Will a cheat day hurt?!
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I cheat all weekend and work hard all week, works for me.0
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I have cheat meals Friday and Saturday evening, usually because I am out with friends. It hasn't affected my weight loss thus far. My calories deficit every week is in the order of 3600 calories and those cheat meals have me go about 200 over maintenance. +400-3600= -3200. Everything still good.
Incidentally, I'm fairly new here and was wondering if there's a way to find out our maintenance calorie intake. I happen to know mine is around 2000. My MFP weight loss intake is 1500 (at one pound a week). Those cheat meals usually put me at a calorie surplus of 2200.
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If you eat enough calories on your "cheat day", you can wipe out the entire week's deficit.
Why not just eat the things you love and fit them into your calorie goals?
The bold bit. Friday is my cheat day and I used to eat whatever I want, then come Monday I'd spend the entire week working it off.
My suggestions is a cheat meal not a cheat day. Controlled cheating if that makes sense?1 -
I once did Atkins for quite a long time and noticed that one small cheat would not do harm, but slip off the rails for say a weekend, and 8 pounds will jump back on you overnight, like magic!0
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Incidentally, I'm fairly new here and was wondering if there's a way to find out our maintenance calorie intake. I happen to know mine is around 2000. My MFP weight loss intake is 1500 (at one pound a week). Those cheat meals usually put me at a calorie surplus of 2200.
I used this website https://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator/ to get a rough guide to my maintenance intake.1 -
Carbs are good for you. It won't hurt you to cheat every day as long as you keep your calorie intake low.1
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For me personally if I have a cheat day then I am only cheating myself.2
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I'm not a cheat day person. I feel it takes me mentally out of the game. But I'm also not one who needs a mental break from the game. If I ate "junk" food when I was losing I made it fit and any calorie overages were very, very rare. If you must "cheat" you might want to reimagine your diet (by diet I mean eating pattern.) Either way if you do it, track it. I would really try not to go above maintenance if I were you.1
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I prefer to do a cheat meal every so often, not a full day. Today I had a breakfast roll as my cheat meal because I normally have a shake and I missed sausages! It won't effect me much and even with the cheat meal I'll still be within my calories. A full day would throw me off the wagon especially once a week.0
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Weight loss is all about calories, and simple math. If the cheat day/meal you eat on the weekend takes away from the deficit you've created during the week, then it can slow your weight loss.
Personally I'm not crazy about the concept of a cheat meal/day - I think a lot of people follow a plan that is too restrictive during the week and then feel they need a reward or a break on the weekend. I think that creates negative perceptions about diet and weight loss.
I work the foods I enjoy in on a pretty regular basis, and I also often bank calories during the week for a more indulgent weekend - but I don't call that "cheating" as it's just representative of my normal habits and lifestyle.
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nomorepuke wrote: »If you eat enough calories on your "cheat day", you can wipe out the entire week's deficit.
Why not just eat the things you love and fit them into your calorie goals?
She's on a low carb diet, she says. "Eat things you like as long as they fit in your calorie deficit" is old. So are you suggesting I can live off of cupcakes, donuts or McDonald's because that's what I love? How about your health? How can you jeopardize your overall health by eating junk just to look skinny? By all means you will lose weight by eating only 2 donuts a day.
What an odd interpretation of this post. No one mentioned being skinny, no one mentioned cupcakes, donuts or McDonalds. Why would you interpret the post this way?
Also, why can't a person on a low carb diet eat foods they love? I'm not low carb but I assume that many people eating that way have foods that they love that fit within their plan, and some they may restrict more often. Advocating that they may still be able to work those foods in, while maintaining a calorie deficit, is not telling them to abandon low carb or eat nothing but 2 donuts a day.
The straw man arguments always perplex me...5 -
Most of us got fat by having an unhealthy relationship with food, meaning a desire to eat too much, not being able to stop snacking, comfort eating and such like.
In order to overcome this, you have to change your relationship with food, otherwise any amount of "dieting" will eventually lead to you simply putting the weight back on.
This means learning new eating habits and leaving the old ones behind.
If you try to factor-in "cheat days", whatever your definition of them happens to be, you're not really learning new eating habits at all, you're simply putting all your bad eating habits in one place and re-labelling them as something acceptable providing you don't do it all that often.
Ultimately (as has been said before), if you have cheat days you're only cheating yourself. You haven't actually committed to losing the fat at all.
I know it sounds harsh, but this is true about weight-loss as it is about just about everything in life, if you factor-in failure in your goal, then you can be pretty sure you will fail.
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If your cheat day puts you into a calorie surplus equal to your weekly deficit (easy to do) then you won't lose weight.1
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trigden1991 wrote: »If your cheat day puts you into a calorie surplus equal to your weekly deficit (easy to do) then you won't lose weight.
This. I've easily undone a weeks' worth of eating at a deficit in one day. It's just not worth it to me. That being said, life doesn't stop when I'm trying to lose weight. So every once in a while I will say screw it. But definitely not every week.0 -
I have found that cheat meals work better for me than cheat days. Cheat days were like free for all, so bad idea for me. A cheat meal once a week just meant I added 300-400 calories to my daily total, sonit wasn't a big deal. Lately, I've been working my favorite foods into my daily plan and I think this my new way of eating what I love, whenever I want. For example, I love lasagna. Yesterday, I made lasagna for dinner and calcuted the calories for the whole pan with MFP. Based on the total calories in the pan, I determined my portion size to meet my allotted dinner calories. I allowed myself a specific amount of lasagna and then filled up on a salad with a homemade lemon/vinegar/olive oil dressing. The salad allowed me to feel full and I still enjoyed my lasagna. I've actually done better this way than cheat meals/days. I now eat whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I calculate my portion size ahead of time. Sometimes If I do go over calories because I might want just a few more bites than my allotted portion, then I'll add a little extra exercise or a 30 minute brisk walk. I no longer feel deprived doing this!0
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If I am doing a low carb diet, with also low calories, is there going to be a big impact on my weight loss if I have a cheat day once a week?
Also any advice from people who have successfully done the low carb diet?
If you are in deficit 6 days and you are cutting 500 calories a day to try and lose a pound a week, you would have already been down 3000 calories from maintaining. Even if you ate 3000 extra calories past your maintenance caloric goal, you wouldn't technically gain anything for that one day.
I never cheat. I just eat and make up for it when I want.0 -
OP, if you don't have much to lose, a cheat day can unravel your hard work from that week.
I personally fit in what I desire around nutritious meals. No cheat day, no cheat meals. By doing the cheat meal method, I managed to maintain my weight instead end of lose. Moderation works best for me.nomorepuke wrote: »Let's put it this way. You eat unhealthy/high carb food 6 days a week and eat healthy/low carb food only once a week, would you lose weight? Probably not.
You eat healthy/low carb food 6
Weight loss isn't about what you should or shouldn't eat. Weight loss is all about calorie deficit. I've lost 100lbs with moderate to high carb. Some times I am unintentionally low carb. Sometimes (a few days a month), I eat more treats. So what? Macro splits are personal and do not affect weight loss. There is some glycogen decrease on LC, though.1 -
I have a cheat meal, but not a complete cheat day. I guess try to make the best decisions on what you are putting into your mouth. ie smaller sizes of high calorie foods. good luck0
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If you feel the need for a cheat day them low carb is probably not for you. Why go low carb if you enjoy them? Work out your macros and incorporate the foods you like it's a much more sensible way than killing six days worth of a deficit.1
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