[librarygirl111]

Hi all,

I was wondering how many of you do cheat meals/cheat days. I find them horrible!

But I think I'm starting to master a "sort-of" cheat day. LOL. For instance, I think it's important when you are on a diet to be able to live life! When someone says, let's go out to eat, you should be able to say "yes!". Eating out is fun! For so much of the time, I told myself that eating out was a good way to gain weight. I then learned it was my heavy drinking habits that were not allowing me to gain weight (drinking too much and running six miles kind of even each other out).

Now that I have eliminated alcohol, it's easier to have "minor cheats".

For instance, I have staretd to eat a la carte at the local taco restaurant I go to, and we went out to a chinese restaurant and I got shrimp and rice (so healthy) and a pot of green tea. yum! I do allow myself to cheat, but I don't allow myself to go alllllllllllll out. I don't give myself a cheat day where I can eat anything I want. I've found, that in my diet experience, this is what derails the teachings I have tried to hard to put into place.

For instance, for a long time, the weekend was the time I ate. I ate everything in sight sometimes, because it was my "cheat time". I've stopped that now, and I even plan ahead for the weekend with my meal plans, and when something extra comes up, I allow a taste here or there, but I don't go overboard. (This weekend, my husband and I went out to eat. I had a salad and half a sandwich, but i even had some french fries---I still ended up losing weight!)

So, do you have a cheat day?

Is it an all-out cheat day, or only a minor cheat (you can have ice cream today!)?

How successful are you with cheat days?

Thanks!

[MrsCLS]

Since Im not on a "Diet" I guess you could say I cheat every day LOL
I eat what I want..I just portion control it and make sure If I have a craving for something, Ill have atleast a little piece of it.

The one thing I never do is eat after 8pm. I do my exercise around 8:30-9pm and then I shower and drink just water all night...Late night snacking/eating was my killer!! but since I stopped that..everything else seems to be going okay..lol

[Lurker89]

All the time. One day every week or two I gorge myself on pizza. Usually it ends with me consuming 6 slices.

Other than that I eat pretty healthy meals. I have learned to prepare food that I don't feel like I'm losing out on life by eating. There's no point in being miserable, it'll just make you resent the diet.

Sometimes, if I'm at work and there aren't any healthy alternatives around I'll have a cookie or two. I don't do it every day, but even if I did I don't think it would have a major effect as long as I adhered (generally) to a healthy diet the rest of the time. I try to keep to the outlook that it's possible to have a healthy body, lose weight, and have a Big Mac every now and again.

-L89

[Riemontana]

I try to think of this as a long-term, lifestyle change so "cheating" isn't the term I use. If we are going out to dinner for a celebration, like a birthday, I try to eat stuff that is more in my eating plan but is more luxurious. e.g. a nice steak and potato. I also enjoy the occasional piece of cake or cheesecake. I try to fit ww deserts / snacks into my plan so I feel like I am getting a treat but I am still on target.

[LadyWraith]

I don't really have cheat meals... just moments of small weakness lol. Today is a great example... after dinner I had one of those huge pickles. Pickles don't really count in the nutrition department except for the exorbitant amount of salt content. But after I ate the pickle, I needed something sweet to counter the salty. So I ate a teaspoon of caramel I had leftover and was sated. I've had a few of these little cheats lately but the difference is that I control it and eat a very small amount instead of binging like I normally would have. The caramel even fit into my calorie count for the day since I was a little low.

[Iianae]

One "free" day a week. Don't call it a cheat day because I'm not cheating...this is my plan, my life, my journey and every Sunday is a free day. It's amazing how much I don't eat as much as I think I am going to just knowing it's free

[Lnm130]

I am under going a life style change, so I don't think of myself as on a diet or cheating. I go out to eat with the girls every Friday, and just watch what I eat during the day. I always get the same thing, fried pickles and an order of chicken tenders. Of course, I get a small side if ranch and buffalo. I usually maintain my weight, mostly due to sodium. Other then that day, I typically stay on-calorie/sodium.

