Community » Get Advice » Diet and Nutrition » How often do you cheat?

Let me just say I have a major sweet tooth. The first two weeks I was craving cakes, cookies, ice cream, etc. I gave up 100% of the sugar and artificial sweetners during the first two weeks. I read somewhere if you cut it cold turkey for 10 days, it will stop the cravings cold in their tracks. The only thing sweet I had was fruit. It worked. About once a week I go over my calorie goals, but the rest of the week I keep it under. The fluctuation seems to work better than just always staying under - I think it keeps your body from going into starvation mode.

Anyway back to your original question - I have treat days NOT cheat days. After every 10 pounds I allow myself one meal of whatever I want.

You might consider this cheating, but once a month (or a few days a month) when I have to have chocolate... I get a king size Hershey's Dark chocolate bar and break it into 4 pieces, 1 piece (or 4 rectangles) a day for 4 days. It only adds 90 calories to that day. I was never a big fan of dark chocolate, but once I gave up the sugar for two weeks - I find the dark chocolate much tastier. I realized I really like it with fruit (strawberries, bananas, raspberries) Yum YUM

Hi there....I do a 3 week calorie rotation...it works well for a good treat without having to cheat so to say...So on week 1&2 I stay at about 600-800 non-protein calories and week 3 is about 1000-1200of non-protein calories,then it starts all over. This really works well for me without all the guilty feelings of thinking I cheated. I don't know how you count your calories, but I only count true calories...If your not aware how to do that I'd love to tell ya how it works....Becca

Hi Everyone.

I cheat all the time :D

If by 'cheating' you mean, eating a sweet (for example, a piece of cake) here, or eating a salty snack there. For me, it's almost every two or three days! Seriously. HOWEVER, staying within my calorie count range is uber important! It's my number one rule!!

And much like the reader above me, I'm way less likely to binge when I don't suppress any food groups, (or treats). But, it does NOT mean that you eat an entire bag of nacho chips in one day! Or eat half a cake! Or eat an entire medium pizza! Or eat a dozen donuts! No amount of exercise will burn that off.

In one binge, a person could easily take in an excess of 3000 calories. Easily!

One teeny tiny moment of weakness could destroy weeks of hard work! So, if you can find a way to NOT binge, you've done so much already! :)

Good luck! :)

after reading the other posts, I decided to try it. I've been steadily losing 1 -1.5 pounds per week. Last week, I ate a little more a few times and increased my calorie count over the calorie goal. I carefully logged everything. I lost 2.3 pounds. I am hopeful that this wasn't a one time fluke.

Thanks for the info.

I was on vacation last week and ate what ever I wanted - all the yummy stuff. I only gained 3 pounds. Not too terribly bad. This week I went back to eating sensibly and lost a whopping 5 pounds. There is definately something to this occassional binging. Even if you average it out, that is 2.5 pounds per week. That's a full pound to pound and a half more than when I never induldged at all. I'm liking this!!!