ARGH!! .... I guess it might be time to step off the scales?

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Replies

  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    l4ur4j4d4 wrote: »
    What so I gotta have no social life to lose weight? Brilliant, may aswell give up now

    No. It is not so that you can not have a social life. Answer for yourself what things are important to you. Is overeating on some days important? Or, is over-drinking on some days important? If it is important to you to do those things and reach your weight goal, somewhere below 145, or fitness goal, somewhere near where you are now, then you have to make room in your weekly food and exercise activities to do all those things and reach those goals.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    l4ur4j4d4 wrote: »
    What so I gotta have no social life to lose weight? Brilliant, may aswell give up now

    No one said that.

    You can drink. In moderation.

    You can eat out. As it fits your deficit.

    If you want to take an all or nothing approach, fine. But that's your own doing.
  • anetkastefaniak
    anetkastefaniak Posts: 45 Member
    edited February 2018
    I would remove the cheat day until you get to your goal weight and you can maintain then...
    Personally I noticed for myself that cheat days don't work when I'm losing. When you're maintaining it's okay because as you mentioned you can easily make up for it during the rest of the week.

    I would just fit everything into your calories, or at least eat at your maintenance on your cheat days (worst case scenario) but your rate of weight loss will not be as fast as you want it to be.

    I've been amazing with my 1200 cals/week for the last two months. Then over the weekend I had a cheat day (2500+ calories). I gained back what I had lost last week. I learned it the hard way but once I'm at my goal weight I will 100% have a cheat day over the weekend, and eat at the 1200 cals per day during the weekdays so I don't gain any weight back.


  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member

    I've been amazing with my 1200 cals/week for the last two months. Then over the weekend I had a cheat day (2500+ calories). I gained back what I had lost last week. I learned it the hard way but once I'm at my goal weight I will 100% have a cheat day over the weekend, and eat at the 1200 cals per day during the weekdays so I don't gain any weight back.


    You didn't gain fat back, your weight fluctuated because of water retention.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    edited February 2018
    Do you know what your BF% is? You are at a healthy weight already...which means things are going to go slow. And in my experience, you do hit a point where lifestyle may not be commensurate with your weight management objectives and you do have to assess whether you're being realistic or not.

    For me personally, 15% BF is easy maintenance...it's basically my sweet spot where I don't have to think about things much and eat overall healthfully and exercise regularly and just maintain pretty easily with nights out, pizza nights, pub grub outings, etc.

    Cutting to 12% and maintaining that requires a bit more "sacrifice" on my part to get there...once I'm there, maintenance isn't too bad but I inevitably tend to creep slowly back up to 15%.

    Cutting below 12% and maintaining below 12% would require more dietary discipline than I'm willing to put forth...I'm not 20 anymore and as we age, the body tends to hold onto a little more fat which is why a good BF% for a 20 year old is sub 10%....40 year old it's 15% which is my sweet spot at 43.

    This is kinda where hormones really start coming into play...lower weights and BF%...sometimes going lower is just going to be a PITA without "help"

    Essentially, biologically it's healthy and normal to hold onto a bit more fat as we age (I'm not talking about unhealthy levels of BF)...at some point you get to the spot where you're basically fighting evolution...trying to be super lean is a fairly recent development in human history.
  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
    l4ur4j4d4 wrote: »
    So you’re saying no cheat day!? Jesus Christ... I don’t know about that...

    Do you want to lose the weight?

    You'd be better off creating a moderate deficit -- AKA, not restricting down to 1200, unless you're talking 1200 net -- and working in those foods that you want in moderation. And then sticking to that moderate deficit.

    This.

    Don't eat 1200 through the week. Bump it up to like 1500 and eat that EVERY DAY. Or, like some people on here, BANK UP enough calories for the weekend so that you're not going over your WEEKLY allowance. That way you still get a social life. You just won't get to eat as much throughout the week.
  • anetkastefaniak
    anetkastefaniak Posts: 45 Member
    edited February 2018
    @TavistockToad That's right. But if I'm consistently having cheat days on the weekend it could be backtracking my weight loss goals.

    The point I'm trying to make is that if you're trying to lose weight, eating consistently during the week and then having a surplus of calories over the weekend on your cheat days may not help you will lose weight. You might be maintaining, or you could be gaining.

    For ex. I am currently eating 1200 per day, and my maintenance is 1500. That's a difference of 2100 calories per week I have been cutting out. If I then go change my habits and eat 1200 Mon-Fri, and then decide to eat 2250 on both Saturday and Sunday, I'm cancelling out my deficit. I am then maintaining.

