# Cheat Meal vs Cheat Day vs Structured Refeed



## Kristina (Apr 12, 2014)

*What's your 'refeed' protocol?*​
Structured Refeed (macro-calculated) 1326.00%Cheat Meal (total freedom for macros) 1020.00%Cheat Day (total blowout!) 2142.00%None.. just allow freedom every day...612.00%


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## Kristina (Apr 12, 2014)

Personally I'm a big advocate of structured refeeds, but I don't see it as a chore as such; I just typically prefer healthier wholefoods as oppose to sweeties (think I'm more of a savoury person in general).. and I like to hit certain macros with the refeed to achieve the purpose etc..

Just curious what the majority of others do with your refeeds; whether they're structured for optimal physiological benefits or more of a psycological allowance without macro/calorie counting (or whatever in between)..


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## AlexB18 (Dec 10, 2013)

Personally I go for the structured refeeds like you, I calculate the odd packet of haribo or something similar every now and then just to keep sanity as my sweet tooth is a royal pain in the **** :lol: I feel like I benefit more mentally from a clean refeed than I do if I have days of eating whatever the hell I want.


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## FlunkyTurtle (Aug 5, 2013)

Personally i eat pretty much the same thing every day and then once a week i have dinner out or a dominoes or something.

Nothing crazy.

I have a good mix of food everyday so i don't get bored really, for example i have.

Salmon, Beef, toast, beans, milk, veg assorted, nutella, coco pops every day.

90g fat per day

254 carbs

188 protein

2649 calories


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## Kristina (Apr 12, 2014)

FlunkyTurtle said:


> Personally i eat pretty much the same thing every day and then once a week i have dinner out or a dominoes or something.
> 
> Nothing crazy.
> 
> ...


You've just reminded me of a time when I was a kid; I went through a strange phase where I was obsessed with coco pops and I'd have them every meal I got the chance to haha..

Nowadays it's cottage cheese. I'm obsessed. :lol:


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## FlunkyTurtle (Aug 5, 2013)

kristina said:


> You've just reminded me of a time when I was a kid; I went through a strange phase where I was obsessed with coco pops and I'd have them every meal I got the chance to haha..
> 
> Nowadays it's cottage cheese. I'm obsessed. :lol:


I literally fit it into my macro's because i love them so much lol


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## Big ape (May 5, 2011)

Refeed is the favored option and probably best on control and knowing exactly how much extra carbs your taking in and being able to adjust accordingly.... but if you suffer with bad bad cravings and say u want a pizza (dominoes stuffed crust) fitting one slice in your macros just ain't gonna cut it .. plus i ain't buying a pizza and eating one or two slices lets be serious LOL ... so again all depends on individual i think


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## 3752 (Jan 7, 2005)

tried them all and all have there place depending on the individual, for me in the off season i have a day off the diet but generally don't eat that much, dieting is different and comes down to the person and how they are in there prep...


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## IronJohnDoe (Oct 17, 2013)

I am for the self rewarding total cheat day.

Eat everything you can/want for 24 hours without care about anything. (1 day out of months straight won't do much difference anyway)


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## pooledaniel (May 8, 2013)

If I'm cutting I tend to use two high carb days a week as my refeeds. Last cut I probably had 3 meals I'd class as 'cheat' meals in the space of 12 weeks, all on family occasions.

Now I'm bulking, I generally have one 'cheat' meal a week where I'd have pretty much whatever I want. I don't tend to go mad on portions or anything, but if I fancy pizza and a tub of ice cream I'll have it. If I'm not seeing the mrs at the weekend then I generally don't bother with any cheat meals, just stick to usual plan. Seems to be working so far!


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## Kristina (Apr 12, 2014)

Big ape said:


> Refeed is the favored option and probably best on control and knowing exactly how much extra carbs your taking in and being able to adjust accordingly.... but if you suffer with bad bad cravings and say u want a pizza (dominoes stuffed crust) fitting one slice in your macros just ain't gonna cut it .. plus i ain't buying a pizza and eating one or two slices lets be serious LOL ... so again all depends on individual i think


Haha yeah I know what you mean; in fact it would be slightly disconcerting to see a bloke eat 'part' of a pizza. As far as I know, when groups of people order pizzas, the men generally order a whole one to themselves by default, right? :lol:


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

I currently have a "clean" cheat meal mid week and a "dirty" one at weekend.

