Cheat Days?

Antagonist1

Antagonist1

New member
I'm a little worried about overeating on the days when I allow myself a break. I don't want to sabotage my progress or anything. How often should you have a cheat day, and how many calories do you have typically?
 
What's a cheat day? I mean, that's an awful term.
Do you mean days when you relax the rules a little?

If you are counting cals, you can play around with your intake for the day to accomodate a particularly calorie heavy food (like, birthday cake for example.)

Or, maybe, limit portions for the day you decide to choose not so healthy foods?
 
I haved changed my cheat days to treat myself to one thing that I have craved all week example If I wanted a chicken sandwhich well thats it for that mean no fires or sugary beverages if I wanted a milkshake well thats all for my treat that week 1 treat per week new rule because yes it does and has happend taking advantage and pigging out all day I am still recovering
 
You are supposed to cheat.
Its probably best just to do the zig zag method though. Like if your maintenance is 2500 calories, one day you have 1500 calories, the next you have 3000 calories etc.
 
I have one cheat meal a week (usually) for something I don't usually have during the week. But I'm still more careful. I stop eating when I'm starting to feel full. When I had a grilled chicken burger the other day, I got no butter or mayo on the bun.

Moderation is so key. Nothing is horrible if you take it in moderation. (Well, fries are, LOL!! But I even allow myself a handful of those once in a while...just a handful, and not drowning in gravy.:)
 
dariqueen said:
I have one cheat meal a week (usually) for something I don't usually have during the week. But I'm still more careful. I stop eating when I'm starting to feel full. When I had a grilled chicken burger the other day, I got no butter or mayo on the bun.

Moderation is so key. Nothing is horrible if you take it in moderation. (Well, fries are, LOL!! But I even allow myself a handful of those once in a while...just a handful, and not drowning in gravy.:)
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You are so right Dari and thats what I am trying to do instead of spending the whole day eating whatever I want in large quanities,and look how far
you have came! Tammy
 
is it ok to have 3 straight cheat days, but deprive yourself of 3 weeks worth of cheat days to come to make up for it?
 
I would suggest NO I had a 3-4 day eat all I wanted after sticking with my plan for 3 weeks I lost 9 lbs but gained that back in the 4 days I cheated so you never really get anywhere that wya.I have been 180's-190's since OCT when I could be in the 160's atleast right now.
I guess when your happy with a weight you get to you can maintain your weight like that.Tammy
 
I don't have specified cheat days. I go by how I feel. If there is an overwhelming desire to have something and I know nothing else will satisfy me, then I might give in (probably will). But if I say, I'm going to cheat on every Saturday of the week, then that to me isn't a good thing. If you decide to allow a dessert once a week, that's one thing, but an entire day devoted to is too much for me.

I also only say this, because I went on Spring Break and had a bad experience in weight gain because of overindulgence. :( Live and Learn.
 
Antagonist said:
I'm a little worried about overeating on the days when I allow myself a break. I don't want to sabotage my progress or anything. How often should you have a cheat day, and how many calories do you have typically?
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It depends. You have to test for yourself how many cheat days you can get away with.

I have one cheat day a week, sometimes two, and having no problem. Try starting with one cheat day a week first and monitor your weight.

On cheat days I usually eat anything I want and don't care about calories. :D
 
I use a cheat day with my plan, I think it works well. For me having the weekly cheat day allows me to live with the plan on the other 6 days. Plus I read that it keeps my metabolism up - and it seems to be working that way.
 
When I first started out, I had a weekly "cheat day". It usually took place on the weekend.

It didn't take long for me to trash the idea, because I soon realized that I was eating crap on that cheat day- even if it wasn't something I particularly wanted all that bad- just for the sake of eating crap. I had planned to eat junk that day, right?

Now that I've trashed that approach, I just go by how I feel. Every several weeks I'll randomly want some sort of cheat food and hey, I'll have it. Just as long as I don't do it often, I'm happiest(and most successful) with that approach.
 
I suck at cheat days! I cant trust myself to not fall spectacularly off the wagin so i dont ever do it...what i do (to keep me sane!) is to make sure that i can have treat things and do enough exercise to compensate for them. So if i want a cake on a friday (always cakes in the staffroom!) then i make sure i work off an extra 300 cals - usually an extra class at the gym. I like to balance the numbers and it means that i dont feel deprived of anything at all. It also makes me think abt whether i REALLY want something. I havnt had pizza for ages as i dont like it enough to work off the 1000+ cals that it would amount too!

Its not an exact science but it usually works out pretty well.
 
I use a "cheat day" with my system as well. On the day off diet - there's a cheat day once a week - I use Saturday. I love it 'cuz it sort of lets all of the pressure off of me once a week. And it doesn't seem to be hurting my weight loss at all - in fact I seem to be losing more weight because of it.
 
I actually haven't used any cheat days. I have what I want, just in smaller portions, and still I burn off the calories on the treadmill.

If I were to institute a cheat day, I would totally ruin how good I feel. I would pig out on things like real (not sugarfree) candy and chocolate and skittles. But then the next day I would be like, "Oh that wasn't THAT bad, I think I'll have some more fattening treats today" Then I would get on the scale and realize I'd gained back the past 2 weeks progress. Then I feel like crap.
I find that once I fall off the bandwagon, it's REALLY hard to get back on. I have to keep my momentum going.

Meh, that's just how I feel.

:)
Annie
 
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