Some diets include "cheat days" into their program.

[BeCarefulIBite]

• Are “cheat days” a valuable aspect to a weight loss diet? Why or why not?

One downside of “cheat days” is they can undo the hard work of sticking to a diet plan.

• Are there other downsides of including “cheat days”?
• What are the long-term consequences of dieting with “cheat days”?

[BeCarefulIBite]

1. 1) I think cheat days are a valuable aspect for weight loss.  I see cheat days as a reward for your hard work towards a healthy lifestyle (motivation for you to hit the gym).  Instead of fighting cravings 24/7 indulge every once in a while, (don't binge).  For me, my cheat day was something to look forward to at the end of the week and if I didn't do much working out then I would skip the cheat day.
2. 2) A downside of cheat days is that it can lead to binge eating with some (I've done it before) and some might view having a cheat day as a dieting fail, give up and fall back to their old bad habits.  A cheat day can become a cheat week and then fall into giving up dieting/healthy lifestyle.
3. 3) I don't really see any long-term consequences of dieting with cheat days beside giving into your cravings and giving up your diet.

[MandyH85]

I don't do cheat days ie take a whole day off. 

im not following a diet, im just eating sensibly, portion control and monitoring calories.  But if I want a treat, I will have one, regardless of the day of the week.  I will have a small portion of whatever the treat is and I will make sure I have done some exercise that day, and the calories will be recorded.  It means I can go out with friends to the cinema and have popcorn, or a bit of birthday cake, or some wine whenever I like and not feel left out of the social aspect just because it is not a specified cheatday

I need to do it this way as it has to be an ongoing lifestyle for me that can be sustained, not a short term "diet", and denying myself something is the fastest way of making me fall back into old habits.  Having a cheat day, I think I might binge, or fall off the wagon, or think a second day of cheating wont do too much harm and before I know it, it becomes a cheat week.

[GershonSurge · Accepted solution]

My minority opinion will probably be rejected due to the social norm of "cheat days are fine." Plus I'm older, and I've found most young people think old people can't possibly know anything. I'll rant a bit anyway. Hopefully, I'll get the courtesy of a response.

There is no such thing as a cheat day!

Virtually all of the fat you eat goes straight to your body fat even if you have a calorie deficit, unless you are an elite athlete. I doubt if there are many of those around. There just isn't a mechanism to burn a 120 calories of fat (1 tablespoon of cooking oil) as fast as it's eaten.

So, you have that piece of birthday cake because it's "socially acceptable." Worse, you allow your child to eat that birthday cake. Where does the fat go? It's tucked into some corner of the body unnoticed as fat and may even appear as bigger muscles if it's marbled into the muscles. What happens to it then? It stays there for decades. Then you or the kid may go on a diet and the cravings keep coming.

Fat, sugar, and salt are greatly addictive. Let's focus on the fat. When fat is analyzed, it is possible to specifically determine what the person ate during different times of their life. So, 30 years later, a person eats "clean" as you say, and they lose a little bit of fat from French fries. It's like a time release cocaine capsule. Every day, they get a little, and the craving for food poisons is reignited. That person can't do without their "cheat days" and eventually, they relapse. And relapse they do. Only about 10% of the population is able to sustain a weight loss.

It gets worse. Much of our DNA doesn't change. However, much of it has what we can think of as light switches. The food we eat can affect the position of switches. Think of it as a house with many rooms -- intelligence, violence, athletic ability, etc. The food you eat can affect the position of the light switches. So, let your child eat birthday cake, fast food (ethnic oil, salt and sugar), etc. This type of diet will cause precocious puberty, even as young as three years old these days. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. 

We all know about drug babies -- those who are born with an addiction. If you crave cheat days, then your DNA has likely been modified to crave fat, salt and sugar. Raise your hands -- Which tastes better to you? French fries or boiled potatoes? There's your answer on where your DNA is positioned and where your future child's DNA switch will be positioned and where your future grand-childen's DNA will be positioned and so on until someone breaks the chain. 

Peer pressure is enormous. The dairy industry has seized control of all the health information in schools. This information is carefully designed to maximize THEIR profits, not YOUR health. They may as well be advertising the beneficial nature of heroin and cocaine. In fact, they are as it has been clearly demonstrated that fat, sugar and salt leads to an increased incidence of drug addiction, violence, lower IQ, depression, autism, etc. Many people think they can't have a social life without eating poorly, and perhaps they are right.

No, cheat meals are not OK. Nor is saying "cheat meals" are OK. You wouldn't suggest only using heroin on the weekends. 