Clean one is based on normal diet foods but allows a little bit of flexibility..... last week I had chilli made with extra lean mince, rice and homemade wedges. Aim of this is high carb and low fat.

Dirty one at weekend is anything goes.. Pizza, ice cream whatever I'm craving but I wont eat crap for the sake of it just what I crave and never to the point of feeling sick lol


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## pooledaniel (May 8, 2013)

Goodfella said:


> I currently have a "clean" cheat meal mid week and a "dirty" one at weekend.
> 
> Clean one is based on normal diet foods but allows a little bit of flexibility..... last week I had chilli made with extra lean mince, rice and homemade wedges. Aim of this is high carb and low fat.
> 
> Dirty one at weekend is anything goes.. Pizza, ice cream whatever I'm craving but I wont eat crap for the sake of it just what I crave and never to the point of feeling sick lol


Pretty much exactly what I'm following. Seems to do the trick!


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## Big ape (May 5, 2011)

kristina said:


> Haha yeah I know what you mean; in fact it would be slightly disconcerting to see a bloke eat 'part' of a pizza. As far as I know, when groups of people order pizzas, the men generally order a whole one to themselves by default, right? :lol:


Haha exactly this


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## funkdocta (May 29, 2013)

kristina said:


> Haha yeah I know what you mean; in fact it would be slightly disconcerting to see a bloke eat 'part' of a pizza. As far as I know, when groups of people order pizzas, the men generally order a whole one to themselves by default, right? :lol:


Ive been known to finish 2 large dominos pizzas in one sitting....  It's good to pig out now and again


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## IronJohnDoe (Oct 17, 2013)

funkdocta said:


> Ive been known to finish 2 large dominos pizzas in one sitting....  It's good to pig out now and again


ahahaha been there mate. Try a can of coke afterwards, best burps of my life!


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

When I've had refeeds during a cut, they have been single days which are high carb and as little fat as I can possibly manage (protein as normal).


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## Alex6534 (Jan 2, 2013)

Thing is, with the typical large dominos an Ben & Jerry's (nearly wrote B&J, but I get that anyway  ) is that after the ice-cream, I'm feckin hungry again!


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## a.notherguy (Nov 17, 2008)

semi structred re-feed day. usually starts with bacon and cheese sarnies and finishes with a take away. i eat pretty much what i want and try to hit my macros during the day then ruin it all on the evening.


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## Dan94 (Dec 29, 2013)

I guess I have some freedom everyday as I do IIFYM, but structured refeeds are definitely great for cutting when hitting a sticky patch


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Dan94 said:


> I guess I have some freedom everyday as I do IIFYM, but structured refeeds are definitely great for cutting when hitting a sticky patch


I couldn't do IIFYM purely for the fact you cannot under any circumstance fit in a large stuffed crust dominos and a tub of ben and jerrys :lol:

Don't give that you can have half a slice and one spoonful full either


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## Dan94 (Dec 29, 2013)

Goodfella said:


> I couldn't do IIFYM purely for the fact you cannot under any circumstance fit in a large stuffed crust dominos and a tub of ben and jerrys :lol:
> 
> Don't give that you can have half a slice and one spoonful full either


Very true :lol:


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## 31205 (Jan 16, 2013)

IronJohnDoe said:


> ahahaha been there mate. Try a can of coke afterwards, best burps of my life!


Congratulations mate!


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## H_JM_S (Mar 27, 2012)

All out cheat day every Saturday!!!!


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## bigchickenlover (Jul 16, 2013)

H_JM_S said:


> All out cheat day every Saturday!!!!


Sunday


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

Goodfella said:


> I couldn't do IIFYM purely for the fact you cannot under any circumstance fit in a large stuffed crust dominos and a tub of ben and jerrys :lol:
> 
> Don't give that you can have half a slice and one spoonful full either


Surely it's no more difficult to 'fit in' than with any other diet though? If I was eating 'clean' all the time a binge like that would be against the diet plan rules too!


