How many calories do you go over your base on cheat days?

Nanjass02
Nanjass02 Posts: 3 Member
edited November 15 in Food and Nutrition
I usually eat 1200 calories but today I feel so guilty because I had 2066 , I ate 3 slices of pizza and some candy and I feel so bad with myself :(
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Replies

  • ibamosaserreinas
    ibamosaserreinas Posts: 294 Member
    I just had a bunch of fried Chinese food. First cheat day in a month.
  • fitmom4lifemfp
    fitmom4lifemfp Posts: 1,572 Member
    I don't do cheat days.
  • cake91
    cake91 Posts: 46 Member
    RachelAE89 wrote: »
    Rowan09 wrote: »
    Cheat days work for some people. Let's not be judgemental, kids...

    I agree.

    I love the idea of cheat days. I have one once a week. For some people, not all, they can easily ignore the temptations of fast food and other unhealthy foods, but for people like me, I need a cheat day to not go completely insane and fall off my diet. For ME I feel like bottling up food temptations is like bottling up your emotions. One day you'll break and say "*kitten* it".

    So on my cheat day I'll maybe have a donut for breakfast and McDonald's for dinner or something like that. I don't add any extra excercise, I just continue the next 6 days of my diet normally.

    I can admit not being mentally strong enough to handle a strict no cheat days rule. So maybe that's why some people need it, and others don't.

    So to the OP, don't sweat it too much. As long as you continue your diet normally, you'll be fine. It's all about balance.

    I tottally agree with you. I found that if i am very strict and ignore all temptations for ages, i end up binging and falling of the wagon for ages. So i treat myself now and then. As for your question annjass, on how many calories i go over. I averge about 200. :) but i can really blow it sometimes. Don't feel bad. Just get back on track as its a new day :)
  • DavidRocketts
    DavidRocketts Posts: 80 Member
    edited January 2017
    I don't count them. Also, I dislike the term 'cheat' why not call it a reward day? I just decided, after a month being totally strict, that one reward day a week may be the best for long term progress. My regime becomes a punishment sentence without a reward on the horizon. Sure stepping on the scales and seeing improvement is a 'reward' but most want more than that... me anyhow. The key is limiting it to a specific occasion. I have 1 fast day a week, why not a reward day..?
  • Spiderpug
    Spiderpug Posts: 159 Member
    Birthdays (family of 6 :wink: ) and celebration days ie Christmas are 'free' days for me otherwise everything else is counted/earned
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,304 Member
    yes i guess cheat days work for some people - the term also means different things to different people.

    As long as the cheat day doesnt take the weekly total over what it should be, then you will still lose weight.

    In answer to OP, I dont know - as I don't view it like that, I view my calories weekly and some days are higher than others but that's ok, as long as my week is on target (which it mostly is)
  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
    63.

    Never 64.
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,149 Member
    About 3,000. I look at it like this: if I'm taking an IDGAF day to eat what I want, I'm damned well going to eat ALL I want. I have them mostly as a mental reset because I get tired of "restricting" myself to normal portions.
  • MAH80T50
    MAH80T50 Posts: 23 Member
    I'm not taking an exam, I don't have cheat days ... What would I be cheating??

    I have my calories set as my lightly active TDEE (I do a desk job) which is 1664 - so I eat freely, but try to make sure that my exercise calories exceed my food intake calories, but if it doesn't, oh well, tomorrow is another day.

    My weight loss figures show that this method can work, so I really can't get my head round this "Cheat Day" nonsense, any more than I can the "Eating less then 1500 calories a day" logic ... Starvation ain't fun and I don't wish to try it ... !!
  • LenGray
    LenGray Posts: 869 Member
    I don't have cheat days, but on days I want to enjoy lots of food, I usually try to eat up to maintenance and then, if I'm still hungry, burn off the excess calories with exercise.

    Just be sure to log, that way you know what any jumps on the scale mean. Also, you might pleasantly surprise yourself by finding that you didn't go as far over as you thought you did. :)
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    edited January 2017
    I don't do 'cheat days'. I will however sometimes eat more because I'm hungrier, have bad cravings, or it's a Holiday and IDGAF... and I'll try to make up for it that week. But cheating just for cheating is pointless. I start every day with the intention of staying within my calories.

    Typically my 'bad days' end up being 3000-3400 calories though (during PMS 99% of the time).
  • sfa90
    sfa90 Posts: 105 Member
    Max 1900, and I try to eat daily 1400-1500
  • Docbanana2002
    Docbanana2002 Posts: 357 Member
    I don't like the concept of cheat days or reward days because both concepts seem tied to unhealthy ideas about food and dieting that I have had to overcome. If I want to reward myself for an accomplishment then I will do it with something other than food... because seeing food as this hugely important thing to make myself happy or stop being sad or cure my stress or celebrate a good day etc etc was just a really unhealthy rut that caused my obesity in the first place. I needed to find joy or reward or mental health in something else, something that wasn't destructive to my body the way binge eating was.

    As for cheating, I think it is part of a dysfunctional view of weight loss that is based on a concept of "dieting".... starving and deprivation and eating sad little portions of iceberg lettuce and beating yourself up with exercise, followed by breaking loose in a binge so you have some fun. All you learn on this roller coaster is how to embrace two forms of extreme and unhealthy behavior--asceticism and gluttony--that aren't conducive to learning how to live a healthy moderate lifestyle and maintain long term weight loss.

