I'd like to start by saying that I don't really like the term "cheat day". It sounds like you're doing something bad, you should be guilty of it, and that you should never do it again. "Binge" isn't that much better, since it implies an involuntary and unnecessary indulgence to excess. But those are the terms people use, so here we are.
I posted a bunch of my graphs recently, so have a read there for some background. I was looking at my progress so far and was thinking of ways to better visualize the various ups and downs we all face. One of the most common topics here is how to deal with the inevitable times we eat more than our calorie budget. Sometimes a LOT more. Or how it seems that many of our friends appear to have the ability to eat anything and everything, and yet stay slim and svelte.
I love food and I love eating out! My Facebook profile is full of food photos. My friends probably assume I just eat out and eat well all the time. But in reality, I only post maybe 10% of my life online, so that's all most of them see. Every other day, I'm being good and watching what I eat. If I'm good six days of the week, then I sure as heck will treat myself on a Friday or Saturday night. And so should you! It can be stressful trying to restrict your calorie intake while still having to worry about everything else in your life. But remember that weight loss is a long, gradual process. You don't have to stay under budget every day. If that's too hard, stretch it out to a weekly budget instead. That way you can have a bunch of good days, and then have a great night out with friends, and you won't sabotage your weight loss efforts.
I produced a graph that shows how often and how much I've been under or over my maintenance (currently estimated to be 2250 kcal/day). The red area shows when I've gone over my daily budget. The green area shows when I've been under. The different shades of green show where -500 kcal/d and -1000 kcal/d are located, which correspond to 1 and 2 lb per week of weight loss.
As you can see, I have a lot more green than red. This is why I've been able to lose about 5 lbs a month since January, despite having quite a number of "red" days and days where I'm just barely below my maintenance level. As a bonus, I also overlaid in blue the cumulative amount of calories I've avoided eating since I started. Read the number off the right side of the graph, in thousands of kcal. So far, I've avoided over 70,000 kcal (yes, that's 70 MEGACALORIES! 👹).
Lesson: Don't beat yourself up if you can't meet your goal every single day. If you have days where you are below your goal, then you're allowed to have days that are above your goal. Treat yourself every once in a while, then get right back to your routine. It will make things easier in the long run.
Onwards and downards! 👇
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