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Ultrasonic said:


> Surely it's no more difficult to 'fit in' than with any other diet though? If I was eating 'clean' all the time a binge like that would be against the diet plan rules too!


A pizza and ice cream isn't a binge lol

Id personally prefer to eat "clean" and allow myself a treat at the weekend. Not saying other ways don't work.


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## jason7474utd (Oct 12, 2010)

A little bit of a cheat every day i use the iifym approach at the minute id say my diet is a 90/10 split im not prepping and im not bulking just trying to drop bf% so i weigh and track most of my foods for the day and am in a calorie deficit of around 400cal a day but i just have a pop tart, a bagel or a piece of cheescake a day at the minute and my carbs allways stay under 200g a day so im happy with that and it keeps me sane as i have a massive sweet tooth.


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

Goodfella said:


> A pizza and ice cream isn't a binge lol.


Well according to myfitnesspal a large stuffed crust Dominos is about 2350 calories; not sure about the size of tub of ice cream you had in mind but that much in a single meal would be a binge for me! Depends how much you eat normally when cutting though I guess  .


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## bail (Mar 19, 2010)

Goodfella said:


> A pizza and ice cream isn't a binge lol
> 
> Id personally prefer to eat "clean" and allow myself a treat at the weekend. Not saying other ways don't work.


I'm the same keep it tight all week and a couple bad meals Sunday


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Ultrasonic said:


> Well according to myfitnesspal a large stuffed crust Dominos is about 2350 calories; not sure about the size of tub of ice cream you had in mind but that much in a single meal would be a binge for me!


Probably more like 3000 when you add the double cheese and the fact it's a mighty meaty :lol:


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## Stephen9069 (Dec 11, 2013)

Im more of an all out cheat weekend lol especially if iv worked hard all week


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## littlejames (Oct 11, 2014)

Used to have cheat days... But now limited myself to a cheat meal, as I literally couldn't stop stuffing my face. I'd end up feeling guilty for days.


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## armor king (Sep 29, 2013)

If im eating for muscle then everyday is a refeed day. If im getting rid of fat then i will eat whatever i want on the weekend im talking loads of junk food biscuits, brownies etc, i think its sad to deprive your self of exciteing food lifes to short to be so serious about eating bland healthy food all time. If im looseing fat theres no way im eating healthy 24 7 for months


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## Ljb (Oct 14, 2009)

littlejames said:


> Used to have cheat days... But now limited myself to a cheat meal, as I literally couldn't stop stuffing my face. I'd end up feeling guilty for days.


THIS. Same mate - I used to do 3 weeks without a cheat and have a HUGE binge. I'm talking £80 of **** food bought - takeaways, sweets, cheescakes, everything...and id just stuff my face even when i wasnt hungry. I remember melting twirl bites onto toaste with peanut butter and pop tarts and thinking 'what is my life'

Now I try and just have one cheat meal a week, after training that day. I'll try not go crazy. Last weekend was 8oz steak burger, smoked cheddar and chorizo, 8oz blue cheese and red onion, large chips. two cookies and a caramel latte. This was at 3 and I didnt eat til 9pm lol...and then it was just a shake.

I am curious though experts - Say we have a all out mental cheat day / meal WAY over daily macros or weekly macros - how much of it do we actually take in? we cant serioulsy take in all 5k/10k kcals of food if we had a cheat weekend , because surely it would mean no one on a diet would ever be able have a cheat day/weekend without putting them back weeks of eating under. I see people dieting for shows, going all out for a period of 4 hours a time, hitting crazy kcals...but then losing bf per week. Anyone clarify why this is? As it might put my mind at rest for eating over Saturday lol


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Ljb said:


