pigging out once a week?

There is some science to this, its not a totally unfounded point, BUT some things to note:

-your body has a certain amount of calories it burns everyday, just due to the fact that you are alive. This is the energy from sleeping, signals being sent throughout the body, and blood flow (not really so much so for your heart actually sustaining pumping, but the blood traveling)
-ontop of that your base calorie usage, everything you do in a day, typing, walking, driving, sitting, even thinking burns calories

With these two above things, we have established our Daily Calories Burned. For this explanation, lets say the daily amount you burn is 2,200 Calories (as per the FDA)

Now everything you eat adds calories. So lets say combing your breakfast, lunch, and dinner (plus snacks), you eat 2,200 calories, which is known as our Gross Calories for the day. If we subtract our gross calories from our Daily Calories Burned, we get a number of 0, or 0 net calories. What this means is for the day, we did not gain, or lose any calories, in otherwords no weight change.

With diet and exercise, we are changing those two variables, inorder to get a lower net calories, meaning more weight loss. So if you are eating less/healthier, that means you will have a lower gross calories, maybe of 1800. So 1800-2200 (daily calories burned)=-400. Just the same is true with adding exercise, you are making you Daily Calories Burned even higher, to make your net calories even lower, causing more weight loss.

Im assuming everyone knows what I just posted above, but its important to say before moving into my main point.

When your body gets used to a decreased calorie amount, it decreases the amount of calories it burns in a day. For example, if you are on a diet of only 1,600 as opposed to your old 2,200 calorie diet, you body may lower its Daily Calories Burned to somewhere like 1,800. That difference of 200 calories may be causing weight loss, but not as much as it did on the 2,200 Daily Calories Burned.

The idea of a cheat day is that you eat more than you typically would, in hopes that your body will go back to a higher Daily Calories Burned. For example if you body is at the 1,800 calories and you trick it into going up to 2,200 calories, you will be bruning an extra 400 calories once you return to your diet again. So in idea, with a cheat day, you are trying to get your body to sustain that higher Daily Calories Burned, causeing faster weight loss

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BUT

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This can be dangerous if done wrong. The reasoning is this: Lets say you go all out, and on your cheat day eat 3,000 calories, which is 1,400 than the 1,600 calories you ate yesterday, almost double. The problem is without proper exercise (which increases not only your Daily Calories Burned, but also your metabolism) and other elements, you could actually GAIN weight. The reason is if you were eating 2,200 calories like you were prior to your diet, and then one day ate 3,000 calories, thats only a 800 calorie gain. If you are eating a 1,600 calorie diet (Daily Calories Burned of 1800), that is a 1200 calorie gain, which is significantly higher.
Most people overdo cheat days, and thats why their benifits are normally lost or pointless. If you wanted to do a cheat day, increasing by only 400 calories or so is a safe bet, because it will increase your Daily Calories Burned, without causing any real potential for weight gain.

Just as well, sometimes one day alone isnt enought for your body to react to the increase in calories. The best option really is to go for a zigzag diet. This is where you pretty much go 2 days with a higher calorie diet, than 3 lower, 2 higher, 3 lower. An example would be something like maybe going 2 days eating 1,800 calories, then 3 at 1,400. This will sustain a higher calories burned, but will not have any real potential for great weight gain.



Wow that was a long post, hope it helped

I don't take a cheat day, but I will go over my calories if I have a good reason and I'm otherwise on track.

I like the fat2fit podcast's idea on lifestyle change -- a thin person will eat a big dinner or order dessert once in a while, but they don't let it trigger a binge and they make up for it with a little less food or more exercise during the rest of the week.

On the other hand, I have a buddy who has been doing Body For Life for years, and has kept the weight off with a combination of crazy eating rules 6 days a week and a free day once a week, so I guess it works for some people.

I've heard that too. BUT..for me...once I have a "pig out day" it usually turns into a pig out week, month, year....

thats true for me too!!! ...and thats why we are MFPers LOL

My husband lost 25 lbs and got at a standstill no matter what he did he stayed the same weight. I asked a phamacist friend about it. He didn't say to pig out all day, but said he should try to eat one big meal a week, and he started loosing again.