splurge every once in awhile

[legend_018]

I have been eating pretty health and clean for awhile, although always room for improvement. the abs diet allows one meal a week to eat what you want. Is this allowed? i havent made a habit of it, but i did have an eat what you want day last week, went to a cook out about a month ago where I tried to be good and had my first icecream at an icecream store with my dad and kids today. but believe me, i'm eating clean every day, eating 6 times a day and eating as healthy as I can

[LisaS]

allowed by who, the diet gods?

You control your life. If you are following a plan, then follow the plan, unless you choose not to. If you are asking about a specific plan, you didn't say what it is so we can't tell you if we agree with your take on the plan or not.

That being said, many plans have refeed days or weeks built in to them at specific intervals so it isn't an odd concept at all. But there is a method in that madness that the writer of the plan has worked out. If you are winging it and not on a written plan you might get it right or not. But it isn't rocket science.

if you are Just following a gut guideline that you have determined, only you can determine if a once in a while splurge should be considered a part of said plan or a major deviation of said plan.

That said, many people have good success with planning for a higher calorie meal or even day in their week, figuring that the 24 hour day guidelines are just that and that an overall weekly deficit is more important than 7 consecutive days of deficit. So if you were doing that and wanted to still hit a particular deficit you'd have to plan that all into your week and your meals.

On the other hand, some people find that a day or meal that is completely a splurge can reawaken cravings that had been controlled or lead to more out of control eating or completely take you off plan for days at a time. That might not be you though; only you would know that.

So - you might eat at a deficit 6 days and 1 day at maintenance or above and figure that your weekly average is sufficient deficit - or you might find that the day after the high day is intolerable and you are better off sticking to it for 30 days and then taking 3 or 4 maintenance days as a break.

Or you could decide to heck with it, it's my special occasion and I'm having a 1000 calorie meal with my special someone and I'll get back on plan tomorrow.

[legend_018]

thanks. I recently bought the new rules of lifting for women so I guess I was referring to that.

[legend_018]

oh I was also recently advised to eat maintenace since i'm starting this program in the book. I was eating a deficit and lost weight but since I have a decent amount of tummy fat but weigh 126lbs at 5'3 (38 yr old women), I'm trying closer to maintenance now.

[Eat Smart Age Smart]

Legend 018,

Eating dessert is a good thing if it's only a few times a week. Dr. Berardi II'll be taking a certification with him later this year) recommends about 10% of your week can be cheat foods.

I eat quite clean and I can tell you that I still indulge with a weekly dessert.

If you take out dessert all together your brain will rebel and then you'll pig out and that will kill all you hard work.

Have your dessert ... but don't have it everyday!

[galya]

I believe what Berardi was referring to is that in their experience working with clients whether people are 100% clean or 90% clean, they got the same results. This can be calculated as a number of meals throughout the week (4 meals a day x 7 days = 28 meals, so 2-3 meals can be less optimal), or as a percent of calories. If you are eating 1500 calories a day, 150 of that could be chocolate or something you don't consider optimal for fat loss. Finding what makes you happy and foods that you enjoy eating is super important. Depending on your activity level and tolerance this percent can go up to 20 or 30% for some people. I bet if you are super strict about counting calories, it could be even higher, but then you would run into hunger issues that you wouldn't have with a better planned menu.

[eastcoastsurfer]

People's diets don't fall apart because they splurge once in awhile. They fall apart when people splurge every day.

A lot of people don't splurge at all because it can take more discipline to have dessert once/week than to just avoid it completely.