    I am speaking as someone who has maintained 110 pounds of weight loss for about a year and a half. Losing weight isn't the hardest part, it is learning to keep it off because you've really adjusted the way you live and broken free from the unhealthy patterns that caused the gain to in the first place. You gotta make this a new lifestyle that you enjoy enough every day that you don't need to escape it with an eating binge. That doesn't mean never having some pizza or always eating bland diet food or always eating the exact same number of calories. It means allowing yourself enough calories every day that your body is fueled properly. That might mean being more active or tolerating a slower pace of loss. It also means making room for something you enjoy occasionally and just seeing that as a normal day and not a horrible transgression. It is also helpful to eat more on days that are special occasions or exceptionally hungry days and a little less on others but again not as a "cheat" but just as normal part of a healthy lifestyle.
  • HM2206
    HM2206 Posts: 174 Member
    My version of "cheat days" is when I eat up to maintenance. So if my daily burn is 1900, I usually eat 1600 on non-active days, more if I exercise. A cheat day would be an inactive day where I eat up to 1900.

    I need those occasionally to not go crazy. And it's better then how I used to do it - explode and then eat everything for one single day because "it doesn't matter if I go over anyway". Yes it does ;)

    If you compare it to spending money, as one user suggested, it is like saving money every day and then one day spend what you have. Which is fine, once in a while. Spending money you don't have is not, and overeating (like using credit cards to cover yourself) is bound to give you trouble.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    I've been at this for a year and the longest stretch of days I've been able to meet my low calorie goal, which was <1700 calories, was about 35 days. My unplanned high calorie days, I don't call them 'cheating' because I do try to honestly log my food, usually wind down after I've eaten about 3000 calories total for the day. That's 1300 above my target, and scarcely 1/3 of a pound of added fat. It's nothing in the week or the month, as is doesn't even nullify a weekly calorie deficit. I have a hypothesis that this cycle which I do by going a month on low calories then having a day of high calories actually serves the purpose of keeping my NEAT from trending low in response to the persistent calorie deficit.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    Nanjass02 wrote: »
    I usually eat 1200 calories but today I feel so guilty because I had 2066 , I ate 3 slices of pizza and some candy and I feel so bad with myself :(
    The bolded is exactly why people say that the concept of a cheat day can cause a bad mental relationship with food.

    I ate 3 pieces of pizza last night, and drank wine, and did not consider that cheating. I wanted to have pizza and game night with my family. I actually was under cals for the day, but the day prior to that I was over by about 700 from eating a bunch of yummy stuff at book club. No guilt either way, and because I had planned for both, I'm still right on track for the week. Until today when we go out for boozy shakes and popcorn at a movie...but even then, no guilt.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    I don't have cheat days, I just fit everything going I want to eat into my weekly calorie goal.
  • Cylphin60
    Cylphin60 Posts: 863 Member
    On those days when I go over my daily calories, it's usually no more than 2-500 over. See how I worded that OP? :)

    I'm also usually 2-300 under every day anyway, so over the course of a week I'm in a deficit anyway. And there's no need to feel bad. Food is great stuff, and an awful lot of folks here love to eat, and eat some tasty stuff too. Perspective. Food isn't bad and you aren't a cheater. You're someone who exercised their right to eat what they wanted to on a given day. Log it, move on :)
  • XOsmileXO
    XOsmileXO Posts: 7 Member
    I have life Days! Mon-Fri I have my routine, Sat and Sunday I go with the flow, Being mindful but letting myself be Me. I know where I want to be. I decided on the Goal Im determined to reach it. I re-adjust by adding 2 extra at the gym. Love yourself first. Otherwise maybe your cheating your life! Live- Love- Laugh and eat the pizza!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I don't restrict myself to the point of needing to go out and blow things up. I just maintain a manageable deficit when I'm losing weight and go slow and steady.
  • __TMac__
    __TMac__ Posts: 1,669 Member
    I eat light on weekdays and heavier on weekends, to keep it at the correct level for my stated weight-loss goal of 1.5lbs/wk. That means if I "bank" 150 cals for 5 days. I can eat 750 more cals sometime on the weekend.

    That said, the word "cheat" only bothers me because it sounds unplanned. That's how I got overweight in the first place. But it sounds like you'd like to plan your higher-calorie days, so no problem. :)
  • roerun116
    roerun116 Posts: 2 Member
    I'm new to this. So I'm trying hard to eat healthy but also satisfied, so I can do as a life style. If you overdue it next day start fresh. DONT FEEL GUILTY
  • CheekyRunner
    CheekyRunner Posts: 105 Member
    I would give myself an extra 300-400 calories for a cheat day. But limit my cheat days to once every 3 weeks. :)
  • estherjellybabe
    estherjellybabe Posts: 14 Member
    What i do is I still count calories during my cheat day, then the next 2-4 days eat slightly less than normal OR exercise more than normal, so that the average for that week is still around my goal. I allow myself a cheat meal if I'm abroad or once every few weeks as a treat.
  • EricaCraigie
    EricaCraigie Posts: 1,396 Member
    I don't do cheat days lol no point
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