Help! i want to have a cheat day but scared incase i mess up my diet!.
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You don't have to guess. And the answer is NOT "one day doesn't matter, eat whatever you like." It takes approximately 3,500 calories to make a pound of fat. So in order to regain a pound, you would need to eat 3,500 calories plus your maintenance calories for that day. Depending on how much you eat, this is very possible for a man with a large appetite to do, eating gooey cookies and saucy Chinese food with fried rice. But the good news is, you should be able to get some satisfaction for your cravings without completely blowing your diet, if you pay attention to portion sizes.
Find something similar to what you plan to eat at a national chain which is required to list calories. PF Chang is what I generally use when looking up local Chinese places. You may decide that some of what you crave is really important to you but other parts aren't worth it - for example if it were me, I would not waste the extra calories on fried rice versus steamed rice, but maybe you really love fried rice. Sometimes a good option is asking the kitchen to cook with less oil or sauce, or eating half of a high calorie dish with some extra veggies on the side. Or maybe it will turn out that what you want isn't that caloric after all. The main thing is, you are probably going to want to eat your favorite foods more often than just this once, so you need to start learning how to fit them in to the calories you need to be the size you want to be.
Oh - just thought I would mention one other tactic - I solved my problem of craving massive amounts of French fries by taking up running. On long run days, I can eat all the fries I want, which would otherwise never fit into my calories. If you want to tackle cheat days by extra exercise that's a viable tactic as long as you don't massively overestimate your calorie burns.
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If you used to eat like that 7 days a week but now eat less 6 days and the same one day you are doing better and could still lose weight ( although the salt/ water weight will push the scales up) problem is you are trying hard for 6 days and then almost sabotaging yourself on the 7th. In an ideal world personally I would either eat slightly under my allowance everyday ( maybe 100 calories under) this gives you 600 to soften the cheat meal blow or add in some extra exersize over the week but don't eat back those calories daily and save them as your cheat day. Other options are to reduce the frequency of your cheat days or still have it weekly but reduce portion size ( share, freeze part or even throw away half). There is no right way to do it but if you want to keep it weekly it not really a cheat day so you are better of planning in advance what you want to do to accommodate it. If it was a random one off then less effect long term x1
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you should be eating significantly more than 1200 cals to start with.3
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Think of weight management in the same manner as you do financial management.
If you were trying to reduce your debt would you set aside one day to spend frivolously?
Don't underspend and don't undereat. MFP is setup to give you enough calories to function with a modest deficit. If you deficit is too large this will hurt you in the long run.
I've been at this 4 years now and have days where I deliberately eat a modest surplus - a "refeed" to put a term on it. Not only does this have numerous psychological benefits there are a number of physiological benefits as well.1 -
TrishSeren wrote: »As a male, you should be eating more than 1,200 calories a day. I'm a 5ft 4 female and I eat a minimum of 1,400. You're setting yourself up to fail.
Also, 5 pounds in a week is a pretty rapid rate of loss. You are already in the healthy range of weight for a male of your height.
Well i disagree about the failing part, i had my cheat day (it was bloody amazing btw!) and i'm back on my diet again and from 13.0st i'm now 12.12st my goal weight is 10st and i'm determined to get to that size, why am i setting myself up for failure?.0 -
chrisboyle1 wrote: »TrishSeren wrote: »As a male, you should be eating more than 1,200 calories a day. I'm a 5ft 4 female and I eat a minimum of 1,400. You're setting yourself up to fail.
Also, 5 pounds in a week is a pretty rapid rate of loss. You are already in the healthy range of weight for a male of your height.
Well i disagree about the failing part, i had my cheat day (it was bloody amazing btw!) and i'm back on my diet again and from 13.0st i'm now 12.12st my goal weight is 10st and i'm determined to get to that size, why am i setting myself up for failure?.
You're setting yourself up for muscle loss only eating 1200 cals.4 -
Because you can't get enough nutrition, you're burning muscle as well as fat, and over time, your hunger signals are going to get a lot stronger.3
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I don't think it would put all the weight on but since you are not sure if this will make you fall if the horse maybe just start with rewarding yourself a cheat meal instead of a whole day 😁0
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chrisboyle1 wrote: »TrishSeren wrote: »As a male, you should be eating more than 1,200 calories a day. I'm a 5ft 4 female and I eat a minimum of 1,400. You're setting yourself up to fail.
