Well the weekend is starting up again, and I see so many on here who have a cheat day or cheat meal or two on the weekends.

What are your thoughts on these Feathers? I don't want to live the rest of my life without being able to have a "normal" high calorie meal occasionally, I know that. But I am not sure if once per week is too often. It's really hard for me to stick to my 1500 calories on the weekend though. I am already at 1,000 today which means if I want to have a glass of wine (200 calories) for dinner my meal can only be 300 calories. We are planning on grilling veggies so maybe I can do it.

I just really start to feel restricted on the weekends but I don't want to mess up my entire week by going off plan.

What do you guys do?

The first month I did have one cheat meal a week. Normally on the weekend and it usually consisted of a burrito and fries from Del Taco (around 900 calories)
Nowadays, my body doesn't crave fast food as it used to and I haven't had fast food in over 2 months

Go ahead and have a cheat meal. Moderation is the key.

I treat my 1400 calories a day like a budget. If I go over, I treat it just like a debt that needs to be paid off. This seems to work really well for me--I can have a special meal or treat occasionally, but keeping track of the debt prevents me from doing it too often.

I give myself treats, but I make sure that almost all of the time they work into my calorie limit (for instance--I ate rather light at lunch today, so I enjoyed a big salad [lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and a little onion] with two fried chicken strips torn up and 2 tablespoons of ranch over top and a small sweet potato and an apple for dinner). I also every day try to keep my calories between 1000-1200 by the end of lunch (my calorie limit is 1900-2000) so I can eat almost whatever I want for dinner (dinner in my home was always the heaviest meal of the day growing up, so this works best for me).
Good luck!

I'm on Atkins and the pounds are melting away...... I don't need a cheat day.... with so much food allowed the sky is the limit... for example last night at supper I craved stuffed chicken..... so i fried (in butter) mushrooms,peppers,aspar. while that was cooking... i pounded the chicked thin then put some TEX-MEX chesse on ckicken then fried veggies then rest of cheese with one tablespoon of Renee's creamy dressing.... omg it was 5 star resturant insane good.....

and it only had 3 grs. of carbs..... with Atkins your allowed 20 grams a day.... so who need a cheap day.....

I started this Nov 1 i already love 18lbs

When I first started counting calories, I aimed for 1600/day. After a few weeks, I found I really wanted the flexibility to eat more than that on occasion -- restaurant meals, parties, beer, etc. My plan became 1600 most days, but up to 2200 or so once every week to 10 days. If it's once a week, that averages out to 1685 calories/day. I lost at a nice rate eating that way (though looking back I must have been eating more because I averaged 1768/day in the two months I lost most of my weight).

Sometimes, as I was reaching for my evening snack (like a few squares of dark chocolate or Edy's slow-churned ice cream) I'd decide to pass for the night... so instead of hitting 1600 calories, maybe I'd come in at 1530 or 1480. That also helped offset the high days.

I didn't consider them "cheat" days, because they were part of my plan. Also, I logged every bite of those days, even when they were really ugly (I remember a particularly bad fondue incident in May).

I like Oboegal's idea of a budget. If you consider your calorie budget on a weekly basis, instead of a daily basis, it gives you the flexibility to have high days and low days, and they all even out.

I also find this idea works well for maintenance. For me, I could not eat the same number of calories every day for the rest of my life. But I can see fitting in high days and offsetting them with lower days.

I eat whatever I want on the weekends. WHATEVER I want. But I find often that my guilty conscience will keep me from going too crazy, and since I've been (somewhat) disciplined during the week I don't enjoy the stuffed feeling after overeating. If I know a big dinner is in my future, I'll have an extra light breakfast and lunch.

Krampus - I used to "diet" that way too and lost weight just fine. I would eat really low in calories all week and then eat whatever I wanted on the weekend.

I'm finding it harder and harder to eat so low though! I tried to calorie cycle and found that I couldn't do 2 1200 calorie days in a row. I was waking up hungry at 2 AM!!! So while I try to think of my 1500 calories as a "budget" I find it too hard to have the low days to offset the high. Maybe I just need more willpower?

I've done super well sticking to 1500 calories and yesterday we went out and had some drinks and I nibbled on a few appetizers. The scale was the same this morning as it's been the last 2 weeks. Arrrrgh. I sort of felt bad nibbling on potato wedges, but I didn't want to just order a diet coke and sit there refusing everything - it's annoying to be around those people who do that, i can't become one of them!!!

Thanks for the input about cheat days, it does seem most people here have a day or a meal at least and were still able to lose some weight.

Who said anything about 1200 calories all week? I'm lucky if I can stay under 1700. I am starting to think my metabolism has gotten better since I do cardio and pushups almost every day.

well, I got 1200 by trying to figure out a calorie cycling plan that would average 1500 per week. In order to have days on the weekend near 1800 or 2200 I would have to have a few 1200 calories days to continue to average 1500 for the week.

But that said, I often post in the calorie counters forum and it seems many people are sticking to 1200 per day. More power to them, I just can't eat that low for more than 1 day. 1500 seems to be comfortable but I REALLY have to watch what I am eating or I will easily go up to 2000 or 2500. Especially if I want to have a caloric drink (juice, latte, wine, cider, etc). That's why it's water/coffee/tea for me most days.

For me, also, if I start stringing 1200-calorie days together I get kind of hungry. I can usually avoid the need to do that by not having high calorie days every week. Maybe you could avoid the need to do too many low days by having high days every other weekend instead of every weekend
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One reason I didn't want to drop my average calories too low is that I hope I'll be able to maintain at 1700-1750--I could drop down to 1200 daily if my life depended on it, but I'm hoping it never will! I figure my calorie needs will decrease as I get older, but I hope my maintenance calories will never be lower than 1500 or so.

Love this!
I can easily identify and will apply this to my plan. Thanks Oboegal!

Jean