Personally, I'd tell the teacher that I wouldn't attend a class that would suggest "cheat meals" are OK unless it included the topic "Cheat cocaine is OK," and they force everyone in the cafeteria to put a dose of cocaine on their tray like they do with milk. 

Your generation is being murdered by food that isn't food. Get mad and do something about it; at least for yourselves and your circle of friends and your future generations.  It's what a person who is really care-full would do.

[SunsetRunner]

Cheat days can help with boosting your metabolism. When you drop calories your metabolism drops too. If you eat a very low-calorie diet for a long period of time, eventually you may plateau. A “refeed” day sort of tricks your metabolism into thinking you are not starving and in a way is more willing to let go of fat.

The downside to a refeed day is you will gain weight the next day. Obviously, you don’t want to go crazy with your refeed day but it gives you a chance to sort of reset your metabolism and maybe have that specific food item you have been craving. So maybe eat at maintenance or something like 200-300 calories over maintenance – nothing crazy, just a manageable amount of calories. When you get back on track for the rest of the week, it’s easy to lose that weight and then some.

As long as you get back on track, there are no long-term consequences of having cheat days.

If you get your macros dialed in right, you won’t get cravings. A refeed day doesn’t necessarily give you a free pass to eat junk. You still need to be health conscious about what you are eating. A refeed day only means that you are eating more calories than usual but the occasional pizza or whatever isn’t going to hurt and can be very beneficial if you are low carb.

[Bogdel]

Hi @MandyH85! I just read your post and some of the replies below. I agree with @GershonSurge, but I also understand that you don't want to feel like you are denying yourself something. I totally identify with that. Unfortunately, focusing on portion and calories is denying yourself a lot. It will not make you fall off the wagon, because, in reality, you are not on the wagon yet... not on the right one, any way. 

To get on the right wagon and stay there without feeling deprived or limited, you need to change the way you think. I had to do that, too, and it has changed my life forever.

First, I'd like to recommend some excellent books by Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Eat to Live, and Eat for Health. You can find them on amazon in printed format, or if you prefer, you can find them in audio format on audible.com.

Secondly, take one step at a time, and decide what kind of foods are causing you weight gain and possible disease (diabetes, high cholesterol, arterial plaque, etc.). For me, it was starch (anything white that turns into sugar as soon as it is absorbed in the stomach, including white flour, potatoes, white rise and sugar in any form). So, instead of "renouncing" starch, I decided to "replace" it with a lot of leafy greens, beans, nuts, berries, and seeds. I still had some meat at the time, but I used it as a condiment, rather than as an aliment. However, I made salad my main meal, both at lunch and dinner. I never craved anything since, because by eating healthy, my body was detoxed and I was free to eat the foods that are good for me. Later, I was finally able to "replace" dairy milk with almond and soy milk.

Dr. Fuhrman has great recipes, and there are support groups where people encourage one another as they transition to what we call Nutritarian lifestyle. But you need to read his books first, which are highly scientific and well documented. You need to learn what each food type does to your body, what you want to do about it and why. 

Unless we replace the Standard American Diet (SAD), which is highly addictive, with Nutritarian diet, which has healing properties, we will be forever plagued with the Standard American Diseases (SAD), such as diabesis, heart disease, and cancer - just to name a few. 

By looking at your picture, you are much younger than me. I hope that you don't wait until you reach my age to learn what I learned just two+ years ago. You are too valuable to sacrifice your health for ...anything and anyone!

Best wishes to you!

[Dominique]

First of all, some prefer to call them "refeed days", which is more neutral / less morally tainted.

Cheat/refeed days have no physiological benefits: they won’t "boost" or "reset" your metabolism in any lasting way, a single day is simply too short for that. So any benefit they may have will be primarily psychological.

Weight loss is a numbers’ game. If you have a 500 calories deficit every single day of the week, you will end up with a 3500 calories weekly deficit. If you have an 800 calories deficit six days of the week and a 1300 calories surplus on one day (your "cheat day"), you will also end up with a 3500 calories weekly deficit. Same exact results from the point of view of weight loss. The second approach may make sense if you have a social life and want to go out with friends or family during the weekend: you will be able to join them and have fun with them.

You don’t have to have "cheat days" in your diet, but you don’t have to avoid them either. It’s up to you how you structure your diet. As long as you can adhere to it, either approach will work.

[Dominique]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

it has been clearly demonstrated that fat, sugar and salt leads to an increased incidence of drug addiction, violence, lower IQ, depression, autism, etc.

