Cheat Days

I've never really had cheat days. I make what I want fit. if i go over occasionally, its not a big deal. holidays, birthdays and vacations happen. random high days dont undo anything, as long as they are random and dont become HABIT.

i had chinese (sesame chicken) for dinner last night. scale will be up today, probably tomorrow too because of the sodium, but its just water weight and not real weight. some people hold on to it a bit longer, you learn your body in time. i was only 31 calories over my daily limit. not a big deal.

the problem with weekly cheat days, is depending on your deficit, and depending on your definition of 'cheat', and how accurate your logging, it is easy to undo an entire weeks deficit in one day.

Depends on how you define it.

If you mean the types of food, every day is a cheat day because I don't particularly limit the types of food I eat. I do manage them, I mean I won't be eating something that is very high in calories if I'm having a hungry day. I would rather have more volume on such days. I also think if the item is worth the calories today, and sometimes it's not.

If you mean eating over target calories, I do it when I have special events, have saved enough calories for a very high calorie meal I've been planning for, food I didn't account for (like a family member bringing home a food I really like that tastes better fresh/hot), or if I'm having a very hungry day.

I always count calories almost every single day regardless of what or how much I eat. Rather than "cheating", I call days that are a bit different from how I usually eat "being flexible".

I dont do cheat days. I just eat what I want as long as it fits in my calorie allotment for the day. If it doesnt, I either dont eat it or I add in extra exercise.

I think of cheat days pretty much as I do Santa Claus, as an adult: Pleasant myth, or maybe a metaphor. Not terribly useful, in practical terms.

Sometimes I eat below goal calories, sometimes I eat at goal calories, sometimes I eat above goal calories . . . occasionally way above. Mostly I log them, sometimes I don't. If I want to manage my weight, my eating needs to balance out with my activity level, on average over time, in accordance with my goals: Eating less than activity to lose, eating at activity to maintain, eating above activity to gain. Repeating: On average, over time. Also, those eating/activity relationships apply whether logging calories or not: Logging just makes it more explicit.

I logged everything while I was losing weight, every day, even when I had to estimate. I pretty much did likewise for the first months in weight maintenance. I wanted to understand my actual calorie needs, and the way to understand that is to compare eating with body weight trends under varied conditions. Now, in year 5+ of maintaining a healthy weight, I'm likely to skip logging some days, especially ones where I'd be estimating pretty wildly if I did log. I can log most of the time, watch the scale, maintain fine.

During weight loss, there can be advantages to taking "maintenance breaks" now and then, either psychological benefits or positive effects on hunger/satiation/stress hormones. Potentially, there can be benefits from taking a few days off logging, too. The majority of our days determine the majority of our progress. If a few rare exception days make the whole process work better for that majority of the time, it can be useful. Those decisions are pretty individual, IMO.

As a general strategy, I eat under my needed maintenance calories most days (by a little, like maybe 100-150 calories), in order to eat more indulgently occasionally. It's not a weekday/weekend thing, because as a retiree I don't really have weekdays/weekends anymore, just days. I watch the scale, cut back if it creeps up too much. I focus on getting good nutrition most of the time, but otherwise don't bother classifying foods as to how "cheat-y" they are: I think that's an unhelpful tangent.

Different strategies work for different people. "Cheat days" or "cheat meals" work for some, with varied definitions of cheating, from ignoring calorie goals, to skipping logging, to eating foods that the person somehow things are "bad". That doesn't work for me - unnecessary. But personalizing the process is key to success, IMO. I know that "figure out what works for you" is kinda unhelpful advice, but I think it's correct, unfortunately.

Best wishes, sincerely!

Kinda sorta not really. Like, I have a pretty good idea what my maintenance calorie intake is. Since I am trying to lose weight, my calorie budget is set for lower than that, but there are days where I end up much closer to my maintenance calorie intake. Even then, it's the difference between trying to stay under 1900 and trying to stay under 2100. For me, that's mainly on Sundays, since it's my "day of rest" and where most of my social interaction happens. I'm planning on aiming for 2100 on holidays to allow me more room, but I may try to stay under 1800 on the days preceding and after, that way my average caloric intake over the 3 day period is 1900.

Yes, a “cheat” meal. Like they say, depends on your definition. My cheat meal is usually either something I can’t track and won’t try(something I don’t eat usually, so can’t guess a good “close enough” entry). Or maybe a meal of all carbs and fat, no protein— think cake and ice cream.