Thread: What's the point of cheat days?

Cheat day is to get your sanity back. A man could only take chicken breast and eggs for so long before he takes a hostage.

Originally Posted by feinburgrl

I'm on a cut now and trying to lose about 10 more pounds before I do a clean bulk instead of eating over 4500 calories a day and getting 20 pounds of fat in 3 months. I'm trying to understand cheat days because I had one yesterday. I consume about 4000 calories and 2000 of it was ice cream. Does it really treat your body of thinking your not starving and your burn more fat through out of the week or is it just adding more calories and taking longer to lose the last few pounds?

Sassy or Built will have a better response, but it's my understanding that it restores your glycogen levels?

You're dieting all week long and then you take that one or two hours to chow down. Some people eat clean carbs while others go whole hog and grab the Froot Loops and mint chocolate chip ice cream... and pizza and wings and donuts, oh, God, the donuts! Ahem.

And, yes, that carb-heavy eating restores your glycogen levels and fools your body into thinking that you're not starving yourself to death. Without the cheat meal your body's survival mechanism would kick in causing your metabolism to shut down or slow down in an effort to conserve your body's fat and keep you alive.

Uh, how much of that did I get wrong?

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That and the hostages.

Originally Posted by x~factor

Cheat day is to get your sanity back. A man could only take chicken breast and eggs for so long before he takes a hostage.

LoL for real

Originally Posted by x~factor

Cheat day is to get your sanity back. A man could only take chicken breast and eggs for so long before he takes a hostage.

Agreed

Like others have said, it's for a few reasons. Mostly for sanity and replenishing glycogen, leptin, etc..

2000 calories of ice cream? Well, that's probably just a bit excessive unless you've got some ridiculous metabolism.

when i restrict calories for long a cheat day gets the losing weight ball going again. plus it helps you not think so much about all the stuff you love and can't eat if you're allowed to have it once in a while.

cheat days rock!!!!

I had chocolate and almonds ice cream and cookies

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Lemme give you a real life example.......diet stall for 3 weeks.......cheat day (not hog wild, but effin CARBS, dammit....to the tune of two meals of prob 250g carbs.......week off of diet, mostly around 50g carb dly with as much protein/fat as I wanted.....on average 20-30 additional g..........gained 5 pounds.........lost 4 the first day back, two the next day, and one each for the next two days.......

So, blasted through that plateau.....I'm happy....my metabolism is happy......

What niki said - restores leptin levels or something, so you keep burning fat rather than stalling. Last week I was cutting, then had my scheduled cheat day, but due to the clean eating all week that pizza (that I should be able to finish off no problems then a bag of potato chips) only got half eaten before I was done! Cheating doesn't work too well when the body gets accustomed to eating clean and can't handle the crap! (Well, mine anyway)

Cheating: Should You Do It?

If you're on a schedule & trying to get some dramatic results, I'd first limit it to a cheat MEAL instead of a cheat DAY. I would also make it more like a cal-up and a carb-up instead of a free-for-all feeding frenzy.

When I'm on a cut for a show (but still far enough out that I can afford to enjoy a little), I'll make my cheat meal on a Saturday night if I'm going out w/ friends for dinner or out dancing. The "cheat" part is more about having a few drinks, maybe some bread (like the stuff they give you at steakhouses) w/ a good hunk of steak, maybe some fries, but more likely a baked potato (still prefer them plain). Its not about shit-loading but rather just a refeed w / more variety of food and more cals than you are regularly consuming.

The purpose is two-fold - to introduce more variety, a little garbage food, and a good cal intake if you've been on a restricted diet - both in terms of variety and total cals. What I've found if I am on a very restricted choice of food (e.g. chicken, broccoli, eggs, almonds, potatos and protein mix), I usually get lactose-intolerant and pretty much can't digest anything outside of this list. The reason this can be dangerous for a competitor is like this - one time during a prep, I went w/ my trainer (note WITH my trainer - he said it was ok) to Wendy's and picked up a Greek or Caesar Salad - anyway a chicken & salad that had some grated cheese on it. I was careful to avoid the cheese, but must've eaten some because I immediately got bloated up w/ a miserable stomach ache that took a day to get rid of. If something like this happens on show day, you're done. Your 4-6 months of prep ruined.

And as noted above - a cheat meal is for sanity - it can be hard to keep a boring diet going for weeks on end. It limits your life socially - so having that one "out" to get together w/ friends and not be the annoying person who can't eat or drink anything fun, or just never goes out - trust me - competition dieting can be very hard on your social life - I've lost friends during my preps. And having that one "out" per week also helps to refocus once its over so you can dive into another boring week of chicken & broccoli

If you were doing a keto diet, this would equate to a carb-up. if you want to keep the progress moving w/ your cutter (keto diet or otherwise), instead of shit loading on your cheat day -- two things will help: 1) keep it to a cheat meal (or if it helps - set a time limit like 2 hrs to keep things under control) and 2) use it to up the cals, but keep your food choices still good quality - e.g. a good steak or burger, potato, sushi (one of my favs), maybe some drinks, maybe a dessert.

Here's how you know the diet is working - for your cheat meal you look forward to the flavor of your steak or sushi, and have no desire to eat chocolate.

They are so you don't go crazy! Lol but they also have some other positive effects as well. 2,000 calories of I've cream is a bit much tho man. Id tone it down just a bit !

2000 calories worth of ice cream sounds fucking awesome In my freezer sits two big ass containers of ice cream (homemade vanilla and mint chocolate chip) however, i wont be eating them and they arent even mine

The 2 days after I ate all that ice cream and cookies. I was sleeping a lot. It's weird but if I'm going to cheat im going to go all out.

Cheat days? I have been doing those for years, my girlfriend just doesnt know about it.

Originally Posted by ManInBlack

Cheat days? I have been doing those for years, my girlfriend just doesnt know about it.

Yikes! Hope you put a condom on your tongue for safe .. whatever....