First ' cheat day"
 

Ok full sugar rush...wow... is all i can say i had to try it, just some fresh donuts from a local bakery... and the shakes and light headed, so my thought is what do we sugar addicts do to our bodies? i know next week i will not be as quick to 'donut it up" If i make it, it's kinda like being half stoned and half drunk
Not good

I'm chuckling, but also learning a great lesson from your experience at the same time. I hope to be in maintenance by Christmas or there abouts, so am absorbing as much as I can for P4!

Be careful driving!!!!

I had a planned cheat over the past weekend for a wedding and good friend's birthday. I didn't go crazy, but I did have a cupcake at the wedding! And the lowest calorie alcohol I could drink -- vodka and diet. Firstly, I got drunk very quickly, and secondly, what a sugar rush from that cupcake!

It was kind of nice to have that weekend, though. It wasn't difficult at all to go back OP come that Tuesday. I had indulged a little, and was ready to get started again.

One of my friend goes to a clinic called Nuviva for his weight loss. He has been going for about a month now and they just told him to do a cheat meal (1 meal where he can eat whatever he wants, and it should be at least 1000 calories). The purpose of it, according to the note they gave him, was to increase the Lepetin hormone in his body so that he avoids hitting a plateau. I was kinda surprised by this, since I have been on my diet plan for about three months now and have not hit any plateau so far.

Overfeeding on a short period of time does increase leptin in the body but for the vast majority of obese people this doesn't make any significant difference to leptin levels because they aren't low in the first place.

Also, leptin levels don't affect fat loss. They do play a large role in appetite though. (Again - doesn't matter with very large people)

For many people thought the occasional free meal or free day is very helpful for psychological reasons.

Yes, the clinic is correct in that the cheat meal will increase the leptin blood level in the body. When one is on a low calorie diet for too long your leptin blood levels will decrease because of the fat lost since leptin's origin is the fat cell, and when fat is lost the leptin levels will decrease. When the brain gets the red flag that leptin is decreasing it will start to slow down your metabolism. Your brain doesn't want you to starve. Bottom line is the more fat we lose the more difficult the fat becomes to lose which would explain why losing those last 20 pounds or so can be so difficult. However just one day of overfeeding will bring the leptin levels back up to baseline. That's why you so often hear of someone who has plateaued or the scale is moving at a snail's pace and after just one cheat day the scale will start to move again. Of course this means the very next day you have to go right back to your low calorie diet to reap the rewards. This works as long as one is psychologically ready to make the commitment to hop right back on the low cal wagon once the cheat day has passed.

Your information is right but the context matters a lot. Leptin does play a role in metabolic slowdown but (big but here) again that the extent of leptin affecting anything depends to a great degree on the the body fat percentage of a given dieter. Going from 50% body fat to 40% body fat makes no practical difference. Going from 20% body fat to 10% makes an enormous difference.

Also, only overfeeding of carbohydrates increases leptin.

The reason this is important is if it was crucial to raise leptin levels they wouldn't tell him to eat whatever they would tell the dieter to make sure he eats a lot of carbohydrates. Over feeding fat and protein does not affect leptin levels. Eating a 1000 calorie meal would do little to leptin levels even in a leaner individual unless most of those calories were carbs.

Leptin does serve as an anti-starvation hormone so when the body notices that energy availability is insufficient, it shuts down what are non essential functions such as reproduction. This is why very lean women might suffer from amenorrhea and can benefit from leptin injections or week long refeeds. I haven't seen too many obese women who start dieting who have this problem. I've seen plenty of very lean women have this problem.

Context matters.

paulfromport (doughnut) and NoirStories (cupcake)......................

Just curious..... had either of you ever felt a "sugar rush" before IP when you were living on the all American diet of carbs OR do you think you only felt it now because you are in ketosis?

I don't know that I've ever felt a "sugar rush" because I've always been so toxic with carbs! I imagine it feels kind of weird.

I had a friend who ate a ton of candy and told me how they got such a crazy sugar rush... Id never remembered ever having one! But a month into IP and one cupcake and I was feeling lightheaded! I never really felt them when carbing out during the cheat -- it was just the cupcake that got me

Am really curious about the sugar rush. I start Phase 3 today and will be in maintenance in 2 weeks and I've been daydreaming about my first cheat day. My husband told me he had the sugar rush when he ate some cake at work (after phasing off the diet) and I wonder what my personal response will be. Is there a way to avoid the headache that comes with eating sugary food for the first time in a long time?

re the plateau busting
all i get after a cheat is a week long stall :-(

I had never had a sugar rush like that before, and i don't think it was ketosis as i have done phase 3 for two weeks and one week of 4, yes sir a full ' bad day" next week it will be a little less !! three months on IP 53 pounds down and Give me a pulpit i will preach IP !!

