Hi guys, I wanted to ask you guys when you diet, do you use a cheat day once a week? And if so do you think it helps you to get leaner or do you just use it to keep yourslef on the diet?
Yes, I do. My cheat day, in fact, is today (it’s my Birthday dinner!). I haven’t found the slightest indication of it helping me get leaner (you know, the old “jack the metabolism back up again” argument), but it makes the diet acceptable and doesn’t seem to do any damage, actually.
Yeah, I have a cheat day pretty much every week. The key thing is to not go overboard. It doesn’t help your physique to have a one day orgy of pizza and donuts. I use it to have a few of the things I don’t normally eat, such as bread and cold cereal, but don’t go too overboard.
It all depends on the your metabolism. I know guys who are 290 lb @ 10 % bf and during cutting phase they carb up on cheat days on 2000 g carbs (!) and gain almost no fat. I can carb up with 750 g CH, but everything over that number has a significant impact on my dieting efforts. It can completely stop the fat loss in the next week.
Happy birthday, Ak. How many years is it?
I have one cheat day a week. Sometimes two. But I definitley find this a big help in losing fat. Everytime I cheat this one day I find my self looking more lean and cut than before. I do feel I am tricking my body. My metabolism sky rockets to burn this food and fat. And then right after that you eat healthy again and that metabolism still seems to be going and ends up burning excess fat on the body. I am taking Hydroxycut, so that also may have an effect on how my metabolism works.
I’m thirty, man!
Jag: My wife and I do “metabolic days” – it sounds better than “cheat days”, anyway – every 3-5 days during our diet phases, where we bump up our calories up a bit and, incidentally, eat some “bad” food in the process. (I agree with Cougar, though, in that a whole day spent at Kripsy Kreme and Pizza Hut isn’t the best idea for such days.) There’s a lot to be said for juggling your diet around and keeping your metabolism elevated. As Lyle McDonald has stated so eloquently on this very subject, “Diet smarter, not harder.”
Akacita: The big three-oh, eh? That's the point where life becomes really interesting, and I mean that in a good way.
Hey guys. I was wondering how physical activity comes into play on these ‘cheat’ days? Do you guys do any extra activities on these days to minimize (or eliminate) fat gains? Like, say, an extra long sprinting session or a game of hoops with your buds?
There is a tactics I am trying to employ during “cheat days” and that’s not mixing fats
and carbs together. I think it helps a lot. I am not really into fatty-sweet products
like chocolate and I don’t crave for pizza, so I can eat a ton of “clean” food. I crave
for cereals (!), muesli, pancakes with cheese or jam, so basically I don’t have problems
with junk food. I guess I can consider myself lucky when it comes to the type of
craving…
I am absolutely convinced that fat loss per week is directly related to total calories
consumed per week, vs. total calories expended.
So from what you have told me in the past Bill you are telling fellow T-Forumers cheat days probably hurt more than help?
1.) Slow fat loss
2.) You could really go overboard & REALLY slow the fat loss!
Cheat days certainly can slow fat loss if total calories per week is increased. Hoping that eating 3000 calories over maintenance is going to result in burning 3000 calories more over the rest of the week than you otherwise would have is just a pipe dream.
Or let’s say calories per week is the same. Do you really lose more fat, retain LBM better, by starving yourself excessively 6 days, then pigging one day, than by having a more reasonable diet 7 days per week?
For example, will 1200 calories per day for 6 days, then with 6800 calories on one day, giving a total of 14,000 calories for the week, provide better fat loss and LBM retention than 2000 cal/day for 7 days, also 14,000 total calories? No.
A day where calories are maintenance is fine. But truly cheating, being a pig, sets you back, I am convinced.
For that matter, taking a week at maintenance calories can be a good thing after each 2 weeks of hard dieting if thyroidals are not being used. But, not at excess calories. Your thyroid will come back at maintenance calories.
If you are using thyroid hormone, then I think you can completely forget the idea that your cheating is going to be rewarded with faster metabolism on later days – the concept becomes totally inapplicable, except if of value to the person psychologically.
So bill what u are saying it’s better to have a cheat meal which may provide maintance cals then have an out and out cheat day ?
