Cheating Day In Your Diet

well… i’ve been dieting for 12 weeks now… and today i ate like 10,000 calories… will that effect my body ? but i stopped eating at 4 pm… and came back to my diet… even more strict… i ate half of a tuna can with cucumber and lettuce… and for 5th meal im gonna eat the same… will that be a problem ?

because some people say that if you shock ur body with a lot of food once a week… u will actually lose fat :S!.. but i dunno… i feel that i’ve done a terrible thing to my body !!

LOL you r fine aint going to kill ya. its more a mental break then any other benefit and will allow yo to get rolling strict again Plan your cheats use then wisely to refill glycogen etc prior to your most intense training

Phill

[quote]Abdallah wrote:
well… i’ve been dieting for 12 weeks now… and today i ate like 10,000 calories… will that effect my body ? but i stopped eating at 4 pm… and came back to my diet… even more strict… i ate half of a tuna can with cucumber and lettuce… and for 5th meal im gonna eat the same… will that be a problem ?

because some people say that if you shock ur body with a lot of food once a week… u will actually lose fat :S!.. but i dunno… i feel that i’ve done a terrible thing to my body !! [/quote]

[quote]Abdallah wrote:
well… i’ve been dieting for 12 weeks now… and today i ate like 10,000 calories… will that effect my body ? but i stopped eating at 4 pm… and came back to my diet… even more strict… i ate half of a tuna can with cucumber and lettuce… and for 5th meal im gonna eat the same… will that be a problem ?

because some people say that if you shock ur body with a lot of food once a week… u will actually lose fat :S!.. but i dunno… i feel that i’ve done a terrible thing to my body !! [/quote]

First thing, that one cheat day didn’t do anything but speed up your metabolism, especially if you have been dieting the entire time you just wrote about.

Second thing, unless you are competing and have an upcoming goal, you should not be dieting for more than 3-4months at a time. Exceptions would be those who are obese and are losing very large amounts of body fat with overall health being the primary concern.

Long periods of dieting can wreck your metabolism. While how much time it would take to slow down your metabolism making it easier to gain fat after a diet is largely individual, I would personally recommend most people not diet in excess of 4 months at a time before there is some type of break for a few weeks OR MONTHS thrown in with either maintenance or above maintenance caloric intake.

Cheat meals are recommended by many trainers in terms of dieting during the week. One day where you eat whatever you want for one meal is believed to increase your metabolism. Cheat DAYS are less recommended. It is believed by some that this can slow down effective fat loss.

This is where PERSONAL EXPERIENCE comes in. What works for you may not work for someone else. I have done cheat days and it slowed down the process. It also increased the likelihood of falling off the diet before initially planned. Cheat MEALS seem to make the most sense…FOR ME. You have to find what works for you.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Abdallah wrote:
well… i’ve been dieting for 12 weeks now… and today i ate like 10,000 calories… will that effect my body ? but i stopped eating at 4 pm… and came back to my diet… even more strict… i ate half of a tuna can with cucumber and lettuce… and for 5th meal im gonna eat the same… will that be a problem ?

because some people say that if you shock ur body with a lot of food once a week… u will actually lose fat :S!.. but i dunno… i feel that i’ve done a terrible thing to my body !!

First thing, that one cheat day didn’t do anything but speed up your metabolism, especially if you have been dieting the entire time you just wrote about.

Second thing, unless you are competing and have an upcoming goal, you should not be dieting for more than 3-4months at a time. Exceptions would be those who are obese and are losing very large amounts of body fat with overall health being the primary concern.

Long periods of dieting can wreck your metabolism. While how much time it would take to slow down your metabolism making it easier to gain fat after a diet is largely individual, I would personally recommend most people not diet in excess of 4 months at a time before there is some type of break for a few weeks OR MONTHS thrown in with either maintenance or above maintenance caloric intake.

Cheat meals are recommended by many trainers in terms of dieting during the week. One day where you eat whatever you want for one meal is believed to increase your metabolism. Cheat DAYS are less recommended. It is believed by some that this can slow down effective fat loss.

This is where PERSONAL EXPERIENCE comes in. What works for you may not work for someone else. I have done cheat days and it slowed down the process. It also increased the likelihood of falling off the diet before initially planned. Cheat MEALS seem to make the most sense…FOR ME. You have to find what works for you.[/quote]

I agree with most of this post, except for the “diet” part (but its really just a matter of semantics).

