Do cheat meals help your metabolism?

You worry about harming your metabolism and I've already explained how to harm it by deprivation and how to restore it by feeding in surplus.

A meal deliberately high in calories, which is what you are calling a 'cheat meal', should be considered in terms of a weekly or monthly calorie deficit, or whatever is the interval between your cheat meals. If you maintain a calorie deficit of -1000 per day you lose 2 lb per week and cause your metabolism to adapt to starvation. A single high calorie meal each 7 days is going to cause your weight loss to be less than 2 lb per week because you won't have a -7000 weekly deficit.

I've read no paper on this. The studies which demonstrated NEAT adaptation did not include 'cheat meals'.

This means that you may and may not help your metabolism by having cheat meals. I don't know.

In my own case, I've maintained -1000 daily calorie deficit over periods of weeks and months between varying intervals of days having excessive calories since January. I do not suspect that my metabolism is adapted to starvation, but I want to emphasize that I have not spent the large bucks to accurately measure my NEAT. I know that my NEAT has declined because I've lost 85 lb. I do not know if the decline in my NEAT exceeds what would be expected from an 85 lb loss.

Do cheat meals help your metabolism?

No

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You can only wish.