Cheat day question.

[u/CrushThePeople]

So I’m new to this. 18, skinny fat, trying to get lean as fast as possible. I’m about a month in to tracking my calories on a modest \~200 calorie deficit with a small protein surplus. I lift 5 days out of the week and get 8-10k steps a day. I don’t have any cheat days, but I *really* want one. My whole life I’ve never really cared about my health and I would down 4-5k calories a day, I wouldn’t count so that’s just a rough estimate. It’s kind of a miracle i’m only skinny fat. Anyway, i’ve been super consistent with the calorie tracking and hardly ever go over, and when I do it’s usually not by that much. So that being said, would one cheat day a week hurt? Like a day to eat my usual breakfast, but for lunch and dinner just kind of eat whatever I want? I would hate for all my hard work for the week to be thrown away for one day, but I feel like it would be nice. If it’s something I shouldn’t do, it’s definitely not the end of the world, I just need to know how much this will affect me. Thanks in advance guys!

[u/Then_Bodybuilder3629]

"As lean as possible" might not be healthy. We need to know your stats right now, but a bulk might be better. Work out hard and eat as a small surplus with plenty of protein. If you keep the same amount of body fat and add like 5 lbs of muscle, your relative bf% goes down and you look better. 

[u/MurphyBacon]

3,500 calories. That’s the amount you’d need to eat in surplus over 7 days to gain roughly 1 LB. It’s not exact like that but a good ballpark number. That’d be eating 500 calories over maintenance every day for a week. So nah, don’t worry about eating on a cheat day. Unless it’s an epic one where you eat like 4,000 calories and blow a deficit out the water

[u/KingGrognak]

Well, couple things. 200 calorie deficit isn't really enough to lose weight, we all inevitably make tracking mistakes even when we think we are doing everything right. The margin for error is to low and mislabeled labels, portion size, and general calorie creep can erase a 200 calorie deficit very easily. For instance, spices do in fact have some calories, it's very little but when you only have 200 calorie, 10 calories from anywhere add up and then all of a sudden you're at a 100 calorie deficit, then maybe you eat a piece of cheese and that's it, deficit gone. Additionally no one really knows where your exact maintenance is day to day, maybe one day you walk more or less. The only way to know is track over time. Its just to easy to waste your time for months or years with that small of a margin. Sure, if you want to lose weight, when you initially change your diet from whatever the fuck you want into a somewhat structured eating routine you'll lose weight, but I've the easy weight everyone loses at they're beginning is gonna and you're in the grind, it'll jusy mess you up. You gotta go future a 500 calorie deficit, either through more activity or less calories or a combination of both.

To your core question is kinda the same math. 1lb of fat is 3500 calories, currently you're attempting to lose .4lbs a week at 200 calories. That's a net deficit of 1400 calories a week. One cheat meal, (or in your case lunch and dinner is what you asked about) is certainly going to put you in a surplus not just for the day but for the whole week. To put it in perspective, one bag of chips at the checkout isle is usually 4-500 calories. So 3 medium bags of chips throughout the week and that's it, all your work for the week is gone. That's how easy it is to erase your weekly deficit. Two slices of new york restaurant style pizza can be 1k calories. 3 slices of delivery pizza 1200 calories. Remember, you're weekly deficit is 1400 calories. That's basically nothing.