Cheat days.
fitplundy
Posts: 47 Member
I know 90% if you probably have some cheat meals, and I’ve heard that there’s some pros to it as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. But how often should you have them?
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Replies
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My cheat meal is once per week, every Wednesday at our local seafood shack it's all you can eat fried basa (catfish)!!! I love it and eat to my hearts content! Only problem is I can only eat two fillets. So I end up in my calorie range anyways for the day. Some cheat day... HMM..1
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I am not sure what you mean by "cheat meals". Are there some meals that put me over my calorie goal for the day? Yes. Tomorrow will be one - I am planning on going out to eat with my husband at an all you can eat catfish buffet. But I have planned for that and banked some calories from earlier in the week, so I will still be under my calorie goal for the week. I have these types of weeks about once a month.2
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I am not sure what you mean by "cheat meals". Are there some meals that put me over my calorie goal for the day? Yes. Tomorrow will be one - I am planning on going out to eat with my husband at an all you can eat catfish buffet. But I have planned for that and banked some calories from earlier in the week, so I will still be under my calorie goal for the week. I have these types of weeks about once a month.
Lol we have similar "cheat days" 😆5 -
How often you go off-plan is entirely up to you. There is no should amount.
What do you consider cheating? Is it cheating to eat certain foods while staying within your calorie goal or is it only cheating if you exceed your calorie goal?
Do you plan to cheat for a meal or an entire day? You might negate your built-up deficit for the week if you overeat for the whole day. You might even manage to do so with just one meal.0 -
I wouldn't say 90% of people here. I've been here 4.5 years and never had a "cheat" meal/day/whatever. If I want it, I fit it into my weekly calories.18
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I had a smaller deficit today because I wanted cookies for an afternoon snack and then we went out to dinner and I had steak and mashed potatoes. Some would consider that a cheat day of sorts, but Saturdays are typically pretty busy for me and I have one of my bigger workouts planned, so pretty sure it won't affect my weekly deficit at all.
I'm another one that dislikes the cheat meal concept. Who am I cheating? Myself? I would personally rather plan my food choices and weight loss around a realistic template that doesn't make it feel like I need to cheat or otherwise potentially sabotage my progress. I'm not going for a huge daily deficit, nor seriously restricting myself from foods I enjoy. I'm just eating less of them and trying to make better choices in general. I'm truly trying to change my outlook on food for a lifetime, not just this period of weight loss. And with real life, there will be days I splurge and other days I eat less. If I don't learn it now, what good does it do me to go through all this?8 -
every 2 months? where I have a meal and don't care (too much) about how bad it is and don't log. but i keep it to one meal or one thing. like if i'm gonna two two super crazy fancy drinks i won't also do decadant dessert and a crazy dinner. I'll pick one or balance more. At 1300 calories I cannot go lower to bank over the week. it's the minimum i can do without being hungry. if I were to cut even 50-100 calories over 2-3 days I'd get into issues where i'd forever need to catch up and be miserable.
i do have treats weekly. weekends i don't really snack and if I cut a wee bit then I can fit in something yummy in a reasonable portion. or i won't stress if I am 50 or 100 over one day every two weeks or so (though I haven't done this that often yet).0 -
What is your definition of a cheat day? By some definitions I never cheat. Other definitions my entire diet is a cheat. I eat more on weekends and less during the week. I eat some foods for their macros and nutrients and others because I enjoy them. I don't restrict foods entirely but I do limit some at certain times of the day or week, month or year.8
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My last cheat day lasted 6 months. Just getting back again. I am going to try harder to stay on course. I have a big weekend on my feet and some running, so I will have to eat a little more but hoping to not go over by much. I find eating meals my mom cooked the hardest to stay in range, even when she knows I am trying to lose weight. So they become cheat meals but I work on fitting it is to my day the best I can.7
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I don't call them cheat days. I call them "earn" days. If I want to eat something that I normally would not eat within my diet then I must "earn" the right to do so. Also, try hard to keep it at an "earn" MEAL, not an "earn" day. It is much easier to bounce back from, even if you've went way over carbs and/or calories for the day.0
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For me I view "cheat" days as days where I indulge in particular foods purely for mouth feel if I desire them. I try to designate these foods to a single day because I generally prefer to eat foods that nourish my body.
It's not about eating any and everything, that's an eating disorder.0 -
MagnumOpus1 wrote: »For me I view "cheat" days as days where I indulge in particular foods purely for mouth feel if I desire them. I try to designate these foods to a single day because I generally prefer to eat foods that nourish my body.
It's not about eating any and everything, that's an eating disorder.
Can you clarify your last sentence please?1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »MagnumOpus1 wrote: »For me I view "cheat" days as days where I indulge in particular foods purely for mouth feel if I desire them. I try to designate these foods to a single day because I generally prefer to eat foods that nourish my body.
