Cheat day

Another issue is, are you eating healthy food on your cheat days? If not, you might find yourself with some nutritional deficits that will have an impact over the long term. i.e. not eating enough protein will affect your workouts and muscle strength.

First it would be helpful to know your current weight (what you want to maintain) and height and age.
And what BMI you would like to have.

Regardless, it is not reasonable to have 2 cheat days a week between 2,500-3,000 calories on each of those days.
You have not said what those cheat day include in terms of total protein grams, total sugar grams, total fat grams and total carb grams.

And because you are making the conscious deliberate choice to refuse to cut your cheat days out - and are even thinking you can add your exercise calories to that, you will likely gain more weight than maybe you want to - and add fat.

Do you cheat days include processed meats and high fat laden meat in general?
Oils in salad dressings and cooking or fast food?
Dairy with cheese and milk and cream and butter?
Pastas, breads, potatoes and rice?
Sugar filled desserts?

I am confused as to what you are thinking your version of a 5:2 will do for you in terms of maintenance. It really is a 3:2 and not a 5:2

My belief is that you are sabotaging your entire week with the 2 entire cheat days. It will also make you crave those cheat items your body is used to on those two days, and then make it more likely over time to rationalize slipping up on your other days.

One scrumptious cheat item once a week is a far more effective plan.
Refusing to keep it at one cheat item (appetizer or entree or dessert) is your choice.
Choices always have consequences, some wanted and some unwanted in terms of what it does to our bodies.

Eating plans work when people are sensible and stick to them.
Eating plans don't work when they are not sensible. Sounds harsh - but that's the way it is.

Give it a try for a month or so - that is the only way to know if it works for you.

Personally, I don't understand why you don't just eat at maintenance level plus some of your exercise calories every day and therefore enjoy your "cheat days" spread out throughout the week?

ChickenKillerPuppy wrote: »

If it works for you and you feel you can maintain it, that's really all that matters. Along the lines of what someone else said about creating a plan, have you thought about tracking your cheat days, so they are more formally part of your plan, and not a free-for-all type situation? I'm not saying eat less or "healthy" or anything like that, just that you track it, so you know how many calories you are consuming on those heavier calorie days so if you wanted to make adjustments you could?

My observation of what you described is that you are choosing to restrict yourself to an extremely low calorie two days a week (500 calories is barely anything), and very low for three days (1200 calories) so you can basically eat in a binge-type situation for two days a week. Is that a lifestyle you feel you can maintain once you hit your goal weight? I'm a big fan of the mindset that weight loss shouldn't involve doing anything you won't want to do forever, if your goal is not just to lose the weight, but to keep it off. For me, that meant breaking the binge-restrict cycle. That is not to judge what you are doing at all - like I said - if it works for you that's great. Just putting it out there to think about.

Good luck!

To be fair, this is a very common intermittent fasting routine, and often helps people binge less.

I personally do true alternate day fasting, I eat one day and don't eat the next. I make sure to eat extra on the eating day, but I never feel like over eating, if anything, it's really lowered my appetite.

I agree with you that the way OP is describing it sounds a lot like doing IF in order to be able to binge, which doesn't sound optimal to me, but it's hard to say just from what they've shared.

But I did want to clarify that although it sounds super extreme and like a horrible starve-binge cycle, for people whose bodies respond well to it, like me, it's actually really easy and feels nothing like starving and bingeing. I'm doing this as prescribed by my neurologist to help manage inflammation in my cranial nerves, so it's a valid medical protocol and not inherently dangerous or damaging, but individual responses do vary. My body happens to do IF very easily, a lot of people don't.

33gail33 wrote: »

paperpudding wrote: »

Do you cheat days include processed meats and high fat laden meat in general?
Oils in salad dressings and cooking or fast food?
Dairy with cheese and milk and cream and butter?
Pastas, breads, potatoes and rice?
Sugar filled desserts?

why does it matter if her cheat days - or her non cheat days - include these things??
Obviously from a nutrition point of view, not to the extent of crowding out enough balanced nutrition

But her question wasnt about nutrition, it was just about weight loss.

Other than minor water weight fluctuations, what foods she eats does not matter in a weight loss question - her calorie amount does.
Her average calorie amount over time.

I think the idea is that the OP could still have "cheat" days which are high volume and satiating, but fewer calories, if they perhaps slightly alter their food choices.

Well, perhaps that is what the poster meant - doesn't read that way to me though.

lookonthingsabove wrote: »

Well it didn't work! haha.
I was loosing weight.

I'm 5'2 a stay at home mom of 9. My life is pretty sedentary. I mean I workout low impact from 7-8:30 am 5-6 days a week (recumbent bike with arms, 5lb dumbbells and squats). I wash dishe, run after my kiddos, maintaining my house. I weight 115-118 pounds depending on the day.

Your issue is and remains that (for the vast majority of people in your situation, INCLUDING yourself unless you have individualized calculations and proof that you are a below average burner of calories--which so far you haven't presented) you are UNDERESTIMATING your activity level and your calories for maintenance.

Just because you FEEL you're sedentary or you would "name" yourself so; it doesn't mean that you are!

The "labels" sedentary, lightly-active, active, very active are just labels for a caloric estimate that multiplies your BMR by an activity-factor. They actually do not have the "mental connotation" that people give to them. They're just numbers! 1.25 , 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 to be exact. You claim you're a 1.25. You're probably closer to a 1.6 without exercise or 1.8 since you're not counting your exercise separately like you're supposed to.

NO STAY AT HOME MOM WITH MULTIPLE CHILDREN is "sedentary" i.e. a person who on average is standing and moving around somewhere between 30 and 45 minute in a day taking about 3500 steps.

So you're starting from the wrong numbers.

You can use a weight trend application to monitor weight over time.

You may want to START with what you believe to be your current maintenance 11K maintenance split over 7 days as your daily goal while still allowing your "indulgent" day to take place on TOP.

Then you can then monitor how your weight stabilizes over time and keep increasing the calories till you have multiple weeks of increased weight.

Don't worry too much if you're doing this carefully... you won't have extreme changes in weight other than what may come about from extra food in the tummy or extra water retention from eating out.

Unless, of course, you're trying to eat as little as possible to save money or something, in which case you can continue to try to push your body downwards to eating the least amount you can get away with????

Most of use though tend to enjoy having extra food if we can afford to!