It sounds like what you’re saying is people shoudn’t be in a calorie restricted state for too long, and that in between they should be eating at or above maintenance.

In terms of the average person, a “diet” just means paying more attention to what you eat and/or planning it out to some extent. So, this would make an eating plan that goes 500 calories above maintenance a “diet” as well.

To many “not being on a diet” means binge eating at Taco Bell 4 nights a week.

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
I agree with most of this post, except for the “diet” part (but its really just a matter of semantics).

It sounds like what you’re saying is people shoudn’t be in a calorie restricted state for too long, and that in between they should be eating at or above maintenance.

In terms of the average person, a “diet” just means paying more attention to what you eat and/or planning it out to some extent. So, this would make an eating plan that goes 500 calories above maintenance a “diet” as well.

To many “not being on a diet” means binge eating at Taco Bell 4 nights a week.
[/quote]

You seem to be even more confused than that. Past the fact that I was talking about caloric restriction, “cheat meals” probably don’t have much use for someone who is not in a caloric deficit, at least not thought of in the same way.

If someone is being that restrictive when they are not dieting down that they never eat anything but “bodybuilding contest prep food”, then they had better have the bodies to show for it. Otherwise, many people are too hung up on how “clean” they eating when the focus should be on whether they are seeing results from eating that way.

If a teenager can eat hamburgers everyday and grow well from it, then looking at their “DIET” as having “cheat meals” would be ridiculous They can get away with not being extremely restrictive in their daily food intake. That doesn’t mean they are “cheating”.

well… on that cheat day… i woke up… ate 1 cup of oatmeal and 4 egg whites with a little pack of splenda… 3 hours later…i ate 1 cup of brown rice… till now i was still on my diet… three hours later…
CHEAT MEAL
–200 grams of peanuts, almonds and cashews ( all roasted )…
–6 tablespoons of peanut butter…
–1 cup of brown rice and … half a can of tuna… with cucumber
–150 grams of soy/bran/whole wheat crackers ( sugar free…salt free )…
–1 sneakers icecream…
–1 kinder bueno…
–i ate 2 kebab sandwhiches ( lebanese bread )…
((((((( THAT WAS MY CHEAT MEAL )))))))

finished eating it at 4 pm

i felt sooooooo full!.. i was about to explode!..

usually i eat every 3 hours… but i couldn’t eat till 8:45pm i was too full!

so i ate half a can of tuna with lettuce and cucumber…
and then at 12:20 i ate another half a can of tuna with cucumber…

btw… i have 6.3 fat %…

but when i finished eating… the veins in my whole body were popping out… like all over my abs also!.. it was scary :S!.. my gf got scared :p…

[quote]Abdallah wrote:
well… on that cheat day… i woke up… ate 1 cup of oatmeal and 4 egg whites with a little pack of splenda… 3 hours later…i ate 1 cup of brown rice… till now i was still on my diet… three hours later…
CHEAT MEAL
–200 grams of peanuts, almonds and cashews ( all roasted )…
–6 tablespoons of peanut butter…
–1 cup of brown rice and … half a can of tuna… with cucumber
–150 grams of soy/bran/whole wheat crackers ( sugar free…salt free )…
–1 sneakers icecream…
–1 kinder bueno…
–i ate 2 kebab sandwhiches ( lebanese bread )…
((((((( THAT WAS MY CHEAT MEAL )))))))

finished eating it at 4 pm

i felt sooooooo full!.. i was about to explode!..

usually i eat every 3 hours… but i couldn’t eat till 8:45pm i was too full!

so i ate half a can of tuna with lettuce and cucumber…
and then at 12:20 i ate another half a can of tuna with cucumber…

btw… i have 6.3 fat %…

[/quote]

lol i dont think that approaches 10,000 calories…one meal isnt going to negatively affect (to a large degree) your results…that is if youve been consistent with your training…which it seeems you have…

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Cheat meals are recommended by many trainers in terms of dieting during the week. One day where you eat whatever you want for one meal is believed to increase your metabolism. Cheat DAYS are less recommended. It is believed by some that this can slow down effective fat loss.

[/quote]

Shut up Prof. I have a glorious cheat day coming up this weekend, and I don’t need your possibly logical advice screwing with it!

For the record, I have actually had better success with ‘cheat days’ than ‘cheat meals’ when dieting, so long as I don’t get too ridiculous with it. Individual differences people, never underestimate experience.

