Cheat meals or cheat days

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Just log it and get over it.

As long as you don't go over maintenance you won't gain, today's figure just won't count towards the week's deficit. to gain 1lb in weight you would need to eat 3,500 calories over your maintenance amount, so it's kind of hard to gain from one cheat meal. log and move on have fun tonight and really, don't fret!

The splurge days are the most helpful to log (or rather, failing to log them distorts your data the most). Enjoy yourself, and to the best of your ability, log every bit.

queenliz99 wrote: »

MiSo_SeXy wrote: »

How many extra calories do you consume on these days? And do you exercise on these days? I'm meeting up with friends tonight and so I'm using tonight as my cheat meal but I'm so nervous about how much i can go over in my cal intake... Any advice?

Change your goal to maintenance calories. You'll be fine. Have fun. Plan better next time. I eat light all week long so I can go out on the weekend

This

I don't have cheat meals or cheat days.

I have had one "celebration day" once in the 7 months I've been here.

kathrynjean_ wrote: »

Machka9 wrote: »

I don't have cheat meals or cheat days.

I have had one "celebration day" once in the 7 months I've been here.

This is perfect!!

It was my husband's and my 7th anniversary.

I have a bit of a habit of turning my cheat days into cheat months

I've had 'non tracking' days! I don't believe I particularly over-eat on these days but I do allow myself food I wouldn't normally have on my 'tracking days'.

Don't worry about going over your calories for your night with your friends! You're a human, not a robot. Enjoy your evening, log what you consume if you can - otherwise, let it go. Tomorrow's a new day and a fresh set of calories. You aren't cheating, you're winning!

Isn't that a great feeling the next day??

It should be a treat meal.
It should be logged as best you can so that you have (as valid as possible) data.

It should not be a free for all cheat day where you make up for lost time and "enjoy" all the things you "deprive" yourself off.

Totally different mindset.

You WILL "gain" a disproportionate amount of weight the next day.
It is NOT fat.
Not unless you eat 3500 Cal x however many lbs your scale moves ABOVE your maintenance.

Usually the weight change is because of excess sodium and associated water retention.

Water weight changes being an order of magnitude larger than fat weight changes is the reason why I so strongly advise people to start using Trendline Weight tracking applications NOW.

Libra for Android.

Happy Scale for iphone.
:
www.weightgrapher.com for manual logging (can also import fitbit data, and can superimpose your previous n-day period, useful to cut-through monthly hormonal weight gains) and

www.trendweight.com automatically connected to free fitbit account for daily weight entry.

Log it and forget it. At most it will derail your weight loss a little bit.

if you "regularly" do this... adjust your other days by -100 to give yourself a bit of extra room on that one day. Don't go nuts the day before and the day after setting yourself up for rebounds and perturbations of your regular routine!

If you regularly feel the need to go double or triple your daily calories... you may want to re-examine the level of your daily calories and whether the level of deficit you've chosen is sustainable and proper.

Proper deficits, in my opinion would be 10% to 20% of TDEE (25% of TDEE while still obese) as long as net food intake remains above BMR.... at around this level I believe you maximize weight loss while minimizing un-desirable side effects. Your mileage and beliefs may vary ;-)

Make it a cheat meal rather than a cheat DAY. over eating throughout the day can negate the entire week's deficit. If you must, then just have a cheat meal without having to worry about the calories!