It's not about eating any and everything, that's an eating disorder.
Can you clarify your last sentence please?
Regularly eating 1000s of calories above ones maintenance calories without it being a special occasion is disordered eating.4 -
MagnumOpus1 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »MagnumOpus1 wrote: »For me I view "cheat" days as days where I indulge in particular foods purely for mouth feel if I desire them. I try to designate these foods to a single day because I generally prefer to eat foods that nourish my body.
It's not about eating any and everything, that's an eating disorder.
Can you clarify your last sentence please?
Regularly eating 1000s of calories above ones maintenance calories without it being a special occasion is disordered eating.
Binge eating disorder? Yes.
Overeating to the point of obesity? Nope.3 -
WinoGelato wrote: »MagnumOpus1 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »MagnumOpus1 wrote: »For me I view "cheat" days as days where I indulge in particular foods purely for mouth feel if I desire them. I try to designate these foods to a single day because I generally prefer to eat foods that nourish my body.
It's not about eating any and everything, that's an eating disorder.
Can you clarify your last sentence please?
Regularly eating 1000s of calories above ones maintenance calories without it being a special occasion is disordered eating.
Binge eating disorder? Yes.
Overeating to the point of obesity? Nope.
Yeah. We're saying the same thing.0 -
I wouldn't say 90% of people here. I've been here 4.5 years and never had a "cheat" meal/day/whatever. If I want it, I fit it into my weekly calories.
Same. I've been here--*checks app*--1279 days. I've lost 100 pounds, been maintaining for almost a year, and don't "cheat." I eat what I want as long as my average calories for the week are within my calorie goal.3 -
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Cheat or “treat” as in it goes over your calories. Not necessarily thinking of calorie amount such as if I want to go out to eat with family or my significant other once a week and don’t want to have to order a boring salad to save it in my caloriesHow often you go off-plan is entirely up to you. There is no should amount.
What do you consider cheating? Is it cheating to eat certain foods while staying within your calorie goal or is it only cheating if you exceed your calorie goal?
Do you plan to cheat for a meal or an entire day? You might negate your built-up deficit for the week if you overeat for the whole day. You might even manage to do so with just one meal.
It would just be one meal.
Whether or not you choose to think about your calorie goal for that one meal, you're still consuming those calories. Your one meal per week is fine if it doesn't put you over your calorie goal for the week. If you go over your calorie goal, then what will happen depends a lot on how much of a deficit you have.
If you are trying to lose a lot of weight, you probably have a pretty big deficit and going moderately over your calorie goal once a week may cut into but not wipe out your deficit. In this case, your rate of loss will probably just be a little slower. You may be okay with that.
But as you get closer to your goal, your deficit will become smaller and exceeding your calorie goal can easily wipe out a small deficit. Yes, you can easily do this with only one large meal per week if you have a small deficit. If this happens, your weight loss will stop and you may even gain weight if you exceed your maintenance calories.
If you want to stay on track with your weight loss, then budget calories for your weekly large meal.1 -
Cheat or “treat” as in it goes over your calories. Not necessarily thinking of calorie amount such as if I want to go out to eat with family or my significant other once a week and don’t want to have to order a boring salad to save it in my caloriesHow often you go off-plan is entirely up to you. There is no should amount.
What do you consider cheating? Is it cheating to eat certain foods while staying within your calorie goal or is it only cheating if you exceed your calorie goal?
Do you plan to cheat for a meal or an entire day? You might negate your built-up deficit for the week if you overeat for the whole day. You might even manage to do so with just one meal.
It would just be one meal.
Why does that have to be a cheat or a treat? That just sounds like... life.
If your every day approach is so restrictive that you feel like going out to a restaurant and ordering anything but salad is a treat, then you likely are being too strict with your day to day approach.
What many successful members do is eat a balanced, varied diet that doesn’t restrict foods on any particular basis. They fit in foods they love in their calories as often as possible, without setting up a mindset of good foods and cheat foods.
Practically speaking if eating out on the weekends is a regular occurrence, what I do is bank calories during the week so I have a buffer of calories to play with on the weekends for a nice dinner. Saving 100-200 cals each day means an extra 500-1000 cals on The weekend, but I still don’t consider that a cheat. It’s just how I’ve chosen to manage my calories and my eating habits.
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Once each week is too often, mathematically, for me. I can do it, of course, but I gain weight when I do. My regularly scheduled deficit is -250 calories per day, and I can shove 3000 down my gullet in under two hours of snacking.2
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Cheat or “treat” as in it goes over your calories. Not necessarily thinking of calorie amount such as if I want to go out to eat with family or my significant other once a week and don’t want to have to order a boring salad to save it in my caloriesHow often you go off-plan is entirely up to you. There is no should amount.
What do you consider cheating? Is it cheating to eat certain foods while staying within your calorie goal or is it only cheating if you exceed your calorie goal?
