Is it bad to have a cheat day instead of a cheat meal?

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madisonharvell703
madisonharvell703 Posts: 18 Member
in Motivation and Support
I plan to be good all week long except Sunday. I plan to have a cheat day, is that a bad thing?

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  • mkakids
    mkakids Posts: 1,913 Member
    edited April 2016
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    Its REALLY, REALLY easy to eliminate an entire weeks deficit with a cheat day. You can stick to your calorie goal Mon - Sat and then if you go crazy on Sunday, end up having a weekly average that puts you in maintenance or even a surplus.

    Be careful. Log your 'cheats' to make sure you don't wipe out all your hard work during the week!
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    What is your idea of a cheat day? If it's unlimited high calorie eating, not a good idea because it can override all your hard work during the week. If it means having one or two small treats, you should be fine. Portion control and moderation is the key to successful "cheats", IMO.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
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    Do you do this often? If not, have your day off from counting calories to the gram and enjoy your meals with family and friends.. But if you diet hard Monday through Saturday and eat back into your deficit each week, then no, I would not advise that if you want to loose weight or continue loosing weight..

    Eating is something we do many times a day, why not enjoy being off from dieting once in a while? I would and do... still.. (i actually learned to bank calories for the weekends)..

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,868 Member
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    Cheat days are how I got here in the first place.

    I ate quite well during the week, and would often lose a bit during the week ... let's say 500 grams (0.5 kg).

    Then the weekend would come and I'd eat whatever I wanted. Some weekends, I would maintain. :) Most weekends, I would gain a bit ... let's say 600 grams (0.6 kg).

    That's not much ... almost like maintaining ...

    And ever-so-slowly ... one day I woke up and was overweight.

    In 4 years, I had put on 15 kg. That's only 3.75 kg/year. 72 grams a week.


    If I want something special on the weekend ... I exercise for it.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    It really depends. What is "good"? What is "cheat"? If your cheat exceeds all your good, you'll gain weight over time. If your cheat almost wipes out all your good, you'll very slowly lose weight except you'll cheat more and just gain weight.

    My last cheat day was 3/13 and it took me being good until 3/22 before I got my weight back to where I started on 3/13. That was 9 days, and from that I learned that a weekly cheat day is not something I can do.

    You can look at your reports of your net calories since your last cheat day. Add up all your calorie deficits. Divide by 3500. That's how many pounds you deserve to have lost since your last cheat day. How much of that effort do you want to throw away for the experience of sticking it to yourself?
  • idp1980
    idp1980 Posts: 123 Member
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    Yeah I wouldn't go a cheat day as its far too much, I currently am cutting and stick to a strict diet all week and have a cheat meal on sat , normally a roast dinner and 2 puddings of my choice haha but it works and curbs the cravings for sure. I start to plan out like today getting excited for what I want Hahahaha
    Feel free to add me if u like
  • LazSommer
    LazSommer Posts: 1,851 Member
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    I can eat a extra lb of calories in one day. So you know.
  • angelagwendolyn
    angelagwendolyn Posts: 2 Member
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    Oh no!! Don't do a cheat day! My cheat day, wedding anniversary day, turned into a 3 day cheat session. Then there was Easter weekend. What I'm getting at is one day can turn into a weekend and then that weekend turns into two weekends. I'm struggling daily to stop this trend. I'm on day 102 on MFP and I'm ashamed to say that the last three weeks has had too many cheating days. I cheated and didn't count it into MFP. No wonder I'm not reaching my goals.
  • oocdc2
    oocdc2 Posts: 1,361 Member
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    I have cheat days, but not once a week. More like, holidays and parties, so once a month, maybe?
  • Pineapples
    Pineapples Posts: 246 Member
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    This post came in perfect timing; I want to take a break once a week and was debating on if a whole day or just a meal.. but I really shouldn't. Weekends are bad for me, my family tends to cook really yummy stuff and is going to be SO hard to say no.

    So if let's say I work out really hard and burn an extra 1000 calories is it ok to then have the cheat meal?
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    I hate that term- cheat meal/day. None of us is getting away with anything, as "cheat" implies. It either fits with our calorie allowance for the week (you can view it that way, as opposed to a daily allowance) or it doesn't. Generally, I think it's best to eat in a balanced way all week that doesn't necessitate the need for cheating, but all of us go out once in a while, or have a special event, and we can either make room for that by planning our day/week accordingly or choose not to care, but we can't cheat it.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    Maybe consider if your weekly weight loss goal is too aggressive. If you are on very low calories in an attempt to lose 2 lbs/week, but feel the need to cheat and end up sabotaging that, why not just go with 1 or 1.5 and get on a more comfortable calorie level to begin with? More sustainable and less urge to cheat. :)
  • holly_roman
    holly_roman Posts: 116 Member
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    that depends on you. some ppl do great 'cheating' every once in a while. and by 'cheating' I mean eating at maintenance and still logging everything not eating 4k cals over your deficit in one day. I have seen enough ppl on here who are successful and had mini breaks throughout. I know from experience that I cannot have a cheat anything. I can eat whatever I please but I have to stay within calories budget. If I go over at all I will just keep going over until I am suddenly eating like I did it he first place which means about 4lbs a month of extra weight gain. But I will say this, you don't know until you try. Every single one of us is different and if that approach works for you then great. If not, then at least you know for sure.

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