Please Help...Deviation from Nutrition Plan

[aprilannette]

Alright, I have a question regarding a planned cheat day. I have been steadily losing fat for the past four and a half months, going from 157lbs. to 134lbs. I want to do the minimal amount of damage so to speak. Tomorrow, I will be celebrating a special occasion and plan to deviate from my nutrition plan.

Tomorrow I will be eating a 6oz. steak filet with steamed asparagus for lunch, drinking 1 Corona Light while bowling, and then the worst part, eating a large cupcake from a bakery. The question I have is, should I eat my breakfast (5 egg whites and 1/2c. oatmeal) and my mid-morning snack (1/2oz. walnuts and 1 medium fuji apple) like usual, or should I not eat at all?

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

[acrawlingchaos]

Cliffs: Enjoy yourself, you'll get bloated and uncomfortable far before you can consume enough to worry about.

You can actually consume a considerable amount of food if you have been in a deficit for some time. When you eat in a deficit, you "empty the tank" so to speak. IOW, you are glycogen depleted. Before you start to gain fat, this tank has to be filled and then it will spill over into the reserves (fat). The size of the tank will vary from person to person, but is around 1000 - 1500 calories worth.

Let's assume you are on the low end of 1000 calories for you reserve tank.
Now take into account a modest maintenance level of 2000 calories.

At the VERY LEAST, you could consume 3000 calories and not worry about ANY fat gain (provided you return to the diet). While you will feel bloated and fat, you're really just retaining ALOT of water, which will dissipate in 2 or 3 days. If your deficit has been strict to lose at the rate you have been, letting lose will not be something you have to worry about.

[acrawlingchaos]

and then the worst part, eating a large cupcake from a bakery.

How the hell is a cupcake EVER bad? You worry too much.

or should I not eat at all?

Why would you not eat at all?


Your nutrition plan worries me. Outline if you want a critique or advice.

[jmccarthey]

Eat and enjoy it. After a planned cheat, I find my next gym session is amazing....completely reinvigorating and have actually found that it helps get fat loss going again.

[aprilannette]

Thank you so much for the information! I have been so focused on my nutritional intake since the birth of my daughter that this deviation from it is quite worrying to me, nonetheless, I will enjoy it very much! I guess my thought process behind not eating before the "cheat" is to mitigate the extra carbs and calories that I will be consuming. I do not have a lot of time to devote to training. All I do is work one body part per day, very heavy for about 15 minutes, chest/back/shoulders/quads/hamstrings. I am very surprised at my results so far with such little training, I give my nutrition plan most of the credit, which is the reason I am so worried about this "cheat".

My normal daitly nutrition plan is below and has worked well for me thus far, and I do not feel deprived one bit, these are my favorite foods!!

Breakfast: 5 egg whites and 1/2c. oatmeal with unsweetened almond milk
Snack: 1/2oz walnuts and 1 medium fuji apple
Lunch: 4oz baked chicken breast, 1 cup steamed green beans, and 115g steamed sweet potatoes
Snack: 1/2c. oatmeal with water
Snack: Zucchini Turkey Burger and 10 baby carrots
Dinner: 4oz baked chicken breast, 1 cup steamed green beans, 6 cherry tomatoes, and 2 small raw sweet bell peppers
Snack: 1oz walnuts and hot chai tea

Total Calories: ~1500
Total Carbs: ~160g
Total Protein: ~126g
Total Fat: ~40g

Any and all critiques are welcome!

[kimm4]

How the hell is a cupcake EVER bad? You worry too much.

Why would you not eat at all?


Your nutrition plan worries me. Outline if you want a critique or advice.

Agreed.^^

All foods are fine in moderation. You can easily enjoy a bit of everything, without doing any kind of damage. You need to get a firm grasp on how to create a healthy balance, or you'll be in for a long, miserable road ahead.

Enjoy yourself!

[ldyparadox99]

I just came off almost 2 months of deviating from my normal meal plan (though I was still practicing IF) and I really shouldn't have maintained with the pure crap I ate but amazingly I did. If I can go 2 months drinking and eating crap that probably shouldn't ever be consumed by a human being....somehow I think you'll survive 1 beer and a cupcake.

[dalkristel]

Eat and enjoy the day one day will not hurt you at all - I have always been told to carry on eating as normal even if I know I'm gonna cheat later to keep the metabolism going anyone second that or have I been given wrong information?

[DaniGrrl]

It's a special occasion - enjoy yourself! One cupcake and one beer aren't going to do much damage - especially if you haven't been having any days over maintenance in all that time.

It's all about balance. You'll be fine - even with quite a few beers and two cupcakes

[aprilannette]

Thank you all for your thoughts on this! I will definitely enjoy myself and not let this small indulgence get me down. I have decided to eat my normal breakfast and mid-morning snack and probably my normal dinner and nightly snack as well. Thanks again!!

[acrawlingchaos]

My normal daitly nutrition plan is below and has worked well for me thus far, and I do not feel deprived one bit, these are my favorite foods!!

Breakfast: 5 egg whites and 1/2c. oatmeal with unsweetened almond milk
Snack: 1/2oz walnuts and 1 medium fuji apple
Lunch: 4oz baked chicken breast, 1 cup steamed green beans, and 115g steamed sweet potatoes
Snack: 1/2c. oatmeal with water
Snack: Zucchini Turkey Burger and 10 baby carrots
Dinner: 4oz baked chicken breast, 1 cup steamed green beans, 6 cherry tomatoes, and 2 small raw sweet bell peppers
Snack: 1oz walnuts and hot chai tea

Total Calories: ~1500
Total Carbs: ~160g
Total Protein: ~126g
Total Fat: ~40g

Any and all critiques are welcome!

If you are losing weight at the above calories... AWESOME! Your macro's look on point as well.

One suggestion. Apply a little bit of IIFYM in your diet. IIFYM = If it fits your macros. What this essentially entails is not worrying so much about your "meal plan" or specific foods, but concentrating on hitting your macros.

You have 160 grams of allowable carbs in your diet. There is nothing wrong with allowing the occasional beer/cupcake/soda/candy/etc into your diet, so long as you don't exceed your calories and still get your fat and protein in.

[catskills]

Cheat days are perfectly fine. If you are really concerned you could just do the cheat day and track your calories (roughly) and then just do a couple of cutting days (about 200-300 cal from maintenance) to even out the calories. I do at least one cheat day a week, for example last weekend I made and ate a whole carrot cake in two days. Then I just did a couple of cutting days following that. Now I am back on my maintenance diet. That is what I do, looking at what you plan on eating, you might not even have to do that. Your cheat day doesn't look all that bad, in fact your cheat day might equal your maintenance diet from what I can tell. I don't think a cupcake has that many calories in it.