> THIS. Same mate - I used to do 3 weeks without a cheat and have a HUGE binge. I'm talking £80 of **** food bought - takeaways, sweets, cheescakes, everything...and id just stuff my face even when i wasnt hungry. I remember melting twirl bites onto toaste with peanut butter and pop tarts and thinking 'what is my life'
> 
> Now I try and just have one cheat meal a week, after training that day. I'll try not go crazy. Last weekend was 8oz steak burger, smoked cheddar and chorizo, 8oz blue cheese and red onion, large chips. two cookies and a caramel latte. This was at 3 and I didnt eat til 9pm lol...and then it was just a shake.
> 
> I am curious though experts - Say we have a all out mental cheat day / meal WAY over daily macros or weekly macros - how much of it do we actually take in? we cant serioulsy take in all 5k/10k kcals of food if we had a cheat weekend , because surely it would mean no one on a diet would ever be able have a cheat day/weekend without putting them back weeks of eating under. I see people dieting for shows, going all out for a period of 4 hours a time, hitting crazy kcals...but then losing bf per week. Anyone clarify why this is? As it might put my mind at rest for eating over Saturday lol


Simply put some people can get away with more than overs when it comes to "cheats". Others may have to be in a higher deficit in the week to allow for bigger cheats.

A good point I saw @ConP make on a different forum is that he isnt a fan of massive cheats due to additional muscle loss. Sure he can explain better but his point was basically say you lose (just made up numbers) 1lb of actual fat a week and lose 0.2lb of muscle then your massive cheat meal adds 0.6lb of fat. This will in turn lead to longer dieting and therefore more potential for muscle loss per week. Assuming natural this is!!


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## Ljb (Oct 14, 2009)

Goodfella said:


> Simply put some people can get away with more than overs when it comes to "cheats". Others may have to be in a higher deficit in the week to allow for bigger cheats.
> 
> A good point I saw @ConP make on a different forum is that he isnt a fan of massive cheats due to additional muscle loss. Sure he can explain better but his point was basically say you lose (just made up numbers) 1lb of actual fat a week and lose 0.2lb of muscle then your massive cheat meal adds 0.6lb of fat. This will in turn lead to longer dieting and therefore more potential for muscle loss per week. Assuming natural this is!!


Good way of thinking. But even then, one day I rememeber I counted to 40k kcals and was still going (it lasted 12 hours.) if you dont believe me I was having country crisp cereal, with m and m's brownies and flapjacks and cookies in a giant bowl covered in a litre of jersey milk. this was at the beginning of the day...

My point is, even after all that ****, I shouldve put on like 10lb of fat, but I didnt? So surely when it comes to cheats - going all out you cant seriously take it all in....otherwise that means no one would be able to cheat, and would also mean your average kids that dont train and you see binge at weekends would constantly be putting on weight - and this doesnt happen


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Ljb said:


> Good way of thinking. But even then, one day I rememeber I counted to 40k kcals and was still going (it lasted 12 hours.) if you dont believe me I was having country crisp cereal, with m and m's brownies and flapjacks and cookies in a giant bowl covered in a litre of jersey milk. this was at the beginning of the day...
> 
> My point is, even after all that ****, I shouldve put on like 10lb of fat, but I didnt? So surely when it comes to cheats - going all out you cant seriously take it all in....otherwise that means no one would be able to cheat, and would also mean your average kids that dont train and you see binge at weekends would constantly be putting on weight - and this doesnt happen


Not sure 40k is humanly possible :lol:

But how do you know you didn't put on more fat you believe?? Unless very low body fat levels you'd struggle to tell... without a DEXA scan you wouldnt be able to know for sure the damage.


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## sean 162 (Sep 27, 2009)

Goodfella said:


> Not sure 40k is humanly possible :lol:
> 
> But how do you know you didn't put on more fat you believe?? Unless very low body fat levels you'd struggle to tell... without a DEXA scan you wouldnt be able to know for sure the damage.


Such a clever little pr1ck! X


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

sean 162 said:


> Such a clever little pr1ck! X


Compared to you obviously simpleton :lol:


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## sean 162 (Sep 27, 2009)

Goodfella said:


> Compared to you obviously simpleton :lol:


Thats why you will go far.

And i have fizzled out


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

sean 162 said:


> Thats why you will go far.
> 
> And i have fizzled out


Yeah because I'm a sad b4stard who won't stop reading lol listening to Ben Pakulski podcasts on way to work at the mo and learning alot


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

Goodfella said:


> A good point I saw @ConP make on a different forum is that he isnt a fan of massive cheats due to additional muscle loss. Sure he can explain better but his point was basically say you lose (just made up numbers) 1lb of actual fat a week and lose 0.2lb of muscle then your massive cheat meal adds 0.6lb of fat. This will in turn lead to longer dieting and therefore more potential for muscle loss per week. Assuming natural this is!!


