Is it true that a cheat meal can go over calories ?

I calorie cycle. Basically, during thw week I eat around 1300-1400, and weekends I eat 2000-2500. At least one day of the weekend, sometimes both I go over my maintenance calories, but as my overall intake for the week averages out to under my maintenance I lose weight.

The calories you eat don't 'reset' daily or anything, it is the trend over time that matters.

Let's be reasonable. How would your body knows the calories don't count in those 2 hours? If you ate 10 pizzas in those 2 hours how would your body know it is those 2 hours that don't count and not a different 2 hours when you ate only a small salad?

A reasonable cheat meal probably isn't going to do a thing, except maybe some water weight if you eat a lot of sodium, but I wouldn't go so far to say eating as much food as humanly possible in 2 hours isn't going to cause some issues.

One cheat meal a week won't hurt anything. Just don't go crazy...don't stuff yourself until you're so uncomfortable you don't want to do anything. There's a cheat meal and then there's being greedy lol. On my cheat meal day, I still work out and plan my cheat meal for later so I know that I will get the workout in no matter what. Also, my other meals during that day will be low fat, so I don't feel so bad. It doesn't matter when you eat it, or in what amount of time...just be reasonable. Also, know that you will retain water weight, you can fluctuate a lot the next day, just don't freak out.

It's all about the average. If you eat 1500 calories 6 days in a row and on the 7th you eat 4000 calories, it's basically the same thing as eat 1857 calories a day for 7 days. So if mfp says you need to eat less than 1700 calories a day to lose weight, you will gain. Having one day of being over your calorie goal is fine and helpful to allot of people, but you still have to pay attention to it and average it into your progress.

jemhh wrote: »

Yes it could cause you to gain. If your maintenance calories are 2200 and you more or less average that 6 days a week but on the 7th eat 2500, over the long term you will gain. Many people gain this way. Not everyone gains weight eating over every day.

I agree with this. Say, your weekly calories to maintain are 12,600. If you eat over that consistently you will slowly gain weight, depending how far over you go of course. If you plan to have a high day, you need to make up for it elsewhere to keep yourself on an even keel

AnvilHead wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

I missed the 2 hours thing. That's one of the more.... interesting things I've ever heard. It's all about the calories. Food timing is irrelevant, and it's all about how much you eat, not how fast you eat it.

I could easily crush a week's deficit and then some in a 2-hour "cheat meal". An hour at the Chinese buffet, 30 minutes at the ice cream place down the street and I'd be at an easy 5000-6000 calories minimum, with 30 minutes to spare.

Man, I hear ya. 1.5 hours at an all you can eat sushi place, followed by 30 mins of ice cream? Phoar.

chelseyperry735 wrote: »

So I'm close to my goal and about to start maintaining my weight and I was wondering if let's say I have a good week of logging that once a week I can go over my calorie range with a cheat meal ? Would this cause weight gain if I'm maintaining and it's only one day a week ? And I don't mean like vastly over every week. Also I heard that a cheat meal can be considered anything you want to eat within 2 hours , is this true ? I never really have cheat meals but I want to start once I begin maintaining . An example would be like I stay within my goal to maintain for an entire week and then on Sunday I have a brownie cake at a resturaunt or like a bagel or something . Could I have one meal like this every week and still maintain ? Also in regard to the 2 hour thing , is it true that if I maintain for the week except for one day that I can eat whatever I want in 2 hours and still maintain consistently if I continue to do this ?

Depends on the deficit you're running. If you are losing 1-2lbs per week, then unless it's more on the 'ridiculous binge' side of the spectrum as compared to a planned refeed, the cheat meal is not going to effect you. Let's say you eat a pretty darn generous 3,000 kcal cheat meal and are a smaller female, that does an hour of moderate exercise. TDEE in that case is probably around 1800kcal for the day. So you're meal would create perhaps a 2,000 kcal deficit (accounting for eating more than probably this one meal.

If you're running a 750 kcal/day deficit, or 1.5 lbs/wk loss, that's still only blocks out a little less than 3 days.

Assuming a more reasonable cheat meal of 1,500 kcal, then you're hardly doing any 'damage' at all.

Basically this only becomes any sort of an issue if you have cheat meals that are ridiculous binges, or if you are trying to lose the weight really slowly, on the order of less than 0.5 lbs/wk (250 kcal/day deficit or less).