Are cheat days benneficial?

[serbyte]

I have been watching what i eat for a few years now, and i find it hard to eat bad. I cannot get myself to do a cheat day. Every once and a while i will have a cheat meal, but subconsiously I will minimize the carbs and maximize the protien.

I was wondering if cheat days were benneficial to keeping your metabolism up?
What is better a Whole cheat day or a Cheat meal, and how often would you reccomend one?
What do you guys reccomend, macronutrient wise that a cheat day should look like?( im guessing low protien, high fat carbs).

If it proves to be benneficial, i will begin implimenting them in my diet.

 

[OXANDRIN]

a cheat day or meal?

i think a day is too much. i could eat 5000 or more cals per day if i were to cheat all day

i think a cheat meal every 3-7 days is good.

now when i say cheat meal..... i mean like a big mac or a order of pancakes from ihop

no like 10 cheese steaks with a gallon of icecream.....that is just binging and not good for dieting.

so for those cheat meals..... instead of your chicken with brown rice and a salad for dinner go get a big mac......instead of your egg whites and oatmeal for breakfast go have an order of blueberry pacakes from ihop

 

[juve]

Cheat day/meal - a concept I could never grasp: what is the purpose other than to eat junk food. A refeed - ok. But a binge...that is begging a question: aren't we in for an eating disorder?
Just raise the calorie intake by 25-30% (maybe more) of your daily intake and keep it clean. CKD has its own procedure, as for other diets, just follow a similar protocol.

 

[OXANDRIN]

juve,

being on a stict diet is metally challenging..... a cheat meal can be psycologically benificial. there are also things like leptin, ghrelin, and other things that can be postively effected by a cheat meal..... i do agree cheat days are wastes of time. all those calories don't just disappear the next day you know....

 

[juve]

well, at least stay away from trans/partially-trans/refied fats and processed carbs - these will not have any positive (probably will aggravate antagonize even further) on body hormonal feedback system.

 

[B0ARDIN087]

cheat meals are good to keep you sane, also i think refeeds should be done weekly if on a low carb but not "cheat days" i think u all know what i mean

 

[Akateros]

Raising carbs is beneficial if you habitually eat high-protein/low-carb; at any rate, it is for me. I find that the best protocol in my case is to keep protein fairly high, raise carbs pretty much to match, and drop fat very low that day. A carb-up or refeed is not a cheat, unless you start with a plan and by bedtime it's all gone to heck and you're stuffing your face heedlessly with anything that doesn't move fast enough to get away.

As for "cheats", not necessarily. If you're the kind of person who feels like you're going to go insano if you watch your cube-mates down one more doughnut, and that eventually leads to you going through drive-through, ordering a Family Pak, and downing the whole thing between turning into the road and the next traffic light -- then, yes, controlled cheats may be your answer. Or if you are, say, taking a new date out to dinner and don't quite want to let your whole freak flag fly straight off...

If you have or have ever had any kind of problems with binge or disordered eating in the past, then even a cheat meal may be too triggering. And if food doesn't really matter to you on that psychological level, you really don't care whether you eat chicken breasts and brown rice or Taco Bell or your mom's best holiday cooking, it's all fuel to you -- then why "cheat"?

 

[JKurz1]

well, at least stay away from trans/partially-trans/refied fats and processed carbs - these will not have any positive (probably will aggravate antagonize even further) on body hormonal feedback system.

Coming straight from a coke-head's mouth........take it for what its worth....

 

[juve]

Coming straight from a coke-head's mouth........take it for what its worth....

:mature:


I suppose your reply is much more pertinent to the subject matter

 

[JKurz1]

JUST bustn your balls....relax.....just think its weird that one who is so concerned with trans-fats, part. hydg. oils, etc.......dablles in the white stuff.............agree?

 

[wtlftr]

maybe he is trying to boost his MBR for a short time. To each their own. We all have a little bad thing we do. So relax.

 

[JKurz1]

LOL....I'm totally relaxed chief........it was a joke.....taken too far...done......

BTW - I have NO bad "thing" that I do......ok, ONE......or maybe a few...BUT NO MORE!

 

[serbyte]

today i finished my cheat day and will begin implimenting one of these days every week, as a sort of metabolic reset. I will let you guys know if it does well for me.

 

[JKurz1]

no cheat days...only the strict survive.......results will be greater and faster.......

 

[serbyte]

Ive lived with no cheat days for 2 years, and my friend cheats at least once a week. He has definatly seen better results than me, even though we have a simmilar diet, and workout together. It may be genetics, but i highly doubt it.

 

[wtlftr]

I like a double whopper day, where you eat nothing but double whoppers.

 

[JKurz1]

100-1 says its genetics.............there really is no need to stray from your diet.......develop a plan and stick to it...........

