Letting yourself cheat (how much)

I ate 3000 calories on Tuesday (yes you read right!) as it was my wedding anniversary - we went for a HUGE picnic + I drank champagne, Pimms the works.

I FULLY expected to have put on weight yesterday (Friday- weigh in day) and amazingly I hadn't. It must have been because it was a one off.

I definitely wouldn't condone it on a regular basis but it just goes to show that the damage was very little at all.

I don't know if I have what I call a "cheat" meal or not. I eat what I want in moderation and try to make good choices - and if I feel like having ONE donut, I'm going to eat it and not feel bad. On days when I swim - I know I'm going to burn well over 1000 calories so I eat a little more than normal when I take my kids out to eat afterwards. I think it's important to LIVE life...enjoying a nice meal once in a while is awesome, even if it is high caloric. It's one meal, one day of your life. Obsessing about it is how people fail. After I had my kids - I lost almost 100 pounds and obsessed about every single thing that went into my mouth to the point that I would only eat raw fruits and vegetables for 18 months. 10 years later I am right back to the weight I was after I had them, needing to lose a significant amount of weight again. I will be smarter this time. Best of luck!!

every 10 days or so I let myself have a meal of whatever the hell i want. If i know there is family thing coming up i save it for that. i'm changing my lifestyle, but that doesnt mean i cant enoy a burger, fries and a shake every now and then.

I eat what I want in moderation, and keepn with in my calorie goal!

Ditto! Cheat days just seem so counter productive to me. But everyone is different and what works for me, may not work for someone else.

The only problem with moderation is Bacon Cheese Burgers and French Fries are hard to moderate. I usually have a cheat day where I don't track but I still know how I'm doing. I go over my calorie goal but usually it's just about where I would be with out the calorie deficit. I hardly have cravings for the unhealthy food but a burger or all meat pizza does still sound good once in a while. Having this day where I have it planed to eat these things stops me from not following the plan 6 days a week.

i dont believe in cheat days or 'everything in moderation'
my problem with cheat days is, if you can eat healthy the rest of the week why do you need to do this for one day? it should be a lifestyle change, not a half assed diet.
my problem with 'everything in moderation' is that bad foods dont fill you up, you get a small portion for a large amount of calories, therefore you are depriving yourself of both energy and nutrition which is bad for your body.

i cant have a cheat day, then its too hard for me to get back on track

I think it's important to give yourself a bit of freedom every now and then! Obviously eating like that is not normal for you and you work so hard every other day counting calories and working out, so have fun and try not to worry about all the calories you're consuming! If you're not making a habit of it, just enjoy it when you can!

I just had a weekend away with my boyfriend to celebrate our 6 months and obviously there was a fair bit of calorie consuming going out to nice restaurants and drinking plenty of fancy drinks. If you're anything like me, I think you'll find that you just wont be able to eat as much as you might have before this diet! I find that I'm a huge lightweight now, getting drunk on two glasses of wine when before I could easily drink a bottle and by barely tipsy! I also didn't have room in my stomach to eat even half of my meal... my boyfriend had a lot to eat this weekend! Anyways, my point is, I did feel a bit guilty at first because I haven't been on this diet for very long, but I also think that if I expect myself to keep this diet up, I need to be able to enjoy the same things I did before, in moderation.

I find this diet to be very similar to weight watchers... instead of counting points, we're counting calories, fat and other factors. But hey, that's exactly what weight watchers is! Those points relate directly from calories, carbs, fat & fiber. You gain more points when you work out just like you gain more calories when you work out with mfp. One of the things that gives a little freedom for weight watchers is the flex points... you get an extra 25 flexible points a week that you can choose to use or not. So that's about 1250 empty calories extra a week. When I did weight watchers, I always just saved those for the weekend when I was more likely to go over my weekly allowance. Anyways, I think that little bit of freedom is enough to keep you motivated. Enjoy your nights out ladies and gents, just don't have them all the time!!