"Cheat Day"

the way I do it is if I want something i will eat it if you stop yourself eating something you will just end up craving it even more and then eating more of it. But if you just control how much of it you eat its not too bad! I still eat dominos pizza once a month and still lose weight that week. I think its all about balance in my experience whenever I used to go on a diet it would fail because i denied myself anything that wasnt strictly healthy

good luck

Posted in another thread, same answer applies:

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

Sunday is my day to eat whatever I want! I still track my calories and log everything but I don't obsess about what I'm eating that day. I relax and enjoy. Come Monday, I'm back to eating as healthy and clean as possible!

I started using this site to track everything because I wanted to be able to lose weight and eat anything basically. How can you maintain weight loss if you can't eat "real food"? I don't go crazy and eat most healthy stuff and most days I don't hit the 1200cal/day to lose 2lbs per week.
I work a rotating schedule from days to nights and back with a few days in between, on the day I come off nights I sleep until 1pm and that is my "cheat day" I don't go over 1200 calories but I will have wings, a burger, pizza, etc but keep the calories at 1200. I eat once or twice that day then it's bedtime to get turned around for days.
By "real food" I guess I mean processed food. I eat healthy choice dinners, weight watchers, etc.
I have been at 150lbs since August and that was my personal goal, to maintain that MFP says to eat 1850cal/day but I worry that I'll gain weight and barely eat that. I will try to maintain and eat the 1200/day.
I know losing weight is the hardest thing to decide upon, it was easy to gain it, we just eat whatever. As you track food and start to realize how many calories are in some foods, you can make better decisions to keep yourself in control.
I think it comes down to how much self control do you have? Can you limit yourself or will you go way over calories by having a "cheat day" Everyone's body reacts differently to food choices and also ask yourself why do you want it? How far have you come? Work these things out for yourself, no one else can make these decisions for you. Best of luck and get losing!!!

I'm not on a "diet", I am changing the way I eat for the better forever. This means if I want a treat, I have it! I just keep it reasonable and fit it into my calorie and macro goals. This might mean skipping juice in my smoothie on a day I want frozen yogurt to save sugar, or having more tuna in my lunch wrap to cover a low protein carb-y dinner. It all balances out and you never feel spread too thin or needing to binge.