Do you all give yourself a free day once a week to be bad (meaning eating something not on your weight loss plan )?

I do and I find it helps take the edge off of always being on a *coughdietcough*. Once a week I pick something I want for the next week and work my way to it. Kind of like a reward. Usually it is something like a small candy bar, or popcorn with butter, even going out to eat somewhere. I like the idea and didn't know if anyone else did this.

/N

I do. That day is Sunday. Mon.-Sat., I stick to my plan, both in terms of my workout routines and my diet. Come Sunday, I relax a tad (and I mean a tad) and allow myself a small treat and a day off of exercising.

I don't think of it as a free day because it's really not. To me, a free day is eating at free will all day long. My boyfriend does this. He will have whatever he wants from breakfast until dinner on Saturdays, making it a true free day. I have found that I can't operate like that. I don't know if I just feel like I dig myself in too deep or what (usually I just feel lousy the next day).

Every few months, I will wake up and be like, "I just have to have a breakfast bagel" and I have one. This past weekend, for some bizarre reason, it was a slurpee (now, the small size worked fine, where in the past it was 32 oz or nothing). Ross used to order pizza every single saturday night and it became a tradition. Now, I love pizza as much as the next girl, but I do not need it every single saturday night. Sometimes, I require peanut butter M&M's and usually it falls in the middle of the week. I just take it as it comes and it works pretty well for me.

When bad foods become the norm and part of a routine, that's where I run into problems.

LOL! my boyfriend does that too, only he does it on both saturday and sunday!

*sigh*

He has a high metabolism. I think mine is in reverse.

I hate him

Sunday dinner. I eat what I want and as much as I want and even have dessert. Done that for 2 years now. But during the day Sunday I still watch what I eat because I know I'll be going into calorie overload at dinnertime.

No, because no foods are off limits on my eating plan (not any that I would actually want to eat, anyway).

And since I know I can have them whenever I want them, I usually don't want them. I've had the same 8 pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the freezer for about 5 months now. I just never feel like eating them. But it's enough to know they're there if I want them.

I was just keeping track of calories and (like fiddler) not restricting myself from anything, so long as it fit into my plan. Over time, however, I became more and more lenient until I got back to the point where I was eating fast food multiple times a week, bingeing on whole boxes of frosted snack cakes, gorging myself on candy bars after my TOPS meetings...I needed a better way to control myself.

The plan I'm on now provides strict menus for me to follow for 11 days followed by a 3-day break where it says I can "eat whatever I want." I try not to go crazy on those 3 days (lord knows I don't want to undo 11 days of hard work with 3 days of mindless bingeing!), but if there's something I've been craving, I'll have it during those 3 days. I start my 11 days of menus on a Monday so my "free" days are Friday-Sunday (every other weekend). Fridays are pretty easy since I work all day anyway, so I don't have much time to overeat. I also don't keep ANY junk food in my house, so if I want something bad, I have to go get it, and I'm usually more lazy than I am determined to get that food, so I end up staying home

I'll go out for Chinese food for lunch on Friday with a co-worker and to a movie and probably Panera Friday night with my boyfriend (we almost NEVER get anything at the movies--I promise it really is possible to watch a movie without eating ), so that will be my biggest off-plan day without going too crazy. It helps to keep me in line during the 11 menu days to know that whatever I crave, I can have on those 3 days. I find I don't usually still crave everything by the time I get to those days, plus eating too much junk (grease or sugar) now has very unpleasant side effects

I have a "treat" meal once a week, it can be any day and usually coincides with something social (dad in town, girl's night out). I order wine, split dessert, drink coffee with cream. I am careful not to make it a treat day or treat weekend or treat week.

I allow foods I don't normally eat everyday, but I don't go crazy. I still realize restaurant portion sizes are huge and don't eat full-size restaurant portions. I did cut foods out of my diet forever and I stick to those "no's" - no fast food, no packaged baked goods, no soda.

I have never been on a "diet" but I have lost 200+ pounds by learning to eat healthy and avoiding junk like the plague - for nearly 30 years I have maintained. After you have been away from desserts, fries, etc. for a month or so you don't want them and they don't even taste good anymore. I used to eat ice cream every day...we've had to through it away the last 2 times we bought it because it got too old in the freezer. You can learn not to eat the stuff but not if you keep feeding the habit. Someone trying to kick drugs or alchol doesn't do a free day and I'm like them only addicted to food.

I try not to give myself a full free day, because I take advantage of it, which is not a good thing. What I do instead is set goals for myself, say if I'm good for a week then I will allow myself one treat, any treat, but I still have to be good for the day I have the treat. Although, I try not to restrict myself from things, because if I do I end up eating more.

He actually does this for maintainence purposes as he lost about 40 or so pounds a few years ago, but it's catching up to him again. I told him to drop the stuff he just HAS to every every single saturday and eat it only when he truly wants it.... what do you know, it's working! He'll still eat out with me and what-not, but he's not doing the doughnuts for breakfast, pizza for dinner thing on top of it just because he's a creature of habit.

No I don't give myself "free" days with food... because I want to stick with my plan and not think of junk food or pigging out as something to be desired or a "treat." I treat myself in other ways but never, ever with food. But I know we are all different and this seems to work for some people. If I did it, it would just reintroduce the cravings for junk -- I prefer to develop eating right as a habit and routine. And I LIKE what eating healthful foods and exercising is doing for my body enough that I don't want to "blow it" -- after doing this since February I find I don't even crave sugar and junk or unheathful things any longer so I don't even desire to have a "blow it" day... I prefer to keep it that way as I DO think habits matter. But I also am not on a "diet" and for me personally don't believe in them (though they are great if they work for other people; don't mean to be knocking anyone's eating plans).

But glad it works for you!

When I was trying to lose weight, I only did this for special occasions (e.g., a birthday dinner, a night out with friends). A lot of times, I wouldn't even do it then because I knew it would just delay when I would get to my goal. I'm generally a very motivated and driven person, I don't like to delay getting to a goal.

In the next month or so, I expect to transition into maintenance however and I hope to be able to allow myself the occassional treat once I am there.

- Barbara

I kinda have a free day. I have one day a week where I have something I normally wouldn't - like a dessert or an icecream. Or cheese (yum!) - since I hate low fat cheese I have the real mccoy every now and then, and quite a bit of it!

I don't really have any foods I would never eat (except perhaps for fast food, which I never ate much of anyway), but I certainly have all the time, some of the time, and very occasional foods. So a free day is a good way of limiting the "very occasional foods".

I'd never have a free for all day, I'd just go too overboard and find it too hard to get back on plan.

I don't have a free day. I'm retraining myself to eat what I want, when I want it, in reasonable portions (stopping when or just before I feel full). As part of "mindful eating," I don't restrict any foods completely. I do, however, focus on eating fresh, whole foods.