Starting next week, want a 'cheat day'. Can anyone take a look over my plan please?

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pia29
pia29 Posts: 5 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've never calorie counted before. I've done slimming world for 6 weeks which was great as I lost a full stone but I just don't feel like this is sustainable. I want to be able to go out for a meal with friends and not worry what is syn free and what I should be synning. I tend to go off the rails once I mess it up whereas with calorie counting I'll have a good estimate and can recoup it back on other days (pre planned treats / meals out only).

I hate the thought of me dieting every single day. I really want to work with a weekly calorie goal. I only have about 20lbs to lose and I've set it to half a pound a week, so I'm more likely to stick to it. My daily calorie recommendation for this is 1510. So 10,570 for the week.

I'm planning of incorporating a 5/2 technique in there so I'll have 2 days fasting at 500 calories each day. This leaves 9,570. I'm planning on 4 of the remaining days, to stick to 1500 calories a day, which then leaves me a whopping 3570 calories the play with on a treat / binge day.

I know that this is excessive but I feel like it would work for me. I absolutely love feasting out once a week and I'm not interested in choosing healthy choices from takeaways etc. For example my dream cheap day would be a proper sausage sandwich for breakfast (750 calories), half a large domino's pizza (1200 calories), a pack of revels (537 calories) and a bottle of cider (330 calories).

I feel like this one proper treat day would keep me on track all week.

Does it sound ok? it seems too good to be true though, lol. Thank you.
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Replies

  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
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    Give it a try! I don't personally see any problem with it - it's just a method of budgeting your calories through the week. If the math works it should work out fine. Just yeah, the day or two after is not the day to do your weigh in. Maybe do that the day BEFORE the big cheat day.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,463 Member
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    To me, doesn't seem to train oneself mentally to eat at a proper calorie level for the long term.

    Just my $0.02
  • ridiculous59
    ridiculous59 Posts: 2,848 Member
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    I average out my calories weekly so that I can have a couple of glasses of wine and pizza on a Friday. In the past I've fasted on Mondays but these days I don't usually severely limit my calories (i.e. 500 or less) on any specific days, but just spread them out more gently over the week. Also, the handful of times I've had a complete caloric blowout I've felt terrible the following day. Like I had a hangover, even though there was no alcohol involved. So to me, the thought of eating 3570 calories in a single day is not one bit appealing LOL

    At the end of the day, I think we all have to find what works best for us to keep this sustainable. Just know that with only 20 pounds to lose you'll need to be as accurate as possible with your logging. You don't have as much room for error compared to the person that has 50-100 pounds to lose.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,267 Member
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    Everyone's different, so this might work fine for you, but I think I'd have problems sticking with multiple days at that steep a deficit; and a big day that big and that often would tend to keep resetting my appetite upward, I think.

    If it works better for you, that's great, and the best way to find out is to try it for a while. Personalizing one's approach to one's own preferences, strengths, limitations: That's key to success, IMO.

    One caution, speaking as someone who recently went a slow loss route intentionally for several months: A slow loss rate like half a pound a week takes multiple weeks to show up clearly on the bodyweight scale, amongst normal daily fluctuations of a pound or few, even when eating pretty evenly day to day.

    An uneven eating schedule is likely to make daily water/waste-in-transit fluctuations even more extreme, progress harder to evaluate on the scale. A trending app may help, but in my actual personal experience, even a trending app can sometimes produce misleading results for multiple weeks in this kind of scenario.

    That's not a reason not to adopt your plan, just a possibility to be aware of if you do.

    Good luck! Let us know how it works out by updating the thread in a few weeks, if you can, maybe?

  • pia29
    pia29 Posts: 5 Member
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    Thanks for your replies everyone, I'll be sure to take on board your advice.

    Probably worth noting that 3000 in one day sounds awfully excessive, however pre-diet this would be a normal day for me. People who know me comment that I really get away with what I eat and based off my eating habits I should be obese. I think at least limiting it to one day I should hopefully see results, albeit slow.

    I'll let you know how I get on. I won't be starting until September - I'm off away on holiday.

    Thanks again
  • futuresylph
    futuresylph Posts: 2,178 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Everyone's different, so this might work fine for you, but I think I'd have problems sticking with multiple days at that steep a deficit; and a big day that big and that often would tend to keep resetting my appetite upward, I think.

    That was precisely my experience when I was eating low carb six days a week (and "anything goes" on Sunday). I found myself ravenous and miserable from carb cravings Monday through Wednesday or Thursday.

    I hope your plan works out better for you, OP.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    i would be a horrible monster to be around on 500 calorie days

    it would be a case of i would have to lock myself in my room and sleep the entire day and not see or talk to anyone.

    there are people who do it, and have success with it.

    but can you do it for the rest of your life?

    that is always my question to people who want to do things like this.

    try it, see how it goes. it may work for you. it would not work for me.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,984 Member
    edited August 2021
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    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    To me, doesn't seem to train oneself mentally to eat at a proper calorie level for the long term.

    Just my $0.02

    It's training to eat at a proper calorie level on a weekly basis.

    It's training to eat at a proper calorie level in a way that allows for "life happens" and "most people IRL incorporate calorie-dense foods and meals into celebrations and socializing."

    Seems like a reasonable plan if it works for you, @pia29 .

