless you had really tiny portions of snacks, Japanese food, and fried rice.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Move on from it - you're a human being. Track it and educate yourself for next time. It's okay to eat over your calorie allowance from time to time, just be aware of it. Also - try to change your attitude about this being 'cheating'. You haven't cheated anything, You've just eaten how you felt like and not made choices to the best of your ability. I don't have 'cheat meals' - because I believe I can fit every thing into my calorie deficit as it's sensible and I'm not eating 1200 or anything like that (Hence why I don't really feel the need to 'go overboard')

    So basically you will eat whatever thing you love to have just never go overboard ? Mine is the same 1200cal , and today i ate about 2000. I dont usually count too much if i ate whole foods and homecooked food. But today was a disaster

    Whole foods and homecooked meals make up the vast majority of my diet. Trust me, these have calories which your body IS counting.

    You went over by 800 calories. There are 3,500 calories to a pound. You may gain some water weight, but you did not gain 5 pounds of fat.

    I've had disaster days too. I learn from them and move on.
  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    vivmom2014 wrote: »
    Well, in that case, log it and move on. Maybe you'll see some patterns that you can adjust - which is the beauty of logging everything. But make sure you're not overly restricting calories, because that can have disastrous results.

    Yes i dont, especially when i have a wholefood or home cooked food, i never really take the calories down and just eat until i am satisfied. But high sodium food makes me bloated like hell. And all of the oil, sugar and salt were just pffffftttt
  • PinkPixiexox
    PinkPixiexox Posts: 4,142 Member
    Move on from it - you're a human being. Track it and educate yourself for next time. It's okay to eat over your calorie allowance from time to time, just be aware of it. Also - try to change your attitude about this being 'cheating'. You haven't cheated anything, You've just eaten how you felt like and not made choices to the best of your ability. I don't have 'cheat meals' - because I believe I can fit every thing into my calorie deficit as it's sensible and I'm not eating 1200 or anything like that (Hence why I don't really feel the need to 'go overboard')

    So basically you will eat whatever thing you love to have just never go overboard ? Mine is the same 1200cal , and today i ate about 2000. I dont usually count too much if i ate whole foods and homecooked food. But today was a disaster

    No. I eat MORE than 1200 calories per day hence why I don't feel deprived and I don't feel the need to binge.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    @doralim1990 - how tall are you? Did you set your weight loss goals to lose 2 pounds per week? That would be way too aggressive for someone who only has 7 pounds to lose and could easily lead to wanting to binge after feeling deprived.
  • SLLeask
    SLLeask Posts: 489 Member
    What on earth is "dirty food"?! Did you wipe it on the floor before you ate it...? In which case, no, don't do that again. But 2000 cals when you are usually eating 1200 is hardly going mad! It's probably only a couple of hundred over your maintenance, nothing to stress about. 800 cals is certainly not 5lbs worth, haha! The scale may go up a bit, but that will be retained water weight from all the sodium. Do a bit more exercise over the next couple of days and you've wiped it out.
  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    @PinkPixiexox i recently increase my food intake as long as its homemade and wholefood i never really count it.
  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    edited September 2015
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    @doralim1990 - how tall are you? Did you set your weight loss goals to lose 2 pounds per week? That would be way too aggressive for someone who only has 7 pounds to lose and could easily lead to wanting to binge after feeling deprived.

    I am 159cm. I dont feel deprived at all because i eat until i am fully satisfied and never skip meals. i basically eat homecooked food all the time. I wasn't binging on my food actually, i just felt that i ate too much "bad food" today.
  • rockmama72
    rockmama72 Posts: 815 Member
    I have many days where my Fitbit says I burned 2400 total calories and I eat every one of them. Many days I eat 1200. It's still a deficit, still losing.

    It seems like you had a really fun day, so don't ruin the fun by beating yourself up! It sounds like your body is doing that for you anyway (bloating!) so treat that with lots of water and some nice light meals and you'll be all better.
  • TOneHundredForty
    TOneHundredForty Posts: 18 Member
    As others have noted, the sodium will cause a temporary weight gain.This is due to water retention (caused by the high sodium), which means you could be holding anywhere between 1-10 pounds of excess water in your system. However, once you revert back to a regular/low sodium diet, that water weight will shed off in a day or two. The fat you gained is very minimal-- around 1/5 of a pound.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    OP, are you losing weight?
  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    SLLeask wrote: »
    What on earth is "dirty food"?! Did you wipe it on the floor before you ate it...? In which case, no, don't do that again. But 2000 cals when you are usually eating 1200 is hardly going mad! It's probably only a couple of hundred over your maintenance, nothing to stress about. 800 cals is certainly not 5lbs worth, haha! The scale may go up a bit, but that will be retained water weight from all the sodium. Do a bit more exercise over the next couple of days and you've wiped it out.

