MAJOR cheat day

Just don't let it turn into a cheat weekend. Or use it as an excuse to ease back into your former plan. One meal/day may wipe out your net calorie gain for the previous week.But if you truly enjoyed it and hop back on your plan tomorrow - 'no harm, no foul)

I had a whole pizza on my chest day the next day I only had oatmeal and chicken breast to recover

I went out for a friends birthday last night and ate 3500+ calories. My maintenance is only around 1800 so that could easily mean a half pound gain.
But you know what? I enjoyed myself, and my friend had a great birthday so it was worth it.
I'm just going to be strict with my logging for the rest of the week and make sure I work out. Plus I've got such a major food hangover today I'm not going to want to eat much for quite some time yet.

On Thanksgiving and Christmas I ate about 2,000- 3,000 calories... about 700 calories over my normal calorie goal. On a trip I also ate 2,000-3,000 calories for a couple of days. I stuck to drinking water or unsweetened tea. I felt pretty satisfied with that amount and still ate all the things I wanted. I had planned and pre-logged what I wanted to eat so the calories weren't a surprise. It wasn't an uncontrolled binge. It was a thought out choice. I didn't do anything special to recover. I just went back to eating and exercising normally ASAP as I had planned. I didn't keep eating like that. I didn't gain weight from it.

Yesterday I had Culvers for supper. Predictably the scale was up a little today. So I just have something lighter today, plenty of water, and make sure I have what I need for the week ahead.

Going off plan once in a while is no big deal.

I don't believe in cheat days. Sometimes I eat under calorie goal, sometimes spot-on, sometimes over (including waaay over). As long as the under/on goal days are common, and the other days are rare, everthing will be OK. (I ate about 4500 calories yesterday, BTW.)

The "cheat" idea just seems melodramatic to me - I log what I eat always, including over-goal days, and even if I have to estimate the occasional meal in a restaurant or someone else's home. With that complete data, I can see how often I've gone over, and see whether I'm wiping out a worrisome amount of progress.

I've lost about 65 pounds since this time last year, most of it before the end of 2015. I've had a few 4000+ calorie days in there. They result in water weight the next day (sometimes 3+ pounds), and significantly less than a pound of true gain (my maintenance is around 1900 net, so the true gain from 4000 is roughly 0.6 pounds. ((4000 eaten - 1900 maintenance calories)/ 3500 calories in a pound = 0.6 pounds).

When I'm eating at a 500-calorie daily deficit (for 1 pound a week weight loss), 0.6 pounds represents a little over 5 days of delay in reaching my ultimate goal (the day I went over, which I can think of as eating at maintenance plus adding the 0.6 pounds, plus a bit over 4 days (4.2 specifically) to lose the 0.6 pounds again.) If I do this quite rarely (say once a month or less), then it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

If you learn to estimate the weight-loss arithmetic in your head, it can be reassuring - or, it can keep you on track, if you decide the over-goal eating isn't worth the delay/gain.

Don't fret it.... but be prepared for some water weight for a week or so if you consumed a !! LOT !! of sodium.

That's what I find.... apart from that, it's like 3500 calories per pound... so don't sweat it...

2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar for 2 days will help flush out the excess water weight.

KaleiAlanaSmith wrote: »

So I've been really good with my diet and eating healthy in my calorie limit for a good 5 weeks now. Today I travelled to the city and SPLURGED!!! I had about 5 glasses of sweet tea, a chocolate iced coffee, got a basket of teriyaki boneless wings and a side of garlic Parmesan fries, cheese dip, a bbq philly cheese steak sandwich, and ice cream to top it all of. (This was throughout the day not just one meal). I definitely ate between 4-5,000 calories today. I enjoyed it all, no regrets right? But I do feel a little disappointed. How do y'all spend y'all's cheat day? How do y'all recover?

uhm there are days i will literally eat a whole jar of PB thats like 3500 cal not including my food. i carry on like nothing ever happen sometimes if its on my mind though ill Bust butt @ the gym but other then that its 1 day out of 30 pfft whatever