Also, 5 pounds in a week is a pretty rapid rate of loss. You are already in the healthy range of weight for a male of your height.
Well i disagree about the failing part, i had my cheat day (it was bloody amazing btw!) and i'm back on my diet again and from 13.0st i'm now 12.12st my goal weight is 10st and i'm determined to get to that size, why am i setting myself up for failure?.
If you are losing 5 lbs per week, and you aren't currently over like 400 lbs, you are setting yourself up for failure in three ways:- Under-eating tends to be "fine", until it all of a sudden isn't. And when it does catch up to up to you, it hits you like a brick wall and takes weeks to recover from.
- If you manage to under-eat and lose weight aggressively fast until you reach your goal, you are likely to subconsciously boomerang and want ALL THE FOOD. It's a great way to start a vicious yo-yo dieting pattern.
- Losing that fast when you don't have much to lose pretty much guarantees you will be losing a lot of muscle in the process. The less excess fat you have, the less fat your body can burn at a time, so it has to look elsewhere for those calories, and muscle is sacrificed. Building back muscle you've lost is way harder than protecting it while you're losing weight in the first place. The best way to avoid losing muscle? Eat at a moderate deficit, get plenty of protein, and focus on strength training.
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I hate diets. Anecdotal, but everyone I personally know who has dieted (much less restricting themselves to 1200 calories) has put the weight back on, and then some.
My wife and my coworker are the only exceptions because they never dieted. They changed their way of eating. They still eat whatever they want, but smaller amounts, or just say no to 'it' here and there. She lost over 100lbs and has kept it off well over a year and he lost 85lbs over two years and is close to being nothing but muscle now.
Variety of foods isn't the enemy. Poor eating habits are.4 -
As others have indicated, to be successful at losing and maintaining sustainably you should try learn how to incorporate "bad"/"junk" foods you like in moderation into your daily intake. It'll surely take some trial and error to find the right balance that works for you but for seemingly the vast majority of people those who maintain a good/bad, on/off "the wagon" mentality seem to cyclically start and stop losing constantly.2
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Nobody losing weight quickly wants to believe that they are part of the 95%, but there's a 95% chance they are.
That's the 95% of people who lost weight and failed to maintain their loss for 3 years.6 -
chrisboyle1 wrote: »I had a three week cheat days when I went on vacation and guess what??? It was just water weight that I gained and it went away within a week or so when I went back to my diet routine.
It stalled my process definitely but I was tripping for no reason. ONE day won’t hurt you.
Thank god for that! so if i do see say an extra 1-2lb the day after, not to worry it will go down in a day or so? what about if i continue with my 1200cal the day after? will i continue to loose or will it be at a stand still due to my cheat day?
As a male, you have no business eating 1200 calories per day.2 -
chrisboyle1 wrote: »midwesterner85 wrote: »How often are you planning to have cheat days and how big are they going to be? It is possible to ruin things with too many and/or too big of cheats.
A potential way to go about it is to set goals and allow a cheat day when you reach those goals. For example, allow a cheat day every 20 lbs. (or whatever makes sense for your total weight loss). You may gain some back, but then you wait until the next 20 lbs. for another cheat day. This way, you have built into the plan that you can allow cheat days that won't ruin your progress because you have to lose the cheat day gain plus another 20 lbs. (or however much you decide).
Once a week
and not that big just a few cookies and a Chinese takeout
How many calories in your Chinese takeout? I had one at the beginning of the week, but I ended up splitting the food (one entree, a side of combination rice -- the steamed rice went right into the freezer -- and three smallish veggie & shrimp dim sum) over four or five meals so that they wouldn't break the bank on my weekly calorie budget, which is based on 2100 kcal/day to lose half a pound.
A few cookies? Is that three small cookies for a total of 200 to 300 kcals, or five huge bakery-size cookies for a total of 1500 to 2500 kcal?