Do you plan to cheat for a meal or an entire day? You might negate your built-up deficit for the week if you overeat for the whole day. You might even manage to do so with just one meal.
It would just be one meal.
By that definition, I cheat whenever appropriate. I don't consider that cheating, I just call it flexible eating. It's an organic part of my eating practices because I don't put my life on hold when I diet. It's just as normal to me as having a lower calorie meal (never a boring salad), and the only difference is that it takes more planning. I just judge each food and decide if it's worth the calories today, and it sometimes is. That's just a choice within my diet, not a deviation from the diet that warrants calling it cheating.
Depending on what is happening in my life and head, this type of eating can happen several times a week or only once in a while. When it happens often, it takes more work to balance my other meals and days or I may choose to eat at maintenance for a while (which, again, is part of my diet, not a deviation).
Truly ignoring calories almost never happens. Yes, I may decide that having more calories today is worth it, even if it's way more than usual (like holiday dinners), but I don't find myself switching off my calorie radar. I'm still aware I'm eating a lot and I make the conscious informed decision to do so, understanding exactly what that means for my calories. Making the controlled and normal decision to overeat works better for me than feeling like a victim of circumstances/out of control/off plan/pausing my eating practices/"will do better tomorrow" type of thing.3 -
I have a sustainable plan of eating tailored to my personal wants and needs. As such whatever I do is never cheating.2
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I used to do a cheat day every other week but found it would lead to 3-4 cheat days, so I stopped. :-/0
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Nah, I follow a weekly calorie goal; some days over, some under. It balances out in the end so I'm never over my goal. So large meals or calorie dense foods aren't an issue even when calories are few because I'm cutting.0
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I just add in more cardio throughout the week. If I can burn an extra 600C during the week, that's more I can chow down on Satudays when I "cheat."0
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I don't believe in cheating, in kind of the same way I don't (as an adult) believe in Santa Claus.
I'm in maintenance now, but do pretty much what I did while losing: Some days I eat in a deficit, some days I eat at maintenance, some days I eat way past maintenance. If it doesn't average out over the long run to be maintenance calories, then I won't maintain a stable weight. While losing, if it didn't average out over the long run to be in a calorie deficit, I wouldn't lose weight. While losing, I tracked everything I ate, every day, whether I was over, way over, under, or right on goal. (I still track most of the time, just not quite as meticulously.)
The idea of cheating is part of the whole dysfunctional concept of food as some kind of self-indulgent sin, and of "dieting" as required expiation for that sin. IMO, that whole concept is ridiculous.
Food is required in order to thrive physically, and it can also bring pleasure and social connection. Over-consuming it can bring ill health, as can ignoring nutrition. Balance is what's needed. Calorie counting with MFP is a tool for helping me understand and achieve that balance.
So, my advice is this: Eat in a calorie deficit most of the time, to lose weight. Learn to understand what reasonable, sensible, enjoyable, sustainable eating is. That may include some higher-calorie days, but if you log those (even if you need to estimate), you'll begin to understand what impact they have on reaching your long-term goals.
When you log it all, this will help you figure out ways to fit in bigger meals within your calories sometimes (extra workouts, lighter meals same day or earlier in the week, etc.). It will also help you decide whether deferring your goal by X days is worth the extra consumption for some special occasion. Sometimes it is, sometime it isn't.
We can't tell you how to answer those questions in a way that achieves life balance for you. Only you can do that.3 -
My last cheat day lasted 6 months. Just getting back again. I am going to try harder to stay on course. I have a big weekend on my feet and some running, so I will have to eat a little more but hoping to not go over by much. I find eating meals my mom cooked the hardest to stay in range, even when she knows I am trying to lose weight. So they become cheat meals but I work on fitting it is to my day the best I can.
This is me. I've just re lost the same 10lbs from my last cheat meal about 4 months ago.
I like to fit my "cheats" into my daily or weekly. I ate half a pizza tonight, all 960 calories of it, and I am still 50 under my daily limit. It was glorious.1 -
I guess you lost me on the word cheat. Just who do you think you are cheating?
I try to fit things into my calories and micros. Most of they time I do. Some times I don't.
I have learned a lot from this app and I plan to keep on learning. It is a tool that can help you.1 -
I don’t think of it as cheating. Sometimes there are special events that I choose to eat above my current calorie goal. Often I plan for them by eating a little less through the week other times I plan a day eating at maintenance. I want this to be sustainable so I’m trying to make things flexible.
I’ve lost over 13kg in 3 months and during that time I’ve had chocolate most days! I’ve also had KFC, hot chips, cookies, Panko coated deep fried prawns, cake, ice cream, champagne and lots of other things I eat because I enjoy them rather than for their nutritional value and they have still fitted within my daily goal. I’m finding it relatively easy eating this way as nothing is off limits or bad.
Good luck2
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