I had the same experience that you did, but in Phase 3, and with fruit!! I am in my second week of phase 3 now and adjusting to the sugar in fruit was really hard for me. I got crazy hyper for an hour or two the first few days after my P3 breakfasts. I wasn't able to eat my fruit one day, was too full on my omlet with toast, and I didn't get the weird loopy feeling. I was NEVER sensative to fruit before IP. My co-workers even asked me if I'd spiked my breakfast! I had to then explain that I hadn't had sugar in 5 months, and then they understood.

So now I am rethinking my phase 4 cheat day. I was planning on something full-fat and probably cheesy, but now I'm definately going to be lower on any sweets I have along with it. I guess some of us are more sensative to sugars and reintroducing them than others of us are.

I had been on a plateau for 5 days, and had a cheat meal on Friday. Lo and behold, .5 pound weight loss the next day! Maybe it works for some of us and not others!

1st Post
 

This is my first post as I have been lurking for 10 weeks now. Some people are mean so I have not posted. I know technically we are not supposed to have "cheat days" on the protocol. I contemplated and I realized that an occassional cheat was ok for me. So in the past two months, I have had 2-3 cheat days. My weight loss has been 33lbs for these 10 weeks. I am satisfied with that. I was working with a coach and she shared with me that I should plan for my cheat days. I actually have used them to break plateaus.

This Friday I had a planned cheat day. I got on the scale and realized it hadn't moved all week. Then I tried on some jeans that were 3 sizes smaller than I wore 10 weeks ago. They zipped and buttoned. Yay... So I decided to just stay OP and forgo my cheat day. It was hard because my coworkers know that I am dieting and came in my class with doughnuts and kolaches!! They were gloating. I was gloating in the fact that all of them would be fat soon and I'm fitting a smaller pair of jeans. LOL. Well, needless to say since Friday, my scale has dropped 5 lbs just by allowing my body to play catch up.

Will I have another cheat day? Probably. I have 50 lbs to go and I have to make this diet livable for me.. My concern is not losing it quickly but keeping it off long term. But this past week I'm glad I stuck to program as it paid off majorly. :)

Jesusgirl and Dana, thx for the info! I have a planned cheat on Thanksgiving - nothing much just a small taste, but was afraid to. Now i know a little push every now and then will be ok. Oh and welcome Jesusgirl!!!

JesusGirl- I'm glad you posted. It sounds like you know yourself very well and know a lot about how your body works. It is so empowering to walk away from food that you know you don't want, regardless of what others try to get us to do. You've definitely got this!

Know thyself!! I actually have a similar philosophy. As long as I don't go wild, I will let myself have some off protocol things every so often (pretty rarely, butni am certainly not perfect). Are my losses slower as a result? Maybe. But I'm happy with my progress so far and I'm in this for the long haul. In any event, if what I'm doing stops working, or if it makes it too hard to stay op on the other days, I will stop with the occasional "cheats." But for now it is keeping me on plan the other 97% of the time and is actually giving me confidence that I CAN control myself even when given "free reign" at social events, etc.

So don't worry, you're not the only one! :)

I had a cheat day last week and told my coach. She says that if we have more than 3 "goofs" on the program that they are supposed to take us off the plan. I wonder... do you really think they would stop taking my money if I had 2 more cheats? I feel like I can't tell them now if I have a slip up- and get the support I need. With over 100 lbs to go I don't see how I can get through it without a few cheat days. Anyone else heard of this rule or is this just my clinic?

My clinic said the same thing.

My clinic said 3 strikes and you're out as well.

I think what you said has some merit here. I haven't cheated, but in ways, I'm doing something similar. I had the cauliflower pancakes with the WF pancake syrup, and that had me eating it the next day also, and wanting it the day after. I decided it was to be just a weekend treat, as I could feel my sugar addiction kicking in.

Then this week, I had the mock zucchini apples with the WF apple spread. Again, wanting it two days in a row. Then I knew that it was a craving coming, so I stopped it after that and then this weekend, no pancakes with syrup. Just trying to control the sugar craving.

And I did it, so these little steps set me up for maintenance. Every little thing teaches me that I can say no. Have something that may trigger my sugar cravings, but then back away and say that's it.

For me, I think that will be key in maintenance too.

Wow, Starshine, you said it! I am going through something similar but couldn't quite put my finger on it. My cravings are crazy lately but I was chalking it up to hormone issues. I think I really need to lay off the sweet sweet stuff and see if my cravings start diminishing. I have been a crispy cereal pancake and spice cake girl lately.