    Yea and smash all of the water in. I basically eat homemade food all the time and nevertheless i do feel quite awful after eating high fat high sugar high sodium food all day long
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,593 Member
    edited September 2015
    1.How many cheat meals you have in a week?
    2. What kind of food?
    3. How does it feel afterward?
    4. Do you weigh yourself after cheatmeal?
    5. Any tips to minimize the damage?

    1. None.
    2. N/A
    3. N/A
    4. N/A
    5. Log it so you know exactly how many calories you went over. Then exercise.


    Oh, also ... I eat clean food all the time. It is packaged, washed, cooked. I don't eat food off a dirty floor. If the food looks dirty, as in mouldy, I don't eat that. If the garden veggies have dirt on them, I wash it off. No dirty food.

    I incorporate a whole range of delicious food into my diet. If I know whatever it is will put me over, I exercise more.

  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    edited September 2015
    arditarose wrote: »
    OP, are you losing weight?

    Yes slowly. In fact i don't really like to weigh myself. Maybe once every 2 weeks when I feel like doing it.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,593 Member
    @PinkPixiexox i recently increase my food intake as long as its homemade and wholefood i never really count it.

    Homemade and wholefood still have calories.

    Believe me ... some of the stuff I used to bake had CALORIES. There was this one carrot cake ... WOW.

  • doralim1990
    doralim1990 Posts: 76 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    @PinkPixiexox i recently increase my food intake as long as its homemade and wholefood i never really count it.

    Homemade and wholefood still have calories.

    Believe me ... some of the stuff I used to bake had CALORIES. There was this one carrot cake ... WOW.

    Yes of course, the point here is i dont really care about my calorie intake. I just eat until i am full and satisfied and be able to function properly and do my workouts.

    But all of my homemade foods are low salt, low fat, low sugar. Unlike the food that i had this whole day.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    Okay then. Do your thing. If you stop losing weight start logging your...food, which it sounds like you don't count anything you make yourself. And cut back on your cheat day.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,593 Member
    arditarose wrote: »
    Okay then. Do your thing. If you stop losing weight start logging your...food, which it sounds like you don't count anything you make yourself. And cut back on your cheat day.

    Yep ... this ^^

  • PinkPixiexox
    PinkPixiexox Posts: 4,142 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    @PinkPixiexox i recently increase my food intake as long as its homemade and wholefood i never really count it.

    Homemade and wholefood still have calories.

    Believe me ... some of the stuff I used to bake had CALORIES. There was this one carrot cake ... WOW.

    Can I try some! :D
  • OneHundredToLose
    OneHundredToLose Posts: 8,523 Member
    I don't plan cheat days. I just know that I may end up in a situation where I'm going to make a poor eating choice, and I do my best to accommodate that. For instance, last night I had In-N-Out for dinner. Today I will be eating lightly for breakfast and lunch to make up for it.
  • kathrynjean_
    kathrynjean_ Posts: 428 Member
    I don't ever have planned cheat days or meals ... First of all because I'm working hard to (positively) redefine my relationship with food and so I don't attach connotations to food. Food is fuel. It's not good or bad or dirty or cheating if I eat something vs. something else. It's all just food.

    Since I've started lifting and realizing how important it is for me to fuel my body, I've been giving myself more leniency to eat at a smaller deficit and honestly, I feel great about it. I don't ever feel the need to overeat to the point of making myself sick or feeling guilty. However, there are some days when I eat at maintenance. Sometimes those are planned and sometimes I only figure out it's going to be one of those days when I'm halfway through it, but I never feel bad about it. It's just about being flexible and making sustainable changes.

    And what do you know ... I'm feeling better and have been losing more consistently (so far) than I ever have before.

    From my personal experience, out of control eating (or eating to the point of making yourself sick) is directly linked with deprivation, or at least feeling deprived. Maybe something to think about it. But in the meantime, brush it off and move on.
  • MommyL2015
    MommyL2015 Posts: 1,411 Member
    edited September 2015
    Last Monday I ate somewhere around or over 2,000 calories, including a big ol' burger w/mayo on it, hotdog, baked beans, potato salad and topped it off with a slice of German chocolate cake and a scoop of ice cream.

    It was not a cheat day, it was Labor day and we cooked out and had fun. It didn't set me back and I still even lost a pound this week.

    Life is life and we only have one of them, so eat, drink and be merry, just don't overdo it every day.
  • ilovecereal1982
    ilovecereal1982 Posts: 1,194 Member
    OOOOH MAN!!! cheating it up today...buffalo chicken dip...probably glass of coke and rum...and yep I did the pumpkin spice latte this morning.
  • dhimaan
    dhimaan Posts: 774 Member
    I hope it helped you psychologically. You do need to zone in the next week. It is ok to have dirty cheat days once every 2-3 weeks.
  • SteveMFP123
    SteveMFP123 Posts: 298 Member
    I cheated today, ate a giant bag of Tesco's finest cheddar and onion crisps, about 800 calories for the whole bag. They were absolutely delicious, I don't know if it's because I haven't had crisps in 13 months or if they are just that good but I enjoyed them. I will make up those calories before my next weigh in on Saturday so whatever.