Diet-free days

If by "diet-free day" you mean a day where I just eat whatever I want in whatever quantities I want, I don't do that. With my appetite and preferences, I could easily wipe out an entire week (whether my goal is to lose weight or maintain) in a single day.

If it works for someone, then that's cool for them. But it absolutely wouldn't work for me. And I see enough people posting here asking questions about their lack of progress and subsequent questions revealing they have a weekly "cheat day" to make me question whether or not it's really a reasonable strategy for the average person when it comes to weight management.

I don't think it's a bad idea to have deficit days and maintenance days. Not 5:2 fasting, which is more extreme, but say you followed your MFP calorie goal 5 days a week, and ate maintenance calories 2 days a week.
Your weight loss would be slower, but you would still lose weight. I guess that's the same as having a "diet-free" day.

You can also "bank" calories for a special meal or occasion...eat a little below your calorie goal for 6 days, and then use those extra calories you saved that week for a higher-calorie day.

They key in any case is still to count the calories, not have a free-for-all day.

NovusDies wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

I'm going to go against the grain here.

I've found over a period of many years that an off-plan day here and there makes zero difference to my weight. I'm talking 1000-2000 extra calories once in a while, like 2-4 times per month. I've done that for over a decade.

I suppose we could say maybe I'm under-eating the rest of the time, but I already eat 400-500 calories per day above the MFP recommended amount, so I'm not depriving myself at all and I don't go to bed hungry. Maybe I'm just lucky? I dunno. I'm not gonna argue with success.

Plus my birthday is coming up and I have every intention of eating two day's worth of calories on one day. It won't affect me long-term.

I do get daily exercise. If I didn't, I would be eating over my calories every day and that wouldn't work. Having a larger calorie day I may see a bump up on the scale for a couple days, but it always goes back down within a few days afterward.

I don't believe this is the same thing. You put in your time and made the changes you needed to make. You have been managing your weight for a long time and you know where your balance is.

Well this IS the Maintaining weight forum.

I did this even when I was losing because life happens and I'm not going to ever be that person who is strict all the time. It's not reasonable to me. So whether you want to name it a cheat day, or whether you want to call it what I do - Life - the results are that a few days like this do not affect the long game.

In maintenance since October 2019. I have turned into a weekly banker. I eat 100 calories below maintenance 5 days per week, and then have 500 extra calories for one of my weekend days (usually Sunday). I’ll use them to add an indulgent dessert or restaurant meal. Everything is tracked (Estimated when I can’t weigh things).

I still practice what I guess I’ll call “responsible restauranting.” Unless it’s my birthday or a similar very special holiday where I track but don’t stick to my calorie target, I still pre-log the rest of my day (including an evening treat, for psychological comfort 😂) and get an estimate of how many calories I have to play with for the restaurant meal. Even if it’s more indulgent, I will still look at the menu beforehand, decide what I want to spend my calories on, and pre-log an estimate (editing after the meal for better accuracy based on what I consumed). I usually don’t drink alcohol at these meals because I’d rather be able to finish everything on my plate and enjoy the food itself. I also don’t shy away from asking for changes (salad instead of a starchy side that I’m not thrilled with, for example, or sauce on the side) if it will make me more satisfied. I usually don’t have appetizers or bread before the meal or dessert afterwards, again, because I’d rather get one delicious plate of food and fully enjoy it.

It took a BIG shift in mindset. For my childhood, we only went to restaurants during yearly vacations, so it was like a highly-coveted experience. Into adulthood, I could go whenever I wanted, but I always have gone all-out and eaten all the richest most delicious things in huge quantities because my kid-brain was still there going “this is rare! This is special! Get EVERYTHING because you don’t know the next time you’ll be able to do this!”

While losing weight in 2018, I really had to work on this. Had to change my view of restaurants to be more about the experience of enjoying time with loved ones, with the food being a fun addition rather than the main focus. Had to get over my fear of not having food in front of me at all times. Had to tell myself that these foods are always available, and I can have them whenever I want, just not all at once, and that i would feel wonderful if I chose one really exciting meal and fully enjoyed it, without all the bells and whistles of the basket of chips and the mediocre dessert that doesn’t really add to my joy in the experience.

Anyway, all this is to say, I don’t have diet-free days. I have days where I get a bigger Indulgent meal, that still gets tracked and fits into my weekly calories. It took me a while to get here, but i like this mindset 1000x better than how I saw it in the past.