    ETA: if your daily calorie recommendation came from MFP, don't forget to log exercise and eat any extra calories needed to offset that. Also, I would suggest if 500 calorie days are new to you that you should be careful about what, if any exercise, you do on the 500 calorie days or before breakfast the next day until you're confident how it will affect you (I'm assuming here this is new for you) -- you don't want to faint doing free weights, especially if you don't have a good spotter, for example, but really, most stuff other than body-weight, yoga, pilates, etc. on a mat would pose an added risk.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,984 Member
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    pia29 wrote: »
    Thanks for your replies everyone, I'll be sure to take on board your advice.

    Probably worth noting that 3000 in one day sounds awfully excessive, however pre-diet this would be a normal day for me. People who know me comment that I really get away with what I eat and based off my eating habits I should be obese. I think at least limiting it to one day I should hopefully see results, albeit slow.

    I'll let you know how I get on. I won't be starting until September - I'm off away on holiday.

    Thanks again

    Are you saying you normally eat 3000 calories a day without gaining weight? That is, you may have weight to lose but you are currently maintaining on 3000 calories a day? Then (1) something is wrong with either the calculator you used to get your 1500 calorie daily goal or you gave the calculator bad information (e.g., significantly underestimated your daily activity level, (2) you mistakenly typed 1.5 pounds a week as your goal instead of 0.5 pounds a week, or (3) you used a NEAT calculator like MFP and get A LOT of exercise, in which case I reiterate my advice above not to forget to log your exercise and consume calories to offset the exercise.
  • TwistedSassette
    TwistedSassette Posts: 8,659 Member
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    I do something like this, but not with numbers as extreme. I like to have a beer or two on weekends and found that if I split my calories evenly over the week, I would always go over on weekends. So I reduced my calories through the week to allow for more on the weekends - I now do 5 days of 1600 calories and 2 days of 2000 calories (my numbers are higher than yours in total because I have a lot to lose but set myself a slow goal to make it sustainable. This is working for me so far, and what I've noticed is that even on those weekend days where I am eating "less healthy" foods and drinks, my appetite has somewhat reduced and I don't eat as MUCH of them. Maybe that is something you can also work towards over time - one less slice of pizza, less of the cider etc. if you already feel full.

    FWIW if you have the Premium subscription on MFP, you can set your calorie goals by day, which is what I do.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,984 Member
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    lgfrie wrote: »
    So a bunch of people have said something I basically agree with, that if it ends up working for you, great, and also, any diet plan will work for someone or other out there. For this reason, it's a bad idea to say a plan "won't work" and I won't do that.

    That said ...

    There's a ginormous difference between banking a few calories to splurge on a casual meal once a week, and starving yourself twice a week to pay for a binge. The latter is technically "doable" but the problem is that people don't actually do it successfully, over time. It just really doesn't work for most people and is a hard way to diet. That kind of approach can lead to a bit of weight loss followed by ferocious binging in frustration at having suffered through 500 calorie days, and therefore weight regain. There's just a lot that can go wrong.

    I suggest something less taxing. There are much easier ways to get this done.

    Pretty much every way of dieting is not actually successful over time. Pretty much every way of dieting really doesn't work for most people. Most people find dieting of any kind hard. Most people experience weight regain after weight lost through every type of dieting.

    I would not choose the approach OP has. For one thing, I would having specified days on which I have to stay under a really low number of calories. I do have a lot of variation among the different days of the week.

    But, if if works for OP and makes them happy, I don't see any reason for assuming that one particular way of allocating X number of calories through the week is inherently worse than some other way. I wouldn't choose IF, but if someone wants to allocate their X number of calories for each day to a smaller window than I would, I don't see how that's inherently bad.

    Now, sometimes you see people using unusual variations in how they allocate calories to try to achieve an overall number that amounts to a VLCD, and I don't think that's a good idea. But there's no evidence that that's the case here.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
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    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    To me, doesn't seem to train oneself mentally to eat at a proper calorie level for the long term.

    Just my $0.02

    It's training to eat at a proper calorie level on a weekly basis.

    It's training to eat at a proper calorie level in a way that allows for "life happens" and "most people IRL incorporate calorie-dense foods and meals into celebrations and socializing."

    In what world is starving oneself for several days during the week to binge one day on high calorie, low nutrient food (that day representing over 1/3 of weekly calories) appropriate?

    Poor advice IMO.

    Um. The two days a week at 500 calories thing is not a thing most people do.

    But if you think most people don't effectively 'calorie bank' either before or after knowing they're going to have a higher than usual calorie meal/day or something you're not paying attention. Some people math it out, some people do it intuitively, but most people do it.

    ...I, for one, once reaching a healthy weight have found that if I eat a lot more than usual on one day (say I eat that half a pizza or go to a wedding), then the next day I'm basically going to drink 2 protein shakes, and some cottage cheese the next day - because my appetite has TANKED from having eaten all that much food.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    There are some people who do plans like this and find short term success (I'm not sure about long term success, it may happen, I just haven't met anyone who did this long term).

    My concern is this -- for many people, the experience of eating very low calorie one day will set them up to have poor control the next day.

    If I ate just 500, I would find it hard to stick to 1,500 the next day, since that's already a pretty low calorie goal. Having a single day a week of 3,700ish calories wouldn't be enough to get me through the cycle of 500/1,500.

    That's not to say that you are the same as me, but that would be my general caution for anyone contemplating this plan.

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