    Some ppl prefer to have no cheat days and eat a consistent amount of calories daily. That's not for me. When I reach my goal and start to maintain, I will probably go with the example I included above.



  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,600 Member
    @TavistockToad That's right. But if I'm consistently having cheat days on the weekend it could be backtracking my weight loss goals.

    The point I'm trying to make is that if you're trying to lose weight, eating consistently during the week and then having a surplus of calories over the weekend on your cheat days may not help you will lose weight. You might be maintaining, or you could be gaining.

    For ex. I am currently eating 1200 per day, and my maintenance is 1500. That's a difference of 2100 calories per week I have been cutting out. If I then go change my habits and eat 1200 Mon-Fri, and then decide to eat 2250 on both Saturday and Sunday, I'm cancelling out my deficit. I am then maintaining.

    Some ppl prefer to have no cheat days and eat a consistent amount of calories daily. That's not for me. When I reach my goal and start to maintain, I will probably go with the example I included above.



    But once again, anyone who logs it all, and tracks scale weight over time alongside, has all the data they need to understand and achieve weight management goals. When they eat it, and whether they call it "cheating" or not, doesn't much matter. The math matters.
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 2,085 Member
    Being so close to your goal, it's going to take awhile, and yes, it will be slow. A few suggestions if I may:
    1. Plan some of your "cheat" foods into your diet. They even sell personal size frozen pizzas (that are really good I might add) that will keep you from overeating, but you can enjoy the things you love. I have a glass of wine just about every night. Some nights I'll have several, I just have to plan them into my day.
    2. Log and record your "cheat" meals - I could easily out eat my weekly deficit if I went hog wild one night on food, beer, etc. Hopefully this won't be such a big deal if you start with #1
    3. Exercise more/at a higher intensity. Earn more calories by working out more. 2236 calories a day is a slight (albeit very slight) deficit for me - but that's only because of my workouts (which, admitting, would be a lot for the typical person).
    4. Step off the scale, and measure yourself instead - take some progress photos. Find other ways to measure your progress. I'm mostly recomping right now, and while the scale has hardly budged, and it's not a number I "want" to see, I'm MUCH happier with my body, how I look, and how my clothes fit. Recomp is slow though, and I can definitely see why it's not for most people.
    5. If you're meeting friends for a dinner on a Saturday night, plan in advance, and "store up" some extra deficit. Or, eat up to maintenance and just realize that you're not making any progress that day. Also, don't do "days," do a meal here and there. One meal may stall progress but is unlikely to undo it.....days, on the other hand, can more than undo your work.
  • bikecheryl
    bikecheryl Posts: 1,432 Member
    l4ur4j4d4 wrote: »
    What so I gotta have no social life to lose weight? Brilliant, may aswell give up now

    If you wake up and can't remember how much you drank or eat so much you don't even want to log it........

    I'll quote @TavistockToad .................. And this is why you're not losing weight.
  • gboybama
    gboybama Posts: 53 Member
    I had/have a lot in common with the OP.

    Everything I want to do on the weekends is calorie dense. I thought I was dieting by being good Monday through Thursday, beers on Friday night, go crazy all Saturday and bloody Mary brunches on Sunday. Obviously, that's a recipe for failure. I easily wiped out any deficits I earned during the week with my excess.

    So, I'm eating still less on my deficit days, bumping up the exercise, changing Friday and Sunday to break even days and allowing a smaller binge on Saturday. If my numbers are right, I can still net a pound lost a week if I log honestly and stick to it.
  • tess5036
    tess5036 Posts: 942 Member
    Instead of having a cheat day, how about a maintenance day?
  • JMcGee2018
    JMcGee2018 Posts: 275 Member
    l4ur4j4d4 wrote: »
    Just once a week... either a Saturday because the evening I’ll go out and have dinner and then go and have a tone of alcohol, which is hard to log when you wake up and can’t remember how much you’ve had. Or it’ll be a Sunday, where I’ve ate so much I’m too scared to log it hahaha.
    l4ur4j4d4 wrote: »
    What so I gotta have no social life to lose weight? Brilliant, may aswell give up now

    You can have a social life without going calorie-crazy. Stick to low-calorie drinks and limit yourself to only a few, especially if you just had a cheat meal. Your average drink is going to be at least 100 calories, so if you're drinking enough that you don't remember the next morning, you're probably looking at close to 1000 calories from just that. Add in a high-calorie cheat meal (I know I can easily put away a 1000 calorie meal), and you're largely wiping out your weekly deficit.
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