---

Wow, it sure seems I’m ticking all the boxes. My typical day of eating consists of 6 servings of protein (25 g each). Four of these come from dairy: two are from low-fat cottage cheese, one is a workout shake with whey and the last one is a bedtime shake with casein. I also have a latte after lunch, with 100 g of milk in it (sometimes full-fat, sometimes semi-skimmed). I’m also eating about 100 g of peanut butter, 30 grams of full-fat cheese (right now, a nice English mature cheddar) and I spread a generous layer of olive oil over my cauliflower rice and my kale salad. As for sugar, 30 grams of dextrose goes into my workout shake (for those who don’t know, dextrose is even worse than table sugar, it has the highest glycemic index you can get). I also put a little bit of brown sugar (nothing crazy) in my morning oatmeal, as well as in my coffee and my plain Greek yogurt (good thing about getting unflavoured stuff is you have full control about what and how much you add to them). As for salt, nothing crazy: cheese is the main item I buy that has quite a lot of it, but I do put some in things that are quite bland (most veggies), together with black pepper. Despite all of the above, I’m happy to report I’ve never done drugs (never even been drunk once in my life, although I do drink wine on occasions), I’m not violent, I have no issues with depression, my IQ is what it is, not Einstein-level, but likely in the central part of the Bell curve. Health wise I have no problem maintaining a healthy weight (currently BMI 21), all my blood markers are spotless, my blood pressure is optimal and I’m in the best shape of my life at 57. If the above outlandish claims have been "clearly demonstrated", they certainly don’t seem to apply to me.

Oh, and to answer the actual question asked in this topic: I personally don’t see a need for a "cheat day", but it’s OK with me if someone wants to fit one. As long as they get their total weekly calories right, their weight loss won’t be affected by it. 

[GershonSurge]

@Dominique,

As another poster mentioned, your continual pushing your way of eating on other people turns them off. 

[Kifferly]

I completely agree with you @MandyH85. I have what I like to call "cheat moments." To me the idea of having a cheat day gives me permission to veg out all day, which makes me feel like I've undone all of the accomplishments I've reached thus far. Having a cheat moment means I eat what I want (in moderation of course) for that moment and then return to my normal sensible (for lack of a better word) eating. I watch my portions (BIG deal), read ingredients, count calories, and reject temptation (which I've gotten really good at). Having cheat moments allows me to live my life as usual without the stress!!  @BeCarefulIBite I hope that you are able to find a nice balance in your journey... losing weight, eating right, staying active, etc. can all be a bit confusing and stressful. I've been at it since December and I've done well thus far, but I'm starting to slow down in my weight loss and at times I'm frustrated, but I think about how far I've come and it only motivates me to research and experiment and continue!! Good luck 

[Bogdel]

@BeCarefulIBite, @Kifferly, @MandyH85, & All,

1) Craving is a sign of food addiction. When we "cheat" and give in to cravings, we defeat our purpose, and continue our addictive lifestyle. Think of an alcoholic, or a drug addict, for example. If they want to be free, cheating will only get them back into their addiction. If they want to be free, they need to know why the addiction is bad for them, and to be truly motivated to remove the things they are addicted to from their consumption. It is the same with food addiction. The solution is to detox our body from the Standard American Diet (SAD), and adopt a healthy lifestyle, free from Sugar, Oil, and Salt (SOS). When I say "sugar", I am not referring to the white, processed sugar alone, but also to all the "foods" that turn into sugar as soon as they are absorbed by your stomach (i.e. pasta, pizza, potatoes, white rise, processed foods, and pastry of any kind) . SOS is bad for us, unless it is taken directly from highly nutritive, plant/fruit based food (Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds). Dr. Joel Fuhrman calls these G-BOMBS. 

2) Giving in to craving will perpetuate the Yo-Yo pattern, and in the end, we will find ourselves not only gaining back the weight we lost, but adding even more weight to what we used to weigh before the diet.

3) Diet is not the solution. We need to change our lifestyle, which includes the kinds of food we eat, and the physical, or lack there of,  activities we maintain.

The question is, whom do we cheat, and what do we cheat? We cheat ourselves of health, as well as the pleasure of looking good and wearing the nicest, fitted clothes that we could not wear while we were overweight. 

As far as rewarding ourselves for the "hard work", every time I "cheat" (eat something that is not good for me), I feel like I have ruined (not rewarded!) myself of all the hard work. Therefore, I prefer to reward myself by buying a nice, slimming dress, pants, or shoes, which will help me celebrate my new, attractive figure. Comm'on ladies! We all want to be healthy and look good/attractive, not just for our man, but for ourselves, too! 