In my experience, a whole day of cheating doesn’t really set you back all that much, and I am a FFB who finds it REAl easy to put on fat. As long as I train hard on that day, I find that eating big for that entire day has never really had much of an impact on progress…

[quote]Bauer97 wrote:
Professor X wrote:

Cheat meals are recommended by many trainers in terms of dieting during the week. One day where you eat whatever you want for one meal is believed to increase your metabolism. Cheat DAYS are less recommended. It is believed by some that this can slow down effective fat loss.

Shut up Prof. I have a glorious cheat day coming up this weekend, and I don’t need your possibly logical advice screwing with it!

For the record, I have actually had better success with ‘cheat days’ than ‘cheat meals’ when dieting, so long as I don’t get too ridiculous with it. Individual differences people, never underestimate experience.[/quote]

If I set it at once every two weeks, I can eat whatever I want for two days and still keep dropping overall. I just know that this last time, cheat meals seemed to get the job done quicker.

Far be it from me to ruin a real lifter’s cheat day.

[quote]Professor X wrote:

If I set it at once every two weeks, I can eat whatever I want for two days and still keep dropping overall. I just know that this last time, cheat meals seemed to get the job done quicker.

Far be it from me to ruin a real lifter’s cheat day.[/quote]

Did you have your cheat meals in your most recent diet set at once a week?

I’ve tried doing full cheat days at once a week, and it slowed progress big time. However doing them once every 2 weeks, as I am now, is working great, as you mentioned it has for you.

[quote]Abdallah wrote:
even more strict… i ate half of a tuna can with cucumber and lettuce… and for 5th meal im gonna eat the same… will that be a problem ?
[/quote]

This is tangential to your topic, but dont eat too much canned tuna, unless your career plans involve becoming a human thermometer. I am talking about mercury. Eating it once in a while is ok, but methinks a lot of serious weightlifters who eat many meals per day overdose on the stuff because there is not much preparation involved.

[quote]Bauer97 wrote:
Professor X wrote:

If I set it at once every two weeks, I can eat whatever I want for two days and still keep dropping overall. I just know that this last time, cheat meals seemed to get the job done quicker.

Far be it from me to ruin a real lifter’s cheat day.

Did you have your cheat meals in your most recent diet set at once a week?

I’ve tried doing full cheat days at once a week, and it slowed progress big time. However doing them once every 2 weeks, as I am now, is working great, as you mentioned it has for you.[/quote]

I did cheat meals every two weeks and will probably be what I do from now if my goal is just to tighten things up to some degree. The biggest hurdle seems to be mental anyway (not wanting to lose any muscle mass so worrying if my weight drops too fast in one week). Plus, it gave me something to look forward to.

i regularly eat 170 grams of carbs during my diet… and i was wondering… on a carb refeeding day… how much should i eat ?!

Thats not a cheat day its a cheat meal and approaches nowhere near 10,000 calories! I wouldn’t worry one bit if I were you. I’ve been cutting for 8 weeks now with fortnightly cheat meals but in the last week I decided I’d have an all out cheat day. I trained hard out 3 times that day while just having protein shakes.

Later that night I had:

1 tub Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food
Half a chocolate cake
A small box of chocolates
Two Cappucino Donuts
Two Large Smarties cookies

This came to a grand total of 4,898 calories including the protein shakes and I was still in a caloric deficit for the day. I felt no guilt and when my body fat was checked a few days later it was lower again and altogether I have lost 5% body fat on this diet. Without cheat days/meals I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing and I think that they are absolutley essential.

still no one has helped me :S!.. can anyone plz tell me how much carbs should i eat on my normal cutting days… and my re-feeding day… and my maintainence phase…

Cutting Day: 0-40g carbs/day
Re-Feed Day: 600g + carbs
Maintenance: 200-300g carbs

Obviously this varies depending on bodyweight

Also that doesn’t sound much like a cheat day.

Here is my cheat day last mon.
1 bag oreos
20 wings from zaxbys
1 red baron pizza
1 cup brown rize w/ 12 oz. 85/15 lean beef with ketchups
1 club sandwich
1 bowl of broccoli and cheese soup
1 packet of ramen
6 pack of sam adams
1 vanilla milk shake from McDonalds

Yah that was a glorious day

im currently 73.6 kilos… which is like 164 pounds… and im 181cm… so what are my ratios ?