High Calorie (but still low-carb) "Cheat" day....
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thisgirlsherry
Posts: 1 Member
I am not a fan of no holds barred cheat days period because I believe you can do a lot of calorie damage in one day (at least I can! lol). I am currently living the keto life and I watch my calories as well as my carb count. My question is, has anyone ever done or heard of a cheat day where you still limit your carbs but do not limit your calories? For example, at breakfast I would usually have one or two eggs with two pieces of bacon. Say I had a cheat day and I decided to eat twice that amount or just generally went well over my daily calorie limit. I am wondering if it would have a huge effect, if any, on my weight loss progress.
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I know several people who do a day at maintenance calories and the other 6 at deficit calories - the overall week is still a deficit so weight loss continues but at a slightly slower pace....if it makes things more sustainable for you then it's a good long term strategy...I do 6 weeks at a deficit, and then 2 weeks at maintenance because staying at a deficit is HARD and I don't like it, but I enjoy my little breaks where I get to eat more...unlimited calories would be a bad bad thing for me, I always track even when I know I'm over, otherwise I get a little crazy and end up gaining1
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I'm not a professional, nor am I well versed in anything... let me put that out there first lol.
I'm doing a higher calorie day once per week... but I'm still staying under maintenance calories that day. I think it will help my metabolism, although once again, not a professional. So in my opinion as long as you don't go way overboard and mind your carbs it should be fine. Plenty of people calorie cycle.0 -
I don't need to do a cheat day because as long as I am sticking to my carb goal (about 8 net) then I eat until I am stuffed. so for dinner I might have 3 large eggs cooked in a ton of butter and half a pound of bacon, all covered in cheese and I don't feel bad at all. I eat when I am hungry, and eat until I am full.0
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I don't have a cheat day, but eat higher calories when my body is truly hungry. If I doubled my meal just for the sake of higher calories, I wouldn't be hungry for the next meal.0
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If I went "way over my calories" on a regular or frequent basis, I would gain weight if I didn't hit a deficit or maintenance on average.
I have a pretty good track record of how to lose (1 year) and how to maintain (2.5 years). 10.5 months of maintenance has been keto. For me, loss and maintenance on the scale, is all about calories. The only advantage I have experienced regarding keto as a diet is improved compliance/adherence to maintenance calories via improved satiation.
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Yes, I have done that several times. The only issue is 'carb creep' with high volumes of low carb food. Take peanuts or peanut butter as examples - if I eat as much as I want, my carbs end up quite high for the day. Then again, nuts and legumes are at the higher end of carbs for the types of foods I eat.
Saturday, I ate over 3K kcals (as an example), but I also burned a lot of calories on a longer and very difficult trail run. In that case, I was in a deficit yet. Other days, I would have been in a surplus eating the same foods and calories. Then again, I can easily eat way more than 3K, but I cut myself off as I started to get close to my calorie goal for the day.
I will acknowledge that over time, either because of weight loss or because I'm eating fewer carbs, my low carb cheat days are nowhere near the calorie levels of cheat days before low carb. Back then, I would occasionally do 15K-25K kcal cheat days (highest was at about 27K). Now, my low carb (low by %, not by actual grams due to carb creep) cheat days are usually around 10K-12K at the highest. That assumes it is a whole cheat day and not a cheat meal (a cheat meal puts me over plan for the day, but I still restricted earlier in the day).0 -
In my experience, if I eat a big meal with little/no carbs that are "real" foods, I am just plain not hungry for the next meal. One thing I do on occasion is eat at a Brazillian steak house that as close by and way cheaper than most. When I do, I go there for lunch. I frequently don't eat breakfast, so it is likely my first meal of the day. It also will generally be my last meal of the day. I may not eat again until dinner the following day.
If I eat stuff like pork rinds or peanuts which, may be low carb but not nearly as filling as meat, I will end up hungry much sooner even if I ate more calories.
As @midwesterner85 mentioned, you also have to watch for carb creep with foods like peanuts. Eating just meat like I do in the above example keeps me from having that problem.
I also have other times where I do this. On Sunday, I ended up not having my first meal until almost 2pm. In total, I probably ate about 2500-2800 calories with maybe 5 net carbs (I have stopped tracking, but still eat the same foods so feel pretty confident in the counts). This is 500-1000 below what my normal day total is. However, because of the denseness of the food, I ended up not eating dinner that night or breakfast on Monday. So what could have ended up being a low carb cheat day ended up being a deficit day for me.
That said, I think the real thing to watch if you do this is eating VERY low carb is much better if you are going to eat more and eat more dense food. The eggs you mentioned are a good option because they fit both of those whereas bacon (at least for me) is not very filling and I could eat 2-3 lbs of it in a sitting.0
