Anyone have a regular scheduled cheat? Like a once a month 'reward' meal?
Is this dangerous territory? A slippery slope perhaps?
All comments welcome!!

My birthday and vacation were planned high carb choices.

But I really don't feel all that well when I eat many sugary carbs (which I guess is good news) I won't be fat again.

This is the real world and you have to make real choices for the rest of your life.

I guess what I am saying is that if you really think of this as a WOL and you get to your goals and feel healthy this way... a higher carb option now and again will be a fun or situational choice but your "Reward" is looking and feeling good forever after.

Wow am I on a soap box today... LOL!

I think it's a slippery slope. LC eating isn't like low calorie eating where if you go over your limit for a day or meal or whatever you can sometimes get away with it. There is a physiological process involved here that gets thrown out of whack when you eat high carb foods. IMO, it's a slippery slope and eating high carb foods can cause your craving for them to return pretty quickly. Each time you give in, it may be harder to return to the LC WOL. Just not worth it, IMO.

Oh, and I just had to add that there are so many wonderful substitutes for lots of our old favorites you really don't have to go off plan to eat well.

In 2000, while on Atkins, I had a scheduled free day every four to six weeks and it worked very well for me and I had no problems. After I had my daughter in 2001, I could not have a free day or I would become so sick for two days and have major cravings. I even tried just having a free meal once in a while, no way! I ended up being off my plan for months, eating everything bad for me. Recently, I had a little detour with a margarita and 3 cookies that I paid dearly for for two or three days. I say it's a very slippery slope.

I haven't tried a blowout day yet. I'm scared to undo all that I've done so far!

I have never had a blowout day. However, I have occasionally planned to eat a small portion of something I don't normally eat -- for example, a small piece of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving or one piece of chicken with sweet barbecue sauce on July 4th -- and that has not created problems for me. My intuition tells me that if I went overboard with the carbs -- for example, eating the potato salad and ice cream in addition to the piece of barbecued chicken on July 4th -- I would have trouble getting back on track.

meljean:

I signed up for this forum specifically to respond to you. Most everyone I have read says don't cheat, but I have found cheating (controlled of course) works for me, and IMHO it has kept me on the path to loosing the 73 pounds I already have. (77 to go!)

I never cheat more than one evening a week, usually Friday or Saturday night, but when I do...lookout. Pizza, ice cream, cookies, POTATOS!! oh yeah!

Now, the concern is how hard is it to 'come back'. Very valid and important issue. To be honest when I cheated the first time...I was cracking...I just couldn't handle it, but I figured I would alow myself one evening and come back from it, and somehow I did. I think that if I had not, I would have lost it anyway in an overall binge, instead of a controlled and timed 'cheat'.

So...a couple of things about cheating.
- I did not cheat for almost 100 days
- I never cheat for more than one meal (ok..except a vacation)
- If I think about just letting it go into another meal..... I really
give myself a good a## chewing even for the thought.

I suspect many people...actually most people will disagree, and I am sure I will hear about how bad it is for me because I am still hangong on to old eating habits (but hey, I will have cheat days when I hit my goal too). But for me, I think they have kept me 'in the game' so to speak.

Just my opinion, and one you are not likley to hear, so I thought I would share it. If you do cheat...be CERTAIN you can limit it.

Hi Big Dawg,

I read your post with interest and found myself thinking, he must be a man. Sure enough, when I checked out your profile, I was right. I think that when it comes to weight loss and 'dieting' (hate to use the word, but there it is), men have a distinct advantage over women. They generally lose quicker and can get away with more in the way of off plan events.

So, while I'm sure your way works for you, and I'm happy for you, it probably will not work for the majority of women. I have been hosting and/or a member of weight loss groups of women who have over 100# to lose for about 6 yrs. now (off and on - LC only for the last 10 months), so I've seen the experience of hundreds of women. Very few of them can get away with a long term cheating strategy. They might get away with it a few times, but before long most of them are back where they started or worse.

I wish you all the luck in the world in getting to your goal. Your way seems to work FOR YOU, so I wouldn't change a thing or tell you you are doing it 'wrong'. As they say 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'!!!

i just wanted to add that i seen something about cheating with potatoes and just wanted to say i fixed cauliflouer just like mashed potatoes tonight and WOW,with food like this who needs to cheat?!lol,it really was good i added a little whipping cream and real butter and tsp. cream cheese,it was BETTER than potatoes....another note,a couple of years ago i lost 90 pds low-carbing and to me if your craving a certain food so bad and u cant find lc subs for it,its better to eat a little of it and get right back on plan rather than blow it and feel guilty which will only make you give up,but don't look at all the food you can't have on the WOE look at what you CAN have,,read the recipe section,,there is so many choices....try the mmm mmm good deep dish pizza quiche,its great!!

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I have been reading up on the 're-feeding' theory and it seems to make sense. I think I will try it next time I get stuck. I just think that I may be able to cope better mentally with this WOL if I knew OK I can cheat next week. (Can you tell I am dealing with the cravings monster right now?)

Melissa:

I can understand that and as I said before, it worked for me in 2001. It was my lifeline. BUT now forget it! I just can't do it anymore. I really hope it works for you, so you can have a splurge now and then.

Good luck to you!

every turn I take there is something in front of me... My husband and 2 little kids eat all the bad stuff (I am going to be cutting out sugar from my kids soon..once I am more established in my weight loss...lol) I come down to a plate of french fries with ketchup and my husband wants to order a pizza.... I am a pretzel addict from age 5...lol there is ice cream in my freezer! chicken nuggets... you get the picture...

However...my body feels GOOD for the first time in years from 5 days of LC and NO sugar. Each day that passes it's easier to walk past these things and not eye them longingly... I ALWAYS eat before preparing my kids meals...that helps a lot!

The other thing, mentioned above, there are so many truly inspiring recipes on this site! I honestly though that me doing this [atkins] as a WOL was a long shot but after browsing the recipes and ideas it seems like it will be EASY! I hope that it really is..lol sometimes you just dont have the right foods in your house..but I am going to talk to my husband about this!

If there's anything you can do to NOT cheat..do it! 50 pounds gone and you'll see it was so worth it!

I've seen some really good points here on the subject of cheating. I have went by the philosophy so far that if I am craving and simply cannot live without it, I just have it and start back the next meal. Now, that does lead to some cravings, but the bad feelings from eating the carbs and the cravings that I have I only use to remind myself of how bad it makes my body feel when I cheat. I know that most of you state that cheating is bad, but for me, I have to give myself some kind of freedom every once in a blue moon to remind myself that this is my way of life, not a diet.

You know, I just had to respond to this b/c it seems like contradictory thinking to me. If LC is truly your WOL and not a diet, then why would you need to 'cheat'? If you had chosen vegetarianism as your WOL, you wouldn't have meat now and then to prove to yourself that you were really a vegetarian, would you?

To me, making this a WOL, means that this is the way I eat now - PERIOD! I don't have the carby stuff once in a while as a 'treat' b/c, to me, it is NOT a treat. Is it a treat to make myself feel cranky, bloated, tired, bring back the old cravings and possibly knock myself off this way of eating for good? I think not.

I'm not trying to get on your back or say that you are wrong, b/c we all have to do what works for us as individuals and if having that stuff makes you stick with LC, more power to you. I just think that we have to get it out of our mindset that eating carby stuff is a 'reward' of some kind. It really isn't.