Exactly! As soon as I feel like I don't have control over my consumption over a certain food, it forces me to step back and ask why, and whether this is something I can have another time (i.e. if it's just a moment of weakness where I just want to *chew*, or it's some kind of craving coming back).

I personally think that we have to think about maintenance far ahead of time; everything is all well and good when we're losing, but developing a long-term plan for handing maintenance is probably going to be a challenge. I've read through the P3 and P4 sheets and I don't think it gives much guidance for this; maybe coaches are helpful on this point? I don't know, since I don't go to a clinic.

Thanks, Hgamroth! I have been salivating :) at the spice cake and other sweet recipes, but I know that I crave sweets, so I have not been doing them. I just bought some Capella flavoring drops to put in my shakes, and boy they are just giving me lots of great flavors, which I'm loving. I'm not sure if it's craving or no though. The drops don't have sweeteners in them.

My cravings have come back with TOM too (and TOM is in it's 2nd week now, which is a pain), so I'm not sure if it's triggered by that also.

I guess the best plan for me, is just to make sure I can stop eating when a craving hits. as cravings will most definitely hit when in maintenance.

I agree, Dana. When I've caught myself just wanting more food (which hasn't happened too much on this diet, but it has happened, like last week), I thought about coping mechanisms for it. Like asking myself why I want it (am I still hungry), or waiting a half hour to see if I'm still wanting it. Having lived a life of just eating to eat before (emotional issues, boredom, stress), it's too easy just to put food in my mouth, so now is the time to figure these things out.

I think yo're right about maintenance. I've started reading the maintenance thread and the P3 breakfasts, etc. threads to get ideas on maintenance. Those sheets don't tell too much. I'm doing this on my own too, so that's why I'm reading as much as I can about Phase 4, as the info isn't as good as for Phase 1.

And as an aside. Thanks to all those who are in maintenance and still post. We need you! :)

I can relate to that sugar rush. I too ate a cupcake, rather inhaled it on my first "free" day. The headache was instant.

The second week I had a "free" weekend and ate too much sugar. My stomach was not in agreement.

Now this past weekend, my "free" day was more controlled. The only item off "Phase 3ish" day was the ice cream. Other than that, it was a good day. I did my Phase 1 day yesterday and today I'm down 3 lbs! So, i'm staying on that window of lbs that I wanted.

After my indulgences, I actually look forward to Phase 1 and the easiness of it. It really helps w/any discomfort you may have and it flushes everything out.

Sorry, just reread the OP: I understood you were in maintenance....

I've reached goal and was referring to my "free" day's sugar rush. My personal experience, I did not have a "cheat" day. I always kept in mind that my "free" day will come - the sooner the better and now I'm so glad I did wait.

TOM DEFINITELY has something to do with it for me. I had it last week and I wanted to gnaw off my arm the whole time. Stay strong!

I think that does sound like the best plan for you... and for me too! Keep up the good work.

Yes, yes... I can relate to all of this. It's just as important for me to figure out how to respond to these emotional cravings and eating impulses as it is for me to actually get the weight off. And I have plenty of time while I'm losing this dang weight to figure that out, hopefully! :)

And yes to thanking our maintenance inspirations as well! I love lurking on the maintainers' thread- so much great knowledge and so many fantastic success stories!

Why cheat?? My sister did the diet and has now become a coach. I have since started the diet with her as my coach. She went 6 or 7 months without cheating. I figure if she can do it, so can I.

I have been on the diet for a month and I still crave sugar or something sweet. The restricted bars are what keep me going :)

I thought I had tons of time, too, but I'm now halfway to my goal, and it's like, "WAIT!, I've not dealt with those issues yet!" :)

I'm thinking that maintenance is going to be a huge learning curve for me. I'm Vegetarian, and I hate all the fake meats I'm eating, and the fact that I'm not learning to cook the things I will eat in maintenance. It's the one time, I'm envious of the meat eaters. :)

So all in all, those cravings we are having are a good thing. We need those to teach us. :)

Christmas Day I planned to cheat. For the last 2 months, I have not cheated at all. I was planning on just tasting everything and drinking wine. I ended up going way overboard on food and drinking champagne and wine. I woke up at 3 am nauseated, sweating and feeling like I needed to vomit. I had to lay on the floor for over 30 minutes before I could climb back into bed. At first, I thought I was getting sick, but now I have realized that I probably had reactive hypoglycemia from an insulin "surge". How awful!! I never want to feel like that again. I have stayed OP the last 3 days, but I still don't feel good. I just want everyone to know that it was not worth it at all. I don't even really remember "eating" or have any lingering "experience" of the food. I hope that I can keep myself from doing that again.....