 

[wtlftr]

everyone needs a break now and then

 

[adam wj]

there was an episode of married with children where al bundy was telling some healthy guy about eating habits. i dont remember it perfectly but basicly it was along the lines of, if you eat like shit, you can eat tons of shit and feel fine. if you eat well, and have a ton of shitty food at once your body cant handle it. so al challenged the guy to a burger eating contest... you can probably figure out the rest (the healthy guy died and al pounded 10 more burgers)

i gotta agree with our old friend al bundy on this one.. i cant even eat 4 pieces of pizza now without my digestive system reminding me one way or another its there

 

[wtlftr]

so do a cheat day more often

 

[juve]

Ive lived with no cheat days for 2 years, and my friend cheats at least once a week. He has definatly seen better results than me, even though we have a simmilar diet, and workout together. It may be genetics, but i highly doubt it.

in the realm of personal deficiencies (lack of discipline) one can come up with the most igenious excuses (comparing oneself to a male counterpart??) - I say go for a coke binge instead, that'll slice you and dice you

forget food!

 

[serbyte]

Fuck you. If dieting only concerned how dedicated and educated one is, then i would be the most ripped motherfuker here. (I dont even like food too much, i think of it rather as a tool. When i eat, I eat based on the Macros i need at that time, and not based on flavor or hunger.) But it is not the case. Over the past two years of watching every little thing I eat, i have managed to Slow my metabolism down to about half of what it used to be. Before I ever dieted, I could eat crap all day long, and get huge, and stay lean. And if I wanted to get cut, i would just add some cardio, and cut carbs at night. I still ate whatever the fuk i wanted. This winter I ended up taking 1 week off of dieting to eat like a normal person, Not like a slob. I ate meals with my family, which included white bread. I ate carbs and fats and protien moderatly, while keeping my calories at about 2500. I didnt eat fast food or junk food, but i didnt eat healthy food either. I managed to put on 5 pounds of fat and increase 2 percent bodyfat. Mind you, i was going from a clean bulk to a lower calorie, normal diet, and i gained fat.

Im sure that there are more guys that feel the same way, and i think that junk days, if kept moderate are very beneficial. In my opinion, eating junk meals at least once a week will keep you metabolism running high. SC even posted that it keeps thyroid and leptin up. I wish someone had some studys of this.

Havent you noticed, guys that eat crap all the time do not gain fat, and if you tried to eat like them, you would turn into a fat slob. Thats cuz their metablism is used to eating like that, and so is ours in eating healthy. You have to throw the body off every once and a while to get things runing at good speed.

 

[JKurz1]

Havent you noticed, guys that eat crap all the time do not gain fat, and if you tried to eat like them, you would turn into a fat slob. Thats cuz their metablism is used to eating like that, and so is ours in eating healthy. You have to throw the body off every once and a while to get things runing at good speed.

HUH??????????????????? Come on bro......don't be ignorant........

 

[juve]

Havent you noticed, guys that eat crap all the time do not gain fat, and if you tried to eat like them, you would turn into a fat slob. Thats cuz their metablism is used to eating like that, and so is ours in eating healthy. You have to throw the body off every once and a while to get things runing at good speed.

No, I haven't - I must be oblivious to such a widespread phenomenon. But if we go off on this tangent, then:
1)fat/obese people have very fast metabolism (yes, it just can't cope with the amount of energy that's being given, plus poor food choices)
2)fat/obese people much higher amount of leptin, T3 yet are still obese because the food they eat only clogs the arteries and seems to have a preferrential in adipocytes
Be fat, you'll have top-notch hormonal feedback system (minus GH, Test and neuro/protein peptides associated with these)

By my replies I tried to help you, in a sense that while I don't advocate cheat days, refeed is what I recommend. mod protein + very high CLEAN carbs + ~20g's fat at most (make these EFA's)=your friend and the rest is riding in a back seat, you'll be in a prime in just a few weeks. Tell your friend you're Elite, while he has an eating disorder

 

[serbyte]

I cannot believe that no one agrees with me. Im going to be implimenting cheat days, but now im not so sure that i want to have a moderate fat intake. Would a cheat day of moderate fat protien and carbs be bad. My current diet is composed of about 250 carbs 250 protien and 40-60 fat. Eating like this I do not belive that i need a refeed. I never used to take cheat days, but now I am going to start just as an experiment. And for all you guys who think that i am doing this out of lack of dicipline, FUCK YOU! I could give two shits about eating junk. What i mean by a cheat day is similar to going to a breakfast house, and having a whole egg omlet, not an egg white omlet, eating the hash browns and eating my pancakes too. This is what i mean by crap food. Do you guys think that this type of meal will elicit alot of fat gain.

 

[JKurz1]

There is a reason it's called "cheating".................forget it and stick with your diet....


BTW- Settle down a little bit...no need to get heated...........

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Don't believe that no one agrees with you? Well, you'd better, because apparently no one here does. Stop being such an ass, and take what's being recommended to you. Juve and Jkurz are telling you what to do. If you'e into the game 100%, do that. If you don't want to follow whatever advice these two or any others pitch your way, THEN DON'T! It's that simple. If you feel it's beneficial, fine, do that.

 

[wtlftr]

Serb..load up one day every two weeks or so. Have fun, but stay stict the other 13 days, this will allow some sanity in dieting. (I didn't read entire thread) Unless you are gearing for a comp then you must stay strict. if general fitness is your goal then cheat every now and then

 

[youlikeadajuice?]

I think cheat meals keep your body from adjusting to the same caloric count. Definatly beneficial.

 

[JKurz1]

I think cheat meals keep your body from adjusting to the same caloric count. Definatly beneficial.[/QUO
Ignorant...........cycling calories and carbs is benefitial.............cheating is not!