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Last updated on May 5th, 2024 at 06:27 pm
If your diet involves a “cheat day” and you think that fasting the next day is the solution, think again.
Fasting after a cheat day leads to:
- Metabolism slowing down
- Obsessive thoughts about food
- Food guilt
- Messed-up hunger cues
And many other negative outcomes that not only will mess up your relationship with food and your body, but also NOT help you lose weight.
In this article, we will explore what a cheat day is, what you should eat after a cheat day on your diet, and why you should ditch the cheat day altogether.
What is a Cheat Day
A cheat day is when you allow yourself permission to eat certain foods (or all foods) freely for a specific amount of time.
Examples of cheat days include:
- Allowing any and every type of food one day a week
- Allowing any and every type of food for a weekend
- Breaking an intermittent fast rule for a day
- Allowing carbs for a day when they are usually restricted
- Eating “off limits” foods one day a week
The logic behind a cheat day is that you have restricted food all week, and one day to “cheat” will not derail your diet.
Should I Fast After A Cheat Day
No.
Eating less after a cheat day will likely just result in a binge restrict cycle.
Fasting after a cheat day causes:
- Bigger more intense cheat days
- Night time binging
- More frequent cheat days
- Low energy and mood
- Low blood sugar (which can also be dangerous)
- Delayed digestion
- Constipation
- Eating past fullness
- Decreased metabolism
Eating less after a cheat day will not help you lose weight. It wil likely cause weight gain. The body likes consistent food intake. When you fast or do not eat enough food daily, your body will store any additional food it can get.
Being in a constant “feast or famine” will cause your body to shift its metabolic processes in order to preserve energy. This will include revving up your hunger drive, shifting hunger and fullness hormones, and altering digestive enzymes.
The best thing you can do after a “cheat day” to preserve your metabolism is to simply eat normal meals and snacks the next day.
Does A Cheat Day Reset Your Metabolism
No.
The key to resetting your metabolism is consistently eating enough food to meet your physical and emotional needs.
Eating a surplus of food only one or two days a week will mess up your hunger and fullness cues, but it will not reset your metabolism.
Your metabolism is influenced by:
- Age
- Genetics
- Ethnicity
- Thermic effect of food
- Chronic dieting
- Previous weight loss
Your metabolism is NOT influenced by a single cheat day (aka a day of food abundance).
Will I Gain Weight After A Cheat Day
The biggest predictor of weight loss rebound is food restriction. Fasting after a cheat day is just one way that you might be restricting your food.
In other words, you will not gain weight from the cheat day long term, but rather from the fasting that typically follows a cheat day.
However, you might see an increase on the scale following a cheat day even if you don’t fast. Increased weights after a cheat day are not true weight gain.
Weight Gain After a Cheat Day Comes From:
- Additional carbohydrates from a cheat day attract water
- Additional sodium from a cheat day attracts water
- Constipation as your body isn’t used to that much food
- Additional fluid intake from a cheat day artificially increases body weight
Weight gain 1-3 days after a cheat day does not come from additional accumulation of body fat.
Will 1 Cheat Day Ruin A Diet
No.
However, if you are doing an extreme diet like the keto diet, a cheat day will pull you out of ketosis.
For other diets, one cheat day is unlikely to have any change on overall weight. However, a weekly “cheat day” is unlikely to produce any weight changes. A weekly cheat day followed by food restriction will most likely result in weight gain.
Never Have a Cheat Day Again
Cheat days are all around a bad idea. They cause you to experience food guilt, bloating, metabolic shits, and periods of binging and restricting.
It’s not just cheat days that are the problem though, it’s diets as a whole. Dieting might produce a short-term reduction in weight but is likely to result in future weight gain. The weight gain that comes as a result of dieting often exceeds the weight you started at before you began dieting.
A cheat day is not likely to help you to reach your weight loss goals, or help you enjoy your food.
Instead of a cheat day or dieting try:
- Intuitive eating
- Ditching food rules
- Challenging the food police
- Honoring all types of hunger
- Slowing down when you eat
The best predictor of future weight gain is attempts at weight loss. A cheat day is almost always associated with attempts for weight loss. My best advice for preventing weight gain is not to fast after a cheat day- It’s to ditch the diet altogether.
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