That makes sense. Another related consequence is that it will mean you have to cut for longer to achieve the same result, which personally I'd want to avoid!

Periodic refeeds make sense when cutting to reset leptin levels. But personally I would never do this without at least having a calorie target. Possibly I'm misunderstanding but some of the posts on this thread sound like people are having 'refeeds' when bulking, which doesn't really make sense - these are just simple cheat days/meals  .

When cutting I do though follow a flexible dieting approach, and so will have for example the occasional dinner of sausages, chips and baked beans, but still hitting daily macro targets.


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Ultrasonic said:


> That makes sense. Another related consequence is that it will mean you have to cut for longer to achieve the same result, which personally I'd want to avoid!
> 
> Periodic refeeds make sense when cutting to reset leptin levels. But personally I would never do this without at least having a calorie target. Possibly I'm misunderstanding but some of the posts on this thread sound like people are having 'refeeds' when bulking, which doesn't really make sense - *these are just simple cheat days/meals*  .
> 
> When cutting I do though follow a flexible dieting approach, and so will have for example the occasional dinner of sausages, chips and baked beans, but still hitting daily macro targets.


Yep one mid week and one at weekend


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## Ljb (Oct 14, 2009)

Goodfella said:


> Not sure 40k is humanly possible :lol:
> 
> But how do you know you didn't put on more fat you believe?? Unless very low body fat levels you'd struggle to tell... without a DEXA scan you wouldnt be able to know for sure the damage.


I didnt wanna go there...but FINE:

1 whole box of country crisp cereal

1 box of M&S flapjacks

1 box of M&S brownies

5 kit kat peanut butter bars

4L lucozade

2L Gold top jersey milk

300g oats

1 tub of peanut butter 454g

a whole loaf of bread

nutella spread tub

2 share bags m and m's

1 pack of m and s cookies

dominoes meat feast

chiniese takeaway - chicken fried rice, duck in orange sauce, ribs, peking pork

nandos with all the sides

3 packs of haribo

fish and chips

all between 3am and 5am.....i klnow this because i was adding it to MFP lol.

I wasnt hungry for days


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## Dan94 (Dec 29, 2013)

Is that even possible to digest all the that


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Ljb said:


> I didnt wanna go there...but FINE:
> 
> 1 whole box of country crisp cereal
> 
> ...


Fcuk me sideways :lol:

I take it back  ...... should get into competitive eating if you can hold that lot down!!!


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## Ljb (Oct 14, 2009)

Dan94 said:


> Is that even possible to digest all the that


Thats my exact point mate, was hoping a expert would know!

I wasnt exactly not bloated or watery for days...but I certainly didnt look like 6lbs of fat/ 3% bf higher the following week. Was looking the same.

I know what goes in comes out and all so anything you put in you should count...but can your body physically process all that food at once? Just like the myth/common debated question that your body can only process a certain amount of protein in one serving, can we process only a certain amount of kcals in one serving.

PS I also missed three tubs of BNJ i was melting and eating with poptarts. ha. i felt rough


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## Goodfella (Jul 11, 2012)

Ljb said:


> Thats my exact point mate, was hoping a expert would know!
> 
> I wasnt exactly not bloated or watery for days...but I certainly didnt look like 6lbs of fat/ 3% bf higher the following week. Was looking the same.
> 
> ...


 @dtlv @ConP might be able to shed more light!!


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## Ljb (Oct 14, 2009)

And while we wait...whats my cheat going to be this week!?


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## Ljb (Oct 14, 2009)

Also if we could take in everything - the guy off man vs food would be a lot bigger than he is


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## ConP (Aug 18, 2013)

As I have been mentioned in here I will throw my 2 cents in.

1: The body is constantly breaking down and storing fat.

2: If you eat more than you need at a certain time you will store fat.

