A cheat day? Or meal?

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CarolF11
CarolF11 Posts: 67 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I would guess a cheat meal would definitely be better but I would like a whole day. Thoughts?
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  • lulalacroix
    lulalacroix Posts: 1,082 Member
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    If I want to spend extra calories in one day I either bank calories from the week or do a serious workout that burns a lot of calories first. I'm not interested in blowing my calorie deficit for the week by eating over my weekly calorie goal. There are exceptions though.
  • trigden1991
    trigden1991 Posts: 4,658 Member
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    A big cheat meal can ruin your weekly deficit if you eat "enough". I would advise, 1 planned meal where you eat to maintenance or just above.
  • bekim123
    bekim123 Posts: 391 Member
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    Given the willpower and the choice, I'd choose a cheat meal over a cheat day...less damage done. That said, when I was on vacation last week I had several "cheat days".
  • Susieq_1994
    Susieq_1994 Posts: 5,361 Member
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    CarolF11 wrote: »
    I would guess a cheat meal would definitely be better but I would like a whole day. Thoughts?

    Depends on how much you can eat. I can put away a good 8000 calories on a "cheat" day :-|
  • CarolF11
    CarolF11 Posts: 67 Member
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    lulalacroix wrote: »
    If I want to spend extra calories in one day I either bank calories from the week or do a serious workout that burns a lot of calories first. I'm not interested in blowing my calorie deficit for the week by eating over my weekly calorie goal. There are exceptions though.

    Great idea! I usually don't workout so that could be a day I do. Thanks!
  • mlsh1969
    mlsh1969 Posts: 138 Member
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    3500 over your bmr will gain you a pound. Most of the time that would be near 5000 calories. Would u be able to eat that much?
  • angerelle
    angerelle Posts: 175 Member
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    I still don't understand what cheat days are all about. I have been waaaay over my calories the last couple of days, but I wouldn't class it as a cheat. I still log and it's a conscious decision, that I'm going to eat more on a particular day at the expense of losing weight at the rate I had planned to. When I am keeping to my planned deficit, there aren't any foods or drinks that I deny myself, as long as they fit.

    If you don't keep track of the numbers how do you know whether you've sabotaged the rest of the week?
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    Whatever works best for you. As long as you don't blow your deficit on that one meal or day.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    godlikepoetyes wrote: »
    I go over a lot, on a lot of days, but I log everything. I don't hide the reality from myself. If you need to pig out, then do it, no matter how much you eat. It's okay. But log every bite and pay attention to what you're doing. It feels weird to say, "I'm choosing to eat all the chips in this bag," but it keeps you honest. As long as you log, you can't fool yourself and then post two weeks from now wondering why you gained three pounds--was it my cheat day? For me, there are no cheat days. There's just overeating. I'm always going to overeat, I just don't do it every day anymore.

    I agree with this 100%, OP. There are days when I choose to go over, but I log everything. That way if I do gain weight, I will be able to understand what happened. It's hard to adjust when you don't have data.

    Also, over time I have noticed that when I log the calories for certain items, I just don't want them as much as I used to. When I know how many calories are in some things, they just don't seem worth it. It isn't every high calorie item (some are still worth it), but it's happened to quite a few things. So my days where I go over calories do look different than they would have before I began counting calories.
  • 85Cardinals
    85Cardinals Posts: 733 Member
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    Hell, take a whole week!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
    edited July 2016
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    I honestly fail to see the difference. If I have one cheat meal (which *I* call cheat meal, which means basically a 2500 calorie meal or more), I'm too full to eat anything else the rest of the day anyway (usually).

    But of course it's not cheating as I make up for it by eating less the rest of the week.
  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
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    Cheat meals and days don't make me happy in the long run and they get in the way of my progress. That being said, I plan for days where I'll eat more than usual, like Monday for instance. I plan to eat more calories than usual. But I still plan to log them. Seeing that spike of intake on my charts reminds me why I'm not losing for the next two weeks...
  • Fursian
    Fursian Posts: 522 Member
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    A cheat day? Or meal?

    Personally, I've taken a cheat day once a week, going on 9 months now. My progress will have been slower than if I hadn't, of course, but I don't regret a single one of those days. :)

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