So, let's make up our mind: what's more important to us? Health and beauty, or that destructive addiction to food that leads us deeper and deeper into a self defeating behavior, which ultimately leads to depression and all kinds of diseases? We all need to decide for ourselves. 

Have a great, healthful, victorious day!

[Bogdel]

@Dominique, I am totally shocked and surprised by your eating habits. You look like a young man, from your picture. @GershonSurge and I are much older than you, and I hope you don't get to be our age before you realize the damaging effect of your eating habits. You maintain your weight because you exercise a lot, from what I understand. However, the things that you put into your body will catch up with you if you continue this way. I wish I knew what I know now when I was your age. 

I, too, was addicted to cheese. And who doesn't like sweets? They taste good. Both dairy products and sweets are comfort food (like drugs!), that lead us to our grave sooner, rather than later. Did you know that cheese is addictive? I just found out not too long ago, and that revelation was enough to replace all dairy food with something better and healthier. See the article below on cheese & dairy products: 

http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-cheese-addictive-drugs-20151022-story.html

Hope you have a great day!

[WavyDavey]

I think we need to make the distinction between a "cheat" and a standard diet. Cheat days by definition aren't one's regular daily diet.

Dwayne Johnson has epic cheat days that are 15,000 calories of pizza, pancakes, etc. But his regular diet is much cleaner. He doesn't seem to be suffering much, physically.

I don't really understand cheat days, but I've found cheat meals useful in weight lifting.  A fat and starch-heavy meal (pizza, fries) the night before a heavy day of lifting or a meet day is an effective way to load up the glycogen stores.  It would be a mistake to do it daily, but at the right time, it has its use.

[Dominique]

@Bogdel: I’m 57, so only marginally younger than @GershonSurge and you (I believe you are both in your early sixties). My point is there are many ways to eat for health. Here is what I believe:

• eat an amount of calories that has you maintain a healthy weight, or lead you towards a healthy weight (if you aren’t there yet)
• eat primarily whole / minimally processed foods
• eat the minimum amount of each macronutrient required for health (very easy, as they’re rather low)
• eat a good amount of fruits and vegetables

Once you meet the conditions for total calories and minimum requirements for each macronutrient, how you spread your macronutrients is up to you, and the differences in health outcome will be minimal.

Back to dairy products: it strikes me that the recommendations by the American Cancer Society (referenced by @GershonSurge in this topic) don’t mention dairy or cheese at all. If they were the most potent cause of cancer (as he claims), surely the ACS would issue a strong warning against them, right? The recommendations do mention obesity a whopping 57 times, so the message is quite clear to me: do whatever it takes to bring that weight down, that’s what really matters.

[LakeishaTherese]

I just want to thank you. This information is something that I can use to help me change to a healthier lifestyle. And work toward changing my family's health for the better through improved (healthier) meal options. 

Plus, it explains why I have gained 5 lbs since trying to start dieting. (Short version: I need to stop rationalizing why fast food or some other unhealthy thing is okay "just this once.")

[GershonSurge]

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@LakeishaTherese wrote:

I just want to thank you. This information is something that I can use to help me change to a healthier lifestyle. And work toward changing my family's health for the better through improved (healthier) meal options. 

Plus, it explains why I have gained 5 lbs since trying to start dieting. (Short version: I need to stop rationalizing why fast food or some other unhealthy thing is okay "just this once.")

---

Come on over to this thread and we may be able to help you with more complete information. Looking at "cheat days" or "how often to weigh" or even weight is the wrong metric. It's more important to get to the root cause, which is the type of food you eat. If you can get there, you can toss the scale as well as greatly reduce the immediate risks of dying from any degenerative diseases you may have.

Please be hard on us. Don't believe anything we say without solid references backed up by solid science dating back over half a century (and more if you want to pursue the references). You can dip in a toe or jump in all at once. Either way can work. 

