Cheat days

pebbles45112000 wrote: »

Yes, I always log my cheat day. How do I find out what my deficit should be?

I

If you want to lose two pounds a week, you need a deficit of 1000 calories per day. If you entered the two pound goal in MFP at setup, the calorie goal it gave you is what it estimates will create a deficit of that size. If you want to maintain this rate of loss while still eating over your goal once a week, you need to be under your goal enough on your other days to balance out the one high day.

The thing to keep in mind, though, is that MFP will not recommend a calorie goal under 1200, which means that in order to lose 2 pounds a week, your body must need at least 2200 calories a day to stay at your current size. For an average height woman in her 30s who is only moderately active, this mean you would weigh something like 165 pounds. It's generally considered unhealthy for women to eat fewer than 1200 calories ever, so you want to lower your rate of loss as you get smaller.

I do very infrequent cheat days every now and then. I would say once a month.

No tracking happens in those days! It hasn't slowed my progress to date, mostly because I have one when I feel/look really lean, get it out of my system and then move on. I gain a bit of weight for 3-4 days but then business as usual after that.

pebbles45112000 wrote: »

Do u do them and if so, do you do them once a week or how often?

Also has having cheat days slowed down your weightloss?

I never have a planned cheat days. I will only cheat on special events like a wedding or Xmas or social events with people I haven't seen in a while....but doing a cheat day for the sake of cheat day...nope, I don't need to. At this moment, I am bulking, so even if I decide to go at a fast food restaurant, I can still get away with it since I have room for 3200 calories. When I do cheat on those special days, I rarely change my diet, I just move on, because one day of overeating won't make me fat, just like 1 day of undereating won't make me skinny. All I usually end up getting is water weight and I take advantage of it at the gym

Sakura_Tree wrote: »

I have a cheat day once a week, for the rest of the week i follow a plant based diet. i will consume around 3000 calories or more on my cheat days, they haven't effected my weight loss as far as i can tell :P

So you didn't cheat, I mean if your weight loss stayed at the same rate, technically you just ate a highly processed meal or food (aka junk food) but fit within your macros. I guess it all depends on how we define cheating. What is a cheating day, is it going over your calories or just eating junk food regardless how they fit withing our macros?

When I cheat, I CHEAT. I allow myself one cheating day every 2 weeks. And I still lose weight. It is highly convenient for social happenings, and whenever it happens I don't weigh for 3 days. I typically feel like cr*p for those days anyway. I also cheat almost the whole time in vacations like 3-4 weeks a year (like next month in the Caribe, all-inclusive), 3-4 days in the Xmas period.

This doesn't jeopardize my weight control, on a yearly basis.

I think cheating a full day once a week would be too much, as your body would be in recovery mode almost half of the time.

I don't have 'cheat' days. Well I don't really feel like they're cheat days as I'm still logging everything I eat and still eating in average weekly deficit.

I do however have 'relaxed' days on the weekend sometimes where I'm not too stringent on what I eat. I try to make 'better' choices instead of 'best' choices. And I do this knowing full well that doing this will delay the date I reach my goal weight. But it keeps me happy and I'd rather reach my goal weight in 18 happy months than 12 miserable ones.

Plus I don't plan to ever completely cut out any kind of food so, if I'm gonna make this a life long deal I need to find a way to work these kind of things into the way I eat forever. A sure fire way to make me throw in the towel and go nuts is to tell myself I can NEVER have something ever again.

So relaxed days are when I can grab a hamburger at the football or a pizza to eat with a movie or other meals that I'd normally not eat during the week.

But the important thing is that it's not a complete blow out (like it used to be) as I still aim for 'better' choices than I have in the past. Yes I'll order a pizza but instead of eating an entire deep dish pizza piled with toppings and half a garlic bread and a huge bottle of full strength soft drink, I'll have a few slices of thin crust vegetable or mushroom pizza skip the garlic bread and get water/sugar free soft drink. Instead of getting a hamburger, large hot chips, full sugar soft drink and large chocolate bar while at the stadium, I'll just get the hamburger, have water or sugar free soft drink and bring a 'fun size' sweet from home.

Another reason doing this works for me is that it's delayed gratification. Knowing that on the weekend I can grab that 'less than ideal' meal I want means that I won't feel the need to eat it on Tuesday (and again Wednesday and probably Thursday and Friday too as well as on the Weekend). It helps me stay 'honest' 6/7ths of the week.

And I still log everything so it's not 'cheating'. This is what works for me right now but I'm constantly re-evaluating my methods and approach and if doing this starts to have too great an impact I'll re-adjust and refine my plan.

I have about a 4-5K day once every 6 weeks or so and of course it slows your progress; It negates 4-6 days of a deficit for me and is totally worth it. It's informed consent more so than cheating but I have no problem with whatever verbage people use to describe a day of delicious food in quantities I can not have regularly lol

bambarby wrote: »

For me a cheat day will undo an entire week of dieting. So I think it’s a bad idea. A cheat meal is a way to go. Make it big, at the end of the day, and get the cravings out.

The problem by reading all these replies is that not everyone have the same definition of a cheating day.

adarbyem wrote: »

I agree with the cheat meal, rather than a cheat day. For instance, yesterday was my cheat meal day. I ate and tracked everything normally, but ate lighter earlier in the day because I knew what I was having for dinner. Wings and beer. My first beer in two weeks. I ate bbq wings, and drank my single 22oz beer, logged the calories and still made it under my goal calories for the day. Now I am good on my cravings for a while.

Yeah, I do this on Saturday. I wouldn't call it "cheating" though... just good planning.

There is a korean fried wing place called Bon Chon. Best wings on earth - double fried. 10 wings is about 1K cals - plus a bowl of white rice. I skip breakfast and eat a smallish dinner - but dang, it's worth it. lol

I don't use cheat days. A single day isn't enough to reverse any metabolic adaptations, so I prefer to just eat at maintenance for 10 days or so if I need to instead of using a cheat day.