If you want to know, figure out the calorie cost of what you plan to eat.1 -
chrisboyle1 wrote: »I had a three week cheat days when I went on vacation and guess what??? It was just water weight that I gained and it went away within a week or so when I went back to my diet routine.
It stalled my process definitely but I was tripping for no reason. ONE day won’t hurt you.
Thank god for that! so if i do see say an extra 1-2lb the day after, not to worry it will go down in a day or so? what about if i continue with my 1200cal the day after? will i continue to loose or will it be at a stand still due to my cheat day?
It takes 3500 calories to make 1lb of fat. Do you plan on eating that much? then yeah maybe you will gain fat but other than that one day won’t hurt you esp. if you’re only eating 1200 cals everyday, that 1- 2lbs will be water weight though.
Statements like this always baffle me. It's possible to gain, say, a quarter pound of fat one day, then a half of a pound a few days later, then a quarter pound five or six days later. I certainly gained fat in even smaller increments than that over the decades. I once calculated that my weight gains since high school worked out to an average of less than 25 extra calories a day. I wasn't putting that on eating 25 kcal over maintenance every day. My "typical" weekdays before I started following a calorie-tracking approach were, if anything, a bit below maintenance. It was the "infrequent" days (once or twice a week, plus holidays, plus vacations, plus celebrations, plus parties...) where I was not 3500 kcal over maintenance for a single day. Most of those days I was 1000 to 2000 kcal over maintenance. Maybe 2500 kcal over on days where I ended up feeling a bit ill.
You can't just say if you never eat 3500 kcal in a day (much less 3500 kcal over goal, or 3500 kcal over maintenance) all the extra energy just disappears at the end of the day and your body starts with a fresh calorie-balancing slate.4 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »chrisboyle1 wrote: »I had a three week cheat days when I went on vacation and guess what??? It was just water weight that I gained and it went away within a week or so when I went back to my diet routine.
It stalled my process definitely but I was tripping for no reason. ONE day won’t hurt you.
Thank god for that! so if i do see say an extra 1-2lb the day after, not to worry it will go down in a day or so? what about if i continue with my 1200cal the day after? will i continue to loose or will it be at a stand still due to my cheat day?
It takes 3500 calories to make 1lb of fat. Do you plan on eating that much? then yeah maybe you will gain fat but other than that one day won’t hurt you esp. if you’re only eating 1200 cals everyday, that 1- 2lbs will be water weight though.
You can't just say if you never eat 3500 kcal in a day (much less 3500 kcal over goal, or 3500 kcal over maintenance) all the extra energy just disappears at the end of the day and your body starts with a fresh calorie-balancing slate.
This is true, but the statements about 3500 calories are given for perspective for those who have been eating in a deficit (often an excessive one) for many days or even weeks who are concerned about a big jump on the scale after an occasional day of over-eating. Certainly, a consistent small surplus (over maintenance calories) is going to result in fat gain over time, but that's not what is happening in these instances.0 -
It's ok to treat yourself. Do it regularly without guilt or calling it cheating. Track and log your food even if you go over because of a treat or two. Get out of the idea of binge eating because that's what a cheat day means to me. Binge eating isn't healthy. If you slip up forgive yourself and move forward. Make a better choice the next meal the next day whatever. If you want a sweet or a bit of junk food here and there and you go over your allowed cals once in a while it's not going to ruin your journey on weightloss. The only thing that will ruin it is by giving up because of a day or two or even a week that you ate more or not the right foods...0
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Just to reiterate: 1200 calories per day for a male is *way* too low. Yes, you will lose muscle along with the fat. Keep in mind that your heart is a muscle, too.
1500 minimum per day. MINIMUM.3 -
Have a great day, log and exercise, and then splurge for dinner, or whatever.... you may go over, but that's ok... you will be back on track tomorrow. Sometimes I even find a cheat day gives my progress a little kick!1
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Change the relationship. Have a cookie everyday. Hell, have chinese everyday if you can deal with the salt and MSG. Just make it fit into your overall daily/weekly deficit. Food is neither good or bad. The whole concept of 'cheating' sets it up to be a bigger deal than it should be.3
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