Weight-Loss Cheat Days

[MrTank]

Cheating can be a good yet bad thing. Sometimes you need a break from eating chicken and salad for a change. However, it's very easy to get caught up with cheating, and then it eventually leads to crash diet and giving up. Personally, I have a cheat "meal" once a week, and not so much a "day". This way, your not spending all day eating junk food gaining back everything you lost in the week. You'd be very surprised how fast you can gain everything back from junk food alone. Once you spend all day eating junk food or whatever you want to eat, all your doing is setting yourself back to square one.

I personally believe having a cheat meal, is far more better than a cheat day. This way, you don't have the possibility of eating everything you lost within the week prior. Usually on a cheat meal for the week, I'll have a some 2% milk or orange juice, a cheese burger or steak (grilled), macaroni and cheese, and maybe some mashed potatoes with cheese and garlic.

Once I finish my meal, break time is over, and it's time to get back to work on the healthy eating!

 

[Intellectual vegetable]

If you need a cheat day, you probably aren't transitioning yourself into a sustained eating plan. You should be adding healthy foods to your diet (replacing the 'bad foods') gradually. This of course takes more time than people want to spend so we've come up with this idea that we can make extreme changes with a pressure relief valve known as a cheat day.

Unfortunately, habits require constant commitment, and breaking up your efforts is largely detrimental to true success. You might be able to 'motivate' yourself into making it through the week of you know you have a 'cheat day' ahead of you. But really, think about that in the context of a year. You will have to keep yourself committed to breaking a routine 52 times (once a week for a year). You're not likely going to keep wanting to follow a plan that you dont like, even if you have a 'reward' waiting for you. It's simply not sustainable. Your will power isn't strong enough. Maybe you know someone who does this and think you can too. That's a fallacy. People may be stubborn, but eventually human nature wins and we succumb to our old routines. It's just easier that way. The real key is to make our old routine something healthy.

Habbits happen over time, not right away. And they have to be consistent, not derailed once a week. Do yourself a favor and start incorporating more vegetables into your diet. Cook for yourself more often. Drink water as your primary beverage choice. Make these changes over the next year and you'll find you dont need a cheat day.

 

[Trusylver]

I have Posted about some of this in another thread https://weight-loss.fitness.com/threads/metabolic-adaption.105236/ however, a "cheat meal" if you wish to call it that can be an important tool in a long weight loss diet, as Hormones while complicated play an important part of the equation.


science has shown that re-feeds (cheat meals) can help alleviate some of the hormone issues during weight loss. This does not mean going nuts eating a ton of crap, but simply raising calorie intake up to maintenance level for 1-2 days per week.