Does eating really well during the week make up for eating really awful on the weekend?

A bad weekend could completely wipe out your deficit if you're not careful. You should still be trying to log your "cheat" days to see how much you're undoing your deficit from the weekdays. Without a calorie deficit there is no weight loss, even if you've been spot on for five out of seven days of the week. Also, your weight could appear to go up after cheat days due to high sodium levels and water retention.

I'm gonna go with definitely maybe.

It depends on what you mean by "awesome" and "crappy."

In terms of weight loss, what matters is your caloric deficit. It is VERY easy to wipe out your weekday deficit in two days of uncontrolled eating of high-calorie foods, so it's possible to eat right at target all week and then, through eating more on the weekends, stall or even gain weight.

If you're simply talking about nutrition- I personally don't think one or two "unhealthy" (for however a person wants to define health) meals a week are going to majorly impact health from a nutritional standpoint. But that's assuming you're eating at a caloric deficit. If you eat at a 250 calorie deficit each day from M-F, you've achieved a 1250 deficit. It is suuuuuuper easy to eat 1250 extra calories on Saturday and Sunday if you're not watching. That's not even a whole McDonald's meal- two or three fast food meals on the weekend could put you at a weekly surplus. So you can stay in a holding pattern this way forever. Fine for maintenance, but if you want to lose, you have to be aware of your intake consistently.

And while it's true you can average your calories over a few days, you really can't healthily restrict enough on weekdays to make up for totally unlimited bingeing on the weekends. It just doesn't work that way. You need to be eating a certain minimum for health every day, and there's a maximum to the amount of deficit you can realistically achieve over the course of five days. At some point, you have to weight the desire to eat large amounts every weekend against the desire to lose weight, and decide which one is more important to you.

If you keep a deficit over all for the week then eating crappy on the weekends does not have to ruin a diet. But if you eat so much on the weekend that eat away your deficit then you won't lose any fat that week.

I eat lower calories (usually about 100-1400) during the week so I can eat more on the weekends without blowing my diet.

Hornsby wrote: »

I'm gonna go with definitely maybe.

I'll raise a probably not.

Depends on how "bad" your cheating is on the weekend. I just went on a weekend getaway with DH and decided I would eat what I wanted and I banked some extra calories. Had a Chinese buffet for lunch (and surprised myself when I logged it at only about 1500 calories), followed by 1 roll of grocery store sushi for dinner (we were still full). I did top it off with a small bag of cheetos so I still indulged . The next morning, I had the hotel breakfast (biscuits & gravy and a pancake!) and half a serving of Chinese food for lunch (decided to brown bag the rest). Ended up back home for dinner where I cooked a super healthy veggie curry. Had so many calories still left over for the week that I ate caramel popcorn, another small bag of cheetos, and some banana "ice cream". And still ended up 500 cals UNDER my net cals for the week. Was too full to eat anymore though. Had this same problem last weekend so I think I will cut back on the amounts I bank for the weekend - obviously I don't need as many as I think.

The only reason I ended up so much under was because I worked out a lot over the weekend. I clocked in at around an hour and a half on Fri, Sat, and Sun. I don't usually work out so much on the weekends - but at the hotel, I had access to stuff I don't have at home so was was happy to take advantage of them.

I was quite impressed that I managed to control my splurgy weekend. Really working on teaching myself that if I like something, it's OK to just eat a small amount of it and savour it. I don't have to eat an entire gigantic plateful just because I like it.

If you want to be a baller, don't call them "cheat" days...just call them "refeed" days

ZeroTX wrote: »

"Cheat" days are counterproductive, no matter what. I'm not saying I don't have them. We had a "cheat meal" for Valentine's day. Not a day, just one meal. Nonetheless, I gained weight, as expected. I think it depends on how serious you are and whether or not this is a lifestyle change or you're going to get to goal and go back to eating Big Macs.

This for me too.

Doesn't work for me. In Feb we had 2 cheat meals planned. They turned into cheat weekends and it took my until yesterday to finally start seeing loss again. So... I'm not doing cheat anything now. Just having what I want and staying at or slightly under my cal goal.

I still tend to lose weight despite eating bad on weekends. Theoretically, if you seriously overeat on the weekend then you could undo your hard work from during the week and not lose weight. But our bodies are not exact mathematical equations and it is difficult to predict how our body is going to react. If I have been really good during the week and maybe not eaten back all of my exercise calories then I'll still get a decent loss, but sometimes I might not get a loss or have a very small loss which is probably due to eating bad on weekends. I'm trying to stop doing it because it's not really a healthy mindset to have in the long term - it's when the weekends turn into weeks that I start putting weight back on. I'm personally trying to find the balance between allowing myself a treat on the weekends and not undoing all my hardwork by overeating.