[scout83]

I give myself one "cheat" day a week. Iianae, I agree-- it's a little surprising that I really don't end up eating as much as I'd think. I also think that's a sign that what I'm doing is working-- monitoring my food as a way to get my portions under control. I'm gaining a much better understanding of how much is enough. So my "cheat" is actually a little taste of success for me. Totally eating a juicy cheeseburger this weekend, though.

[missheidi87]

I do from time to time, but I find the longer I go without something, the less appealing it ends up being...except for Chik Fil A, darn it!

[krampus]

I've experimented with all kinds of different methods.

For the majority of my weight loss I ate whatever I wanted on weekends. My friends are HUGE eaters and none of them are overweight so of course I spent every week losing the weekend's gains. It was fun and not scary.

I got to my lowest weight the day before Christmas and went into "vacation mode" from then. Celebrated Christmas with my boyfriend with junk food. The day after Christmas I went on a 10 day bender to Germany where everything was a free-for-all. It was fun and my main travel companion/host eats > 4000 calories a day to maintain his lean figure (less and he would disappear), so you know how that goes.

After I got back, I just couldn't seem to hold it together. I lost most of the weight I gained on vacation pretty quickly, but "free weekends" no longer seemed like quite enough. I started feeling out of control and couldn't keep my weight down and it made me really mad - and HUNGRY. Binges started happening, scary ones. My weight went up. I took a trip to Korea and treated it like it was my last weekend alive, eating faaar beyond normal fullness every day. I injured myself from running in bad shoes and now can't run or even really powerwalk for very long without pain.

After another bad week, I decided to quit the "dieting" mindset and stop weighing/measuring myself and counting calories. I remember back to my happiest times in the weight loss process - those blissful early days when I'd just eat a little less at lunch and saw great results. I've only been doing this for a couple days, but I feel FREE. All that freedom means I don't want to gorge myself on "forbidden" foods because nothing is forbidden. I can have whatever I want whenever I want it.

And today, for the first time maybe EVER, I started eating lunch, realized I was a bit full halfway through, and put it away. If I get hungry later I'll go back to it.

CliffsNotes version: instead of "should" and "shouldn't" and "good" and "bad" and "cheating," I think all you need to do is ask yourself "do I want this? will I feel better or worse if I have it?"

Good luck!

[supergir111]

I don't do cheat meals in the sense that if I want something I try to make it work with my plan, like eat a smaller lunch/dinner to balance it. I don't feel like I need them. Sometimes I do feel llike going crazy on a chinese buffet and maybe a 'cheat' meal would help *shrugs*

[jennsic]

I find cheat days to be bad for me. If I eat a meal that's "bad" for me it seems like there is a domino affect and it keeps going and going.

[MiZTaCCen]

I sure do, I have cheat meals or try to at least once a week. I know a lot of people are against them and get pretty hard on themselves through this journey but the truth is I’m very carefree. When I care too much about it I never see the scale move and that’s when things get frustrating. I have control over myself and know what to eat, what not to eat and sometimes I enjoy a delicious cheat meal because I can control myself and eat in moderations of the food I love and it hardly affects me.

[linalin]

Like most said already, I don't really look at it as a cheat because I'm not viewing this as a diet I'm genuinely changing how I eat to be healthier... not just for weight loss.

I do let myself eat something not "ideal" if I really want it, but I always plan it in advance, so I don't end up binging! Like I LOVE these "Crunchie" bars that are sold in England and ONE store here in my city sells them... I went to the store because I wanted one so I got one, and purposely didn't have any extra snacks during the day (other than fruit, which is 0 points on WW) so that I could eat it without feeling guilty.

I also am trying to make my treats as unjunky as I can. Like I LOVE soda but I've cut all soda out. My treat every Saturday is a Coke...... DIET coke So even though I am getting my soda fix, I'm getting 0 cal and 0 sugar from it. Kind of tricking myself lol

[redliss7]

I'll do it once a week...or that has been my plan I've stuck to the past 2/3 weeks. I have recently cut out most processed food from my diet but all refined grains so once a week I get a meal where I can just kind of eat pasta or rice or something like that. It kind of started with trying to get more protein while cuttin calories and I couldn't do that with noodles and bread so then I just decided to scrap them altogether. I peaked at the scale this morning and saw high 175. Hoping this sticks/gets even better for next weighin.