[Kifferly]

@Bogdel   In regards to cheating being a sign of addiction, I do agree that food can in fact be an addiction.  Before embarking on my lifestyle change I would eat whatever I wanted, when I wanted and dared anyone to say anything about it. I believe that food was an addiction for me AT THAT TIME!!   I was advised by many people to take cheat days. I decided that IF I cheat, it would be a moment at a time, rather than a day. Since December, I have drastically changed not only the amounts/portions that I eat, but the foods that I eat as well (I've never been into sweets..... burgers, fries, etc. were my problem).  Because I have come such a long way thus far (I'm not done yet) and don't want to undo the progress that I've made, I have developed the ability to walk away from temptation, by continually lessening the amount of cheat moments that I take.  Doing this makes it easier and easier for me to turn away bad foods. I no longer believe that I have a food addiction. When I do take cheat moments, they are not due to cravings or because I feel the need to reward myself.  I take them because I want to!! BUT I limit myself in those cheat moments... rather than having 4-5 cookies as I would in the past, I may have 1 and I walk away completely.  As time passes, I continue to lessen the amount of cheat moments that I have. While I totally appreciate the information that you've supplied, I was not encouraging anyone to partake in cheating, I was in fact, trying to do the opposite, by saying if you're going to cheat, do it in smaller increments, such as "moments", which allows one to cheat (if they're going to or feel the need to do that) and be done with it... continue with the regularly scheduled program, rather than dedicating an entire day to cheating WHICH (in my opinion) is a danger to progress made. Since December, I've lost 19lbs and have yet to gain any of it back.... cheat moments work for me and far less stressful than cheat days(in my opinion). I thought perhaps this method would be helpful to someone else. 

[Bogdel]

@Kifferly, Thanks for your reply. As I was reading your description of "cheats", I could find myself in it. I just don't call it a "cheat". The way I look at it is that I give myself permission to have, let's say, an ice-cream every once in a long while. I have no problem with that since, like you say, it is a one time thing, and it isn't something that I do often.

My concern is when I hear the word "craving". I am in a FB group where some people try really hard to change their eating habits and then cry for help, confessing that after a week or so of eating right, they have this strong craving for their regular SAD foods. That is, in my opinion, a sign of addiction. If they manage to overcome it, they could find freedom, and ultimately, health.

I hope that my earlier comments didn't come across as critical. We are all here to help, learn, and encourage one another in the right direction. I love the Eat Well section of FitBit because many of the participants are highly interested in nutrition. Also, some of them have read and experienced more than others, and we can exchange information. 

I am so happy to hear that you lost 19 lbs since December! Keep it up, my friend, and never look back. 

BTW, How did you do it (smiling)?  

[Bogdel]

@Dominique, You write: "Back to dairy products: it strikes me that the recommendations by the American Cancer Society (referenced by @GershonSurge in this topic) don’t mention dairy or cheese at all. If they were the most potent cause of cancer (as he claims), surely the ACS would issue a strong warning against them, right? "

I'm afraid I need to say, "wrong!". Sounds to me like you have not watched "What the Health". You can find it for free on Netflix. I can't recommend it enough!

I also read that dairy products stimulate our liver to produce cholesterol. I used to eat a lot of milk and cheese. That's what raised my LDL and clogged my arteries. I actually, unintentionally, experimented with it. When I was in the US (where I live), I seldom ate cheese, and with my still imperfect nutritarian diet my LDL was about 129. Then, last summer, I went to Europe, where milk and cheese .are both delicious and abundant. In just a couple of month of eating that, my LDL went up to 162. As soon as I came back and replaced the dairy with healthier things, my LDL went down again, and so did the arterial plaque. 

We are all here to help and encourage one another, as well as to learn from one another. Although I have learned and benefited a great deal from Dr. Fuhrman's teaching (as well as others'),  @GershonSurge is way ahead of me on this topic, and offers a great deal of valuable references on this forum. 

As for your age, you don't show it. Nonetheless, I still "beat you" by 7 years (smiling). 

Have a great day!

[WavyDavey]

@Bogdel wrote:

@Dominique, You write: "Back to dairy products: it strikes me that the recommendations by the American Cancer Society (referenced by @GershonSurge in this topic) don’t mention dairy or cheese at all. If they were the most potent cause of cancer (as he claims), surely the ACS would issue a strong warning against them, right? "

I'm afraid I need to say, "wrong!". Sounds to me like you have not watched "What the Health". You can find it for free on Netflix. I can't recommend it enough!

I read the ACS study, and did I miss the references to dairy and cheese? Could you point me to which page that was on? All I saw was:

"

Diet Quality

ACS guideline recommendation

Achieve a dietary pattern that is high in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.5

• Follow the American Cancer Society Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention69; ie, limit consumption of processed meat and red meat; eat at least 2.5 cups of vegetables and fruits each day; choose whole grains instead of refined grain products; and, if you drink alcoholic beverages, limit consumption to no more than one drink per day for women or 2 drinks per day for men"

I understand the overall point you're making, but the study didn't say that, so I'm not sure why @Dominique's observation isn't valid?