Yes, absolutely… it’s fine to have some meals higher than what you are using during most of your dieting, being up at normal maintenance, as much as 1/3 of your daily maintenance calories. Or a whole day that is up at maintenance calories.
But that’s sort of a different concept than the “cheat meal,” or “cheat day,” which all too often are thought of as licenses for gluttony.
And so far as fat loss and LBM retention are concerned, you are definitely better off for these higher-but-still-reasonable calories or meals to be nutritionally sound, than for them to be composed of say ice cream, junk food, and beer.
Bill, I can’t really see how going to maintenance calories could help much. Personally, I can’t tell any difference between my “diet calories” or my “maintenance calories” as far as food cravings go, it’s only a few 100 calories. I mean if I am going to be suffering I might as well be losing fat. Maybe thats my problem, I am either dieting(all planed meals, always on time, never cheating) or eating like a pig. It seems like I have no control to eat just a little extra, once that Taco Bell or Wendy’s hits my lips I’m done. I mean I have no problem eating 5000 cal’s in one sitting!
This brings up another question I have. Is there a certain amount of calories that you body can digest at one time? I mean if I am going to eat 2500 cal in one meal is it really going to make a difference if I bump it up to 5000 cal?
Brian, I think there is a slight difference in actual percentage of calories absorbed according to the size of the meal but have never seen data on this. This I think applies
mostly or only to protein.
The body is competing with bacteria in the GI for absorption of nutrients. As the amount of food, or at least the amount of protein, becomes large, it seems that the bacteria can get a somewhat larger share. The evidence I have for this, aside from it being logically reasonable, is that when consuming “foods” such as MRP’s and oil, virtually everything is absorbable and therefore, if the bacteria got nothing, the only thing being eliminated would be bile. That is not the case, there is always some mass to the stool (which is principally dead bacteria, by the way), but this is small when having only moderate amounts of such “food.” However, if the amount is increased, to say twice as much protein (72 grams instead of say 36) the increase in the amount of stool appears to be somewhat more than double. Also, the human digestive system does not produce gas: any gas is the result of bacterial absorption of nutrients.
Fats, however, are absorbed extremely well, and I think carbohydrates are also.
I think that the above is strictly fine tuning and I mention it really only for the sake of not saying flatly that there is ZERO effect along those lines. For practical purposes, X calories consumed per week is X calories comsumed per week, and having super-sized meals doesn’t make X+1000 calories “look like” X calories to the body.
For example, before I started lifting weights, I was so stupid (also so poor) as to eat one meal per day. 2000 calories in ONE meal per day
was maintenance and anything more than that got me gaining fat. I have no doubt that the body can absorb plenty of calories from a single meal. Furthermore, in more recent times when I get somewhat fatter, prior to having to start a diet again, it is generally from one single large meal per week: a trip to the Texas Roadhouse.
So I just don’t buy that 5000 calories in one meal is no different from 2000. For me personally, it will mean almost 1 more lb of fat!
This is a little off topic of what Bill was saying but there was a study done recently which showed that lab mice which had normal bacterial colonization in the gut grew better than ones which were free of bacteria so although they’re in competition for nutrients they do alot of good and this finding isn’t anything new in that some people think probiotics to be helpful for gaining mass.
Bill, what do you think of a diet similar to what Skip La Cour does now- In the past when cutting up, he would do a moderate amount of cardio, and keep his calories around say 2,800 daily- (not keto- white rice at 4 out of 8 meals). Now, he is going with around 4,500 calories while upping his cardio. He says the body will hold on to more muscle if it see’s a more constant calorie intake, plus the extra calories he’s using through cardio. Do you think it’s better to increase calories a bit, and add some cardio that will offset the extra calories, then to just lower total calorie intake? It seems to me to make sense since the total input/ output would be basically the same. Thanks Bill.
Hi edge it seems like a good idea from skip but u must remeber when doing cardio it also burns muscle aswell and being a natural like skip it is easy to fall into a catabolic state. The extra cals might help him stay in a postive state but the cardio will not. So it’s better to diet the extra weight off.