What does it matter?

[kellykatt]

Say I diet really strictly all week long and I never cheat for 6 days. Say I also exercise every day of those 6 days. If I really let loose on the 7th day and eat whatever I want and slack off, will that really matter and set me back?

[anne]

It matters. If you try hard all week long only to go crazy for one day on the weekend, you'll mess up your metabolism and flood your body with calories. You could actually counteract a lot of your progress :(

[jenny25]

It might matter but in real life I actually find that it's difficult to avoid. It's not that I actually set out to eat a day's worth of junk food, but when it comes to actually trying to enjoy life, eating a low cal diet doesn't seem to fit in.

Even at the office, I try to bring my lunch and eat right every day, but if one person has a birthday (and it's an office of 50+ so that's a lot of birthdays) then it means that there is cake. And when you don't have some with everyone else, people roll their eyes and insist that you "just have a little" or "you don't need to diet, you look great!"...which is friendly except that I still have 30 pounds to go before I'm in my healthy BMI zone!

[thestephs21]

It will matter because the 6 days that you've been disciplined will set you back if you were to actually go 'crazy' on your diet on the 7th.

[freddyboy]

That’s exactly it. If you let loose and break all the rules, eating pizza and ice cream, cheesecake and whatever else, you could actually destroy all of the work that you’ve done all week long while you were being careful.

It makes all the difference. If you want to be able to lose weight then you need to stick to what you’re doing over the long term. It’s what you do daily and it’s what you do cumulatively.

[KraftyJo]

It's not worth losing all of your progress over a full week just for one piece of pie or slice of pizza. Keep going! You can do it!

[kellykatt]

Thank you for all this feedback about this. After reading what you've all said, it's actually pretty obvious that I shouldn't blow all of my good effort all week long for one day of fun. It seemed to make sense to me at the time that I could go 6 days being good and do what I want on the 7th, but looking at it a different way, it's not like a school grading system, it's a body and calories!

[Beth]

It seemed to make sense to me at the time that I could go 6 days being good and do what I want on the 7th, but looking at it a different way, it's not like a school grading system, it's a body and calories!

It's funny how when you want to do something enough, your mind can justify it in a way that makes sense! I find that cravings or the desire to break away from the diet are two of the things that make my brain work against me the most.

I can almost always come up with some justification that will make it alright for me to have my favorite candy bar - especially as "dessert" (which, for some reason, seems to make it OK in my mind haha).

It's best to listen to the opinions of others who are actually helping you to lose weight in these situations - like us here at this board! Don't listen to the people who say "oh go on, it's just one little candy bar" LOL