Contest Cheat Meal

[rickisthecoolest1]

Hello everyone I wanted to bring up something that had been brought up before, im sure many times.

The pre contest cheat meal
I have heard alot of people say never cheat pre contest ever.
This is my thought though, and I could be totally wrong.
If you are 18 weeks or 16 weeks out of a contest and you are in fairly good shape and your bodyfat is going down each week and your losing 1-2 pounds weekly. That would show that you are still losing weight and bodyfat with a cheat meal. so my thought is I have already been dieting basically for the last 3 or 4 months with a cheat meal a week I have dropped down from 240 pounds to 190. I plan on using a cheat meal a week. And most likely just eat more carbs that day to bring up the overall calories so I can have some energy for the workouts the next week. Then when I am 8 weeks out I will stop the cheat meals. I am currently 10.5 percent bodyfat only looking to lose .5 percent bodyfat per week. with 17 weeks out from a show all. Doing a fairly low carb diet around 100 carbs a day.
I just want to know what everyone thinks because im sure there are more of you in this similar situation.

Thanks everyone.

[Whomper107]

You are absolutely right - most people around here will advise against any cheating while on a precontest diet, and that (not cheating) is probably optimal for fat loss.

I will give my honest thoughts though - I think a couple cheat meals during prep are not going to hurt you. I went through my 16 week prep having around 1 a month, and don't feel like it set me back any. Then again, I am a 19 year old ectomorph, never missed workouts, and was on track or ahead of schedule with my conditioning the whole way through. If you have any doubts about whether you will be ready come showtime, it's probably best to not cheat at all. But if you feel like you are on track with your fat loss, then the meal may be worth it's weight in sanity. Just be sure that a cheat meal doesn't turn into a cheat day... now THAT is where you can do some real damage.

[rickisthecoolest1]

thanks for the reply man. I just sorta always sorta wondered what the big deal is I mean if you are eating in a 500 calorie deficit everyday and then on top doing cardio every morning but one day your eat a little more food but still have a net weight loss of 1.5 to two pounds I would still consider that a productive week of fat loss.

[bballbrett5]

I think the real issue with cheating precontest is that, if you don't win and it's close, you may have to sit and wonder, "What if I DIDN'T cheat? Would this outcome be different?". That would be tough for me to swallow. I like the Layne Norton mentality that if I get beat I know that I gave everything I could and that's all I could have done.

[FATHER FLEX]

I think the real issue with cheating precontest is that, if you don't win and it's close, you may have to sit and wonder, "What if I DIDN'T cheat? Would this outcome be different?". That would be tough for me to swallow. I like the Layne Norton mentality that if I get beat I know that I gave everything I could and that's all I could have done.

Totally agree! I work to hard to let anything within my control not be 100%