How often do you cheat?

Well. I prefer to earn it. Say I want a candy bar, then I guess I better do some cardio or something for it!

I never cheated. I pretty much eat anything I want to as long as I dont go over my daily calorie goals. But I also never binged since I started. I came close tho. I was In the drive thru of a McDonalds to grab two breakfast sandwiches. I drove my car out of that line. But that was the closest I cam to eating something crazy high in calories and salt

kbow_ wrote: »

Don't be fooled. Anyone here telling you they don't cheat is a modest liar. First of all, everyone has their own definition of "cheating" since all diets and weight-loss goals vary. For me, I try to stay away from dairy, carbs, and gluten. My definition of a cheat meal would be having something I don't incorporate into my everyday diet, such as a serving of pasta or ice cream.

When you cheat, make it something you wouldn't normally have, but do so in moderation. Savor two cookies instead of the box. Eat out and get a burger, but get water and opt for a side salad rather than fries.

To answer your initial question, I cheat 1-2 times per week. When I cheat, I do so in moderation, and am sure to exercise that day.

I'm 370 calories over goal today. Yesterday, I was 295 under goal. I wasn't extra good yesterday and I didn't cheat today.

If I wanted to eat fast food, I would and it wouldn't be cheating. I choose not to eat it. That's not me behaving myself. That's me making a choice.

It's not a modest lie or even a brazen one. It just is. You might consider that other people aren't you, don't have your views, your thoughts or your diet before you go around calling them liars.

I'm 5'11. I lost #20 adopting a deficit / banking plan of 1550-1650 calories a day 5 or 6 days per week, saving up for a weekly cheat day (centred on one cheat meal) where I went up to 2750-3000. More often than not, the day ended up at 3000-3500.

Reviewing the data, I consumed an average of 1750-1800 calories per day over a three-month period. I would probably have been happier, less ravenous and less tired if I'd just stuck to that range and eaten more food all the time, building treats in daily. I didn't "get" that approach, though. My mentality was all or nothing, binge / deprive. Those "cheat" meals were like mini binges - a behaviour I had managed to stop a few years ago. I often found myself exercising them off after the fact - again, an unhealthy behaviour for me that I wanted to get away from. They also set me back and undid my hard work. I would have achieved goal weight sooner and been more prepared for maintenance had I simply been more moderate from the get-go.

I'm in maintenance now. Suffice it to say, the transition from my deficit / banking approach to maintenance was HARD, and I had to unlearn a lot of habits. I no longer overly restrict during the week to bank calories for a big blow out on the weekend. I build treats in daily, extra treats with extra activity - I finally "get" all the MFP threads where people say things like, "I eat chocolate every day!". And I no longer have "cheat" mentality where I might eat the whole box of chocolates on one day, and overly restrict the next week to do damage control, or drive myself crazy in the process (guilt, anxiety - you name it).

When I have big dinners planned, I focus more on the day of the dinner: typically it's a weekend, so I can exercise way more and plan to eat my full TDEE-fuelled maintenance calories (and macros) around the dinner.

For many, the word "cheating" has negative connotations which are not helpful to building a healthy mindset about food and eating. Cheating implies that you normally are being "good" and on some occasions you are being "bad" and for many people, that can trigger a lot of food issues. That is why people are saying they don't "cheat", not that they never eat meals that are more indulgent on occasion. Additionally, if you don't restrict foods you enjoy every day, but rather find ways to work them in on a regular basis, then it's not "cheating", in my opinion. Also, since many of us don't view this as a "diet", there isn't any reason to cheat.

It may be semantics but I feel that the meaning of words and how we use them are important in discussions like this. Calling people who take a different approach to you "liars" without understanding their perspective is a bit narrow minded.

To answer the original OP, I'm not on a diet (in maintenance but even when I was losing I didn't call it a diet) and I work the foods I love in on a regular basis so I don't consider that cheating. I often save 100-200 cals/day during the week for more indulgent weekends but again I don't consider it cheating, that's the plan that I made and am adhering to and it helped me successfully lose the weight I set out to lose and am currently maintaining that loss.

Probably the single thing that kept me fat my entire adult life was thinking about food in moral terms .... good food/bad food... "cheating".... I choose not to do that anymore.

I had the cheat lunches of all cheat lunches. I should have looked at the calories before ordering. 10 Hooters wings and a plate of curly fries. I felt like I really needed it though. We will see.....