[quote]Eli Cash wrote:
Does anyone (including the man himself) have any idea or can offer a range? Thanks.[/quote]
You have to use your discretion. E.g., let’s say you want to lose 2 pounds each week. If each of your 4 cheat meals are 1,000 (instead of, say, the 500 calories you’d usually eat for a normal meal), you’re going to not lose around 2/3 pound of fat (i.e., 2,000 calories worth of fat.)
So you’d only lose ~1.25 pounds of fat. That’s not good. If you, e.g., ate 2000 calories at each cheat meal, you’d not lose any weight. ETc.
Anyhow, here’s what I do:
Right now I’m dieting. I eat 5-6 meals and 2,500-3,000 calories each day. (I only want to lose a pound each week.)
When I “cheat,” I do one of two things:
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I train and drink my Surge during the workout. As my post-workout meal, I have a scoop of whey protein. I’ll wait about 15-20 minutes and then eat 400-600 empty calories - usually chocolate chips, but sometimes I’ll just eat otherwise “off limits” food like an extra-cheesy quesadilla, twice-baked potatoes, or pizza. So I’ll still stay in my calorie range. Thus, my cheat meal doesn’t set me back so far as energy balance goes. I’m still burning more calories than I’m consuming.
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I eat a scoop of protein, a few fish oil caps to slow down gastic emptying, and then eat 400-600 empty calories.
Ideally, you’d go with 1. But if not, be sure to have protein and some fish with your meal. Also, avoid having your cheat meals right before bed time.
But in general, you need to not let your cheat meal screw up your overall daily energy intake. I.e., if you eat a huge cheat meal, don’t eat your other usual meals. Dial those down a tad.
So let’s say I go crazy on your cheat meal and eat around 1,000 calories. No worries. The rest of my meals for the day will be protein powder or cottage cheese, some flax meal or fish oil, and green caps. At the end of the day, I’ll be in my 2.5-3K calorie range.
For me, I just avoid going above 3,000 on any given day. So if I eat a huge cheat meal, I tweak the other meals.
Others have different approaches, but what I use works for me.