{"id":13379,"date":"2011-02-23T15:19:40","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T23:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=13379"},"modified":"2011-02-23T15:19:40","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T23:19:40","slug":"why-wednesday-why-i-dont-have-a-cheat-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=13379","title":{"rendered":"Why Wednesday – Why I Don’t Have a Cheat Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

I do NOT believe in Cheat Days.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

But before anyone zones out or gets angry let me explain my point.<\/p>\n

Recently I talked about the “4-Hour Body” book I was reading and how I did not agree with his statement that everyone should have a Binge Day each week.<\/a> Not only do I thoroughly disagree with the phrase BINGE DAY<\/strong>, I also don’t agree with the concept of Cheat Days.<\/p>\n

Lots of diet plans have a “cheat day.” It’s my understanding that Weight Watchers has a Cheat Day as well. Maybe they work for you. Maybe having a Cheat Day keeps you more motivated to lose weight the other 6 days of the week. But for me I’ve never liked the terms.<\/p>\n

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1. CHEAT DAY implies that I’m on a diet.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I am NOT on a diet. I’m not doing a fad diet or starvation diet in order to lose weight fast. I am changing my entire lifestyle. With changing my lifestyle that means I am changing all of my bad habits–like BINGEING.<\/p>\n

I think the one thing I’ve been consistent with portraying on my blog is the fact that I live my life in a balanced way. I eat pizza, I eat dessert but I also exercise 5 days a week and I eat quality food most of the time. I think my life has changed for the better because of these things.<\/p>\n

2. Cheat Day implies that I’m doing something NAUGHTY<\/span>.<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Like 6 days a week I deny myself food I want, eating carrots and celery and then one day a week I get SNEAK food and “cheat” on my diet (see statement #1), right?<\/p>\n

I don’t think my healthy living lifestyle should have at it’s core SHAME or GUILT. And that’s exactly how I would feel if one day a week I binged on everything in sight just because I could<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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3. I don’t want to live my life longing for my Cheat Day.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The most important part of the way I live my life at 144 pounds is eating the things I LOVE whenever I want. I balance those treats, snacks and splurges with regular, vigorous exercise and moderate eating throughout the day.<\/p>\n

For example: I know that I will almost always eat more calories on a Saturday night than I will on a Tuesday night. So Saturdays are my days for a long workout. I have zero guilt about anything I eat on Saturdays because I know I worked out and I made healthy choices throughout the day before indulging in the Saturday Night Dinner.<\/p>\n

4. I make healthy choices every day in order to “cheat” every day.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

For example: I know that I will want dessert most nights. Instead of having a string cheese or extra handful of chips with lunch, or candy at work, I’d much rather save those 200 calories and eat them for dessert after dinner.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n5. I don’t want to live my life where certain foods are FORBIDDEN<\/span>.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

That concept will just make me want that forbidden food more.<\/em> Then I’ll obsess about it, crave it, think about how I can get that food. How is that a healthy, balanced way to live my life? I would much rather eat whatever food I want, in smaller portions, to satisfy a craving AND if I am truly hungry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I suppose there are inherent “Cheat Days” already in the calender year: Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Thanksgiving…I could make an excuse to overeat almost every day if I wanted to. “It’s New Year’s Eve! Eat!” or “It’s the 4th of July! BBQ Time!” One burger on the grill with some fruit salad, a serving of potato chips and maybe some pickles tastes just as good as a BINGE event on a holiday. In fact, it probably tastes better eaten in moderation because I haven’t made myself feel sick overeating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One argument FOR a cheat day by a lot of sources is that having one cheat day a week changes your metabolism because you shake up the caloric intake and confuse your body into losing more weight. I think this is accurate. I’ve seen it many times every time I’ve hit a plateau in my weight loss journey.<\/p>\n

My response to that? My caloric intake is different every single day, so I’m already “confusing” my body. Bingeing won’t give me any added benefits (and it will damage my self-esteem). I eat more calories on the days that I work out.\u00a0 And even on days I work out, I eat varying calories depending on the activity<\/em> I am doing. If it’s a Saturday and I’ve spent over an hour in the gym and burned 700+ calories, I’m going to eat almost 700+ calories more. But on days I swim and only burn 350 calories? I don’t always eat those 350 calories back.<\/p>\n

In the end it’s a personal decision. If Weight Watchers works for people and they advocate “Cheat Days”, follow the program. I don’t do WW but I think they are a good program to lose weight the real way.<\/p>\n

For me, I’d rather have a little bit of a treat every day instead.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: How do you feel about “Cheat Days\/Binge Days”? Do practice it?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do NOT believe in Cheat Days. But before anyone zones out or gets angry let me explain my point. Recently I talked about the “4-Hour Body” book I was reading and how I did not agree with his statement that everyone should have a Binge Day each week. Not only do I thoroughly disagree […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[55,64,65,92,104,105,106,152,154,171,186,193,194,246,247,278,296,297,298,1389],"tags":[2613,1503,8605,2615,8606,2614,2616,8683,2617,8807,1390],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/large_junkfood.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13379"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13915,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13379\/revisions\/13915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}