Cheat Days

granty1892

Right lads,

Alot of us take our training/diet serious, me myself Monday to Friday i train very hard and have my diet to perfection.
Come Saturday and Sunday i get(need) my release, now i would still get my daily recommended 160g's of protein in. but id still have my pints, takeaway, chips,fry etc

But i'm curious to know what people are like on their cheat days? If theyre going away for a week or a weekend? (mainly its to make me feel less guilty on the weekend:D)

Would one/two days of not exactly eating a shed load of garbage but not owrrying about my diet have a huge long term negative effect on my progress.

xgtdec

when i cheat i do it on greasy foods, chipper etc but not chips, so a fresh cod and some onion rings or something like that.

Once i have that i can keep it to one meal and its fine!!

But if i have sugar....even a little, the cheat goes to a binge and the binge can last a day to a week.....sugars not my friend:o

Brave Badger

I find one hing leads to another ans I am afraid to cheat at all. If I do, I try to leave it until late at night so I won't fall too far before I have to sleep. Alcohol is my biggest downfall. It lowers my resolve for days!

boogle

Yean when the drink goes in, the sense goes out! I'm really good on diet until I get a glass of wine in me on a Friday night :mad:

TommyKnocker

I honestly don't understand the concept of "Cheat" meals/days .

Home made meals can be really tasty and well as being nutricious and don't take long to prepare, so it's not like eating healthy home made meals is a chore as some folks make it sound. Having cheat meals/days where you eat "junk" foods, take aways, frys etc, just keeps your pallet used to the taste of these foods.

Learn how to cook (you don't need to compete with Gordon Ramsey ), learn how to flavour your foods with herbs and spicies and drop the "cheats", you will be glad you did in the long run.

IMHO, having a blow out on the weekend is like taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back each week.

RobAMerc

I agree for the most part with TommyKnocker but if I am going out for a dinner thats gonna cost me a shed load I am gonna eat exactly what I like the looks of on the menu and fook the begrudgers !

granty1892

its very easy to say i will eat 'homemade' meals but the majority of time i'll be out socialising the weekend so as the above statement says i will treat myself.

Maybe it is 'training with one arm' but sticking to a strict diet 7 days a week alcohol free is tough, very tough.

tmc86

TommyKnocker wrote: »

IMHO, having a blow out on the weekend is like taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back each week.

I'd agree that a weekend of cheating is one step back but 1 day a week is fine.

There is the idea that diet should be 80:20 i.e. 80% healthy and nutritional but the remaingin 20% should be your "treats".

Personally I like to eat very healthy monday to saturday evening then I'll have a nice treat like a takeaway or something on Sunday evening.

But having eaten so well all week and excersised I take Sunday off, this doesn't mean I'll binge on stuff all day because I've put in so much effort throughout the week I feel guilty if I binged for a day. So one cheat meal a week does me and maybe a few odd snacks!

Allowing yourself an occassional treat or cheat meal makes it easier to follow a stricter diet for the majority of the week.

TommyKnocker

But why does a treat have to be something that would be considered "junk" food?

I can have a "treat" by having real tuna instead of canned stuff or fillet steak instead of round or mince. Now and again a couple of squares of 90% chocolate.

Your weekend is spent socialising? You can cook grilled chicken and steam veg inside 30 minutes. You could have chicken cooked in batches in the fridge and just steam up some veg.

I can eat out and still eat healthy and if a weekend blowout is a step back, then a 1 day blow out is a half a step back.

At the end of the day, life is for enjoying and you do as much or a little as you are commfortable with. Though if you want to do it (eat home made healthy meals 7/365), you will find a way. It's that simple.

It just rankles me when folks talk about cheat meals to keep them sane and seem to make out that eating healthy is a chore, because the truth of the matter is, that it really doesn't need to be.

/rant

tmc86

TommyKnocker wrote: »

But why does a treat have to be something that would be considered "junk" food?

For me personally, a treat is junk food/takeaway, but its all a matter of personal preference.

For example I might order a pizza/make a pizza/pick up a pizza from M&S all varying degrees of healthiness but the majority of the time compared to my normal diet its junk!

I enjoy ordering healthier treats when having a meal out like a nice big piece of fish, something I wouldn't normally have at home

AntiVirus

I had a whole week of cheating over in Spain, ate out every night and had a few beers after. I also went swimming/diving, running (5km 32C) and or kite surfing every day. If you are worried about having a take away of or a few beers at the weekend you're not living.

deadlybuzzman

Theres 7 days in a week, 1 meal on 1 day cant possibly make or break the rest of the week on its own.
Ive gone from having a nice old gut to having 2-4 abs visible and a bottle of wine and big ass kebab on a saturday night was something I ever gave up. On the flip side of that 6 nights a week in bed my stomach wouldve been rumbling like hell!

Mellor

TommyKnocker wrote: »

But why does a treat have to be something that would be considered "junk" food?

...

It just rankles me when folks talk about cheat meals to keep them sane and seem to make out that eating healthy is a chore, because the truth of the matter is, that it really doesn't need to be.

A cheat meal isn't about junk. It's about a meal outside of your regular meal. I cook a lot of my own meals, I recent made my own lasange that was prob half the cals or shop bought. When I ahve a cheat meal it could be anything from a nice restaurant, a take away, or big home meal where I make chips, wings, nachos etc

If you are trying to cut a bit of fat, you need to be in a deficit. It can get tough, 3 or 4 weeks 500 cals under maintenance can be frustrating. With a cheat meal, is where you don't care about deficit. You just eat a big meal. Obviously don't go to town. But for about counting cals for this one meal. With that meal every 7 or 10 days, you break up the 4 weeks deficit.

I don't have studies tp back this up. But I'd say for a lot of people, eating a 600 calorie deficit 6 days a week, and maintenance on the 7th via a cheat meal is easier to maintain over time than a 500 calories a day, everyday.


Cheat meals also apply to people bulking, but for different reason. to distinguish I call them "REFEEEED nyom nyom nyom"

RMD

The logic behind the cheat meal isn't that it's an easy to create dish which tastes nice, it's a calorie spike that increases your metabolism for the following week until your next cheat meal. Since the nicer (takeaway basically) of foods are generally loaded with calories and rich in fats, they're the common cheat meals.