Cheat days

Depends on what you mean by "cheat"... but personally, no I don't.

My cheats are too big and involve too many calories to do on any kind of a routine basis - they simply undermine my progress too much.

My quick take. I would make them as infrequent as possible. If you know you'll be attending a party or perhaps a relative's house and your host has no clue as to what your macro-nutrient goals are, you may want to reserve that as a cheat day. But when you start planning cheat days (most folks use Saturday) you end up wiping out everything you worked so hard for during the week. Especially if you're trying to lose weight, you should not plan for cheat days.

Are you wanting to eat a certain item and feel like you only can once a week? OP, you could consider trying to fit the things you enjoy into your daily life. Alot so many calories/macros whatever you track with for extras. Eat them, enjoy them, and then you can move on with your life without guilt or disordered eating patterns.

With MFP you can eat whatever you want as long as you burn the calories. Why not just workout more on days you want to eat the higher caloric meals? A whole day of eating badly and not exercising seems reverse to the whole idea of this website.

Every day's a cheat day.

JustinAnimal wrote: »

I've recently been more on-board with the concept of one cheat meal per week. Some diet plans even mandate it (something about tricking your body into thinking you have an excess of calories, even though you're at a deficit the majority of the time... could be misguided).

I do it for sanity. If I didn't drink alcohol, goodness knows the tremens would kick in and someone would wind up in the hospital. I like staying "good" (different for us all) the majority of the time and exercising my long-extinct will power, but NOT actually feeling any guilt when I have one meal that happens to be something like five beers, a bacon cheeseburger, and onion rings.

As others have said, a cheat day or weekend basically squares you back up with all of the "good" days you had, rendering your efforts futile (if you're trying to lose pounds).

Your body doesn't get "tricked" by anything

OP, I don't do cheats, because I'm not cheating on anything. If I want something, I work it into my weekly calories.

Cheat can mean a lot of things. For example:

Do I have days that I don't log? Rarely. I genuinely don't mind logging, and it's important to me to know that I'm hitting my averages. I've gotten better at estimating calories, but it's still too easy to lose track, and the less weight you have to lose, the easier it is to wipe out an entire week of dieting in one day. That said, maybe every couple of months I just quick-add some calories and say f-it.

Do I have days that I eat things I don't eat other days? Yes! I save certain high calorie items for regular "special occasions" - Sunday night is pizza and movie night with my husband, so I often eat less earlier in the day to balance it out. I donate blood every 8 weeks and usually get a sausage breakfast biscuit beforehand (these often turn into maintenance days especially since you're not supposed to exercise for 24 hours after).

Do I have days that I eat more calories than others? Also yes! I cycle calories, so I eat at a large deficit five days a week and then two days where I eat maybe twice as much as the deficit days. I understand there's some science behind regular "refeeds", but honestly I just do it as a way of sticking to my diet while still being able to go out to eat.

shatabdi wrote: »

Unfortunately, I cant afford to cheat. If I permit myself to think about it, I would plan my cheat meals all day everyday . After I reach my goal weight, perhaps I would add a drink or some sweets into my diet. But I eat healthy satisfying meals and if I cheat with for example, a slice a pizza, i feel uneasy for up to 2 days and thats just not worth it for me.

One slice of pizza throws you off for two days?!?! Damn!