Cheat day..yes or no?

addily1986 wrote: »

So, I am nearing the end of my first week. It has been hard. But today I woke up with energy enough to take a walk.
Yesterday I did what most of you advised and splurged on calories for a meal. I went out with my husband and had carne Asada with rice and beans (which is my favorite). And I was able to have almost all of the plate. But decided to only have half of the rice and beans and more of the meat... And did pico de gallo instead of salsa with only 6 chips. And I also rewarded myself with a vodka/soda water with lime. It really made me feel at cause over my life knowing I can balance things in a way that I can still go have fun with my family and be social.

I ended my day 300 to spare. Though I was 1g over my fat intake target. But 1g is pretty dang good!

1g over your fat daily allowance isn't going to make a difference, as long as you hit your macros you'll be fine

vingogly wrote: »

As has been pointed out in many threads, cheating implies a moral choice. There's no moral dimension to decide on eating food X rather than food Y.

I often reserve 300 calories or so for a treat after dinner. Sometimes it's a dish of ice cream from the dairy down the street, or a good-quality chocolate bar. Sometimes something else. If I've eaten my treat calories earlier in the day, well, that was my choice and there's always tomorrow.

Treatin' ain't cheatin'. And dieting isn't hard work if you're not looking at it as dieting (meaning an unpleasant portion of your life you look forward to getting through, so you can return to "normal eating"). Catch my drift?

Love this post!

Great way to handle going out! Hope you had a great time! Keep it up!

Yourkindagirl wrote: »

You can do too much damage with a cheat day. Have a cheat meal once a week. That way you don't just lose it and binge, but there is some control. I have a cheat meal schedule every week. I don't always use it, but I have it to look forward to just in case I am having a weak moment.

But what if a single meal is all I take in a whole day? Texas de Brazil comes to mind.

I am not anti cheat day but it can play really bad games with your head, which it seems like it already may be. Take a look at flexible dieting, which I have found works extremely well regardless of your goal. All that is required is figuring out your macros, and please not what the USA recommends, and as long as your foods fit your macros and caloric intake for the day go for.
For example if you are at 7pm and have eaten your last meal of the day and have 10 grams of fat and 30 carbs left go eat a daggum donut.
This is much more sustainable and eliminates the need for the cheat day all together.

I'd say no. In the 18 months it took me to lose 148 pounds, I had one cheat meal during that time. Since I've hit my goal weight I allow myself every night to have 2 ounces of halo top ice cream(it's yummy).

grannynot wrote: »

Make it a priority; or stop complaining and live with your failures.

YES!

My cheat day starts on Friday night and lasts until Monday morning. The rest of my week is structured to allow this.

I think it depends on how, why, and how often.

The ideal goal of MFP is to set you up for a way of eating that will be conducive to maintaining your goal weight for the rest of your life. So consider your lifestyle, what changes you can sustain forever, what you're not willing to give up entirely. Do you frequently do very well during the week but tend to splurge on weekends? Structure your calorie goals so that you eat a little less during the week and have some more flexibility on Fri-Sat or Sat-Sun. Is there a sort of special occasion, meal out with friends, company picnic, etc coming up, the type of stuff that comes up fairly often, where you know you're going to have a bigger than usual meal? Make reasonable choices at the meal, and then eat a little less and/or exercise a little more in the days surrounding the event so that over the course of the week you just about even out. Is there a big, relatively infrequent holiday/celebration coming up where you know you're going to exceed your typical calorie goal by a good amount (Christmas, your birthday, your annual 4th of July BBQ extravaganza)? Go for it. You still need to live your life. Did you just have a bad day and unexpectedly exceed your calorie goal by more than an insignificant amount? Try to make it up over the course of the next several days. Or, in all of the above cases, accept that you're just going to have a reduced deficit or a surplus for the day/week, and understand how that's going to impact your goals, and understand what that would mean if you were generally eating at maintenance.

I wouldn't cheat just to cheat, though. Saying to myself "ok, tomorrow I'm just going to eat whatever the heck I want, calories be darned" seems mentally and emotionally counter-productive. If there's a particular food that I'm craving that normally doesn't fit well into my goals so I generally don't eat it, but I just HAVE to have it, I just do my best to work it in. If I decide on a cheat day because I'm emotionally not in a good space, that's a great opportunity to address emotional eating and find healthy behaviors to replace it. If I'm simply feeling burnt out on dieting and exercising and like I need a break, maybe it's time to re-evaluate if my deficit is too big, or to find a new activity to try for exercise, or to adjust my macros a little, even temporarily (for me, I find that allowing myself to go nuts on carbs within my calorie goal and not try so hard to hit my protein goals for a couple of days relieves a lot of mental stress). And everything needs to get logged, even if the entire day was a dumpster fire - I think it's important both to be honest about it and really get a handle on the totals, both as a mental reality check and a data point to understand what would need to be done to balance it out.

I'm not suggesting anyone should freak out and fast for 2 days because they're going out for their anniversary dinner this weekend and know they're going to have a couple glasses of wine and split a giant piece of cheesecake. It's just about balance and making small tweaks so that you still generally meet your goals over time. When you're at maintenance, if there are days where you exceed your typical maintenance range you either have to make that up through eating less/moving more to balance it out, or accept that you're going to gain a small amount of weight back. Too many of those days and that re-gained weight is no longer a small amount. I think it's good to start healthy maintenance behaviors now.

RainaProske wrote: »

@Yourkindagirl Your photo up there! Love it! You GO, lady!

Thank you.

I try to always leave some space for some sort of treat.
But I've also adjusted what is treats are. A lot of my deserts are bananas (or apples) and peanut butter and some dark chocolate chips
Even if its ice cream its a little serving instead of a giant bowl.
Its all about balance ! Find what works for you!
For me personally, if I couldn't have some sort of treat I would be really unhappy. So I've made it so I can have treats

I have a 'treat' meal not a cheat day, it's maybe once a week or once fortnight. I find it helps me stay on track. I've read other members say about including a little treat everyday whilst staying in their calorie goal, whether chocolate or juices, pizza etc. I can't do this, if I have one bit of chocolate I want more etc. That's why I do once cheat meal, when I've eaten it that's it, it's done and I move on. You just have to find something that works for you. We are all different

After all my bluster here about no cheat days, I am tired. If I were still trying to lose weight, it would be different, but I'm feeling resistant to my nutritionist wanting me to gain a little weight, so I'm tired. Tired of the constant keeping account. The junk food I've been eating lately is probably what is making me feel as I do. But I'm taking a little break until I can get myself more together. What a "brak" means, I don't know. Mainly, I'm just not going to be so hard on myself.