3: Fat gains are not only sub q but also within the muscle tissue (cosmetically a good thing as it makes the muscle look bigger)

4: The body has little problem storing unlimited amounts of fat. Now for the guy that ate 20k calories in one day there is no chance all of that will be absorbed. So those calories wont be stored as fat. Just like guys with IBS will some times lose weight even though calories taken in are very high. You can store what you absorb. Hence why some people use laxatives when they binge (this is an binge/purge disorder or at least can turn into it).

To reply to the actual question.

I think structured refeeds are always better than simply eating a big cheat meal without controlling/counting how much you eat.

Does that mean you can only eat carbs during a refeed IMO, no.

But in order to lose fat you will lose some lean tissue it's just how it goes.

So if you spend 6 days losing fat, then gain some fat on day 7, you will start day 8 in a slightly weaker position.

But at the end of the day what is optimal needs to be balanced VS what you're willing to do.

Meaning if having a cheat meal once per week where you gain some fat back is what keeps you progressing then do it.

Progress is progress after all.


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## NoGutsNoGloryy (Jan 7, 2013)

I have sweets bread and all that but I still track macros


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

Ljb said:


> Also if we could take in everything - the guy off man vs food would be a lot bigger than he is


We have no idea what he eats when he is not in front of the camera though. That said, I have absolutely no idea what the body does if you eat 40k calories in a day, I've never eaten much more than half that in A WEEK, let alone a day!


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## Ljb (Oct 14, 2009)

Ultrasonic said:


> We have no idea what he eats when he is not in front of the camera though. That said, I have absolutely no idea what the body does if you eat 40k calories in a day, I've never eaten much more than half that in A WEEK, let alone a day!


All i know is when I ate the above post of food - I felt like weight would fly off me, although I was ****ting for days and days


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## ConP (Aug 18, 2013)

Ljb said:


> All i know is when I ate the above post of food - I felt like weight would fly off me, although I was ****ting for days and days


Eating an unusually large amount of food can cause the digestive system to fully cleanse it self.

So you may have had several lb of waste built up in your bowels (happens all the time when dieting for many people).

So eating all the food caused your bowels to get rid of that stored waste which in turn made the scales go down.


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## Tom90 (Jan 29, 2010)

@ConP could I also get your thoughts on the structured reefed when not dieting? Like eating in a caloric surplus?


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## ConP (Aug 18, 2013)

Tom90 said:


> @ConP could I also get your thoughts on the structured reefed when not dieting? Like eating in a caloric surplus?


If you're already in a surplus I doubt you will get any benefits from eating extra.

Now what I do like is having maintaining or even caloric minus's on some days then eating in excess on other days.

Usually this would mean lower on rest days and then higher on training days.


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## littlejames (Oct 11, 2014)

Ljb said:


> THIS. Same mate - I used to do 3 weeks without a cheat and have a HUGE binge. I'm talking £80 of **** food bought - takeaways, sweets, cheescakes, everything...and id just stuff my face even when i wasnt hungry. I remember melting twirl bites onto toaste with peanut butter and pop tarts and thinking 'what is my life'
> 
> Now I try and just have one cheat meal a week, after training that day. I'll try not go crazy. Last weekend was 8oz steak burger, smoked cheddar and chorizo, 8oz blue cheese and red onion, large chips. two cookies and a caramel latte. This was at 3 and I didnt eat til 9pm lol...and then it was just a shake.
> 
> I am curious though experts - Say we have a all out mental cheat day / meal WAY over daily macros or weekly macros - how much of it do we actually take in? we cant serioulsy take in all 5k/10k kcals of food if we had a cheat weekend , because surely it would mean no one on a diet would ever be able have a cheat day/weekend without putting them back weeks of eating under. I see people dieting for shows, going all out for a period of 4 hours a time, hitting crazy kcals...but then losing bf per week. Anyone clarify why this is? As it might put my mind at rest for eating over Saturday lol


Haha.... Yeah I've had to stop buying peanut butter. Can't have it in the house or a jar is gone in a day or two.

That steak burger sounds awesome!


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## dtlv (Jul 24, 2009)

In addition to Con's comments, a structured reefed is not at all likely to lead to much fat gain even with a large amount of carbs consumed.

When in a net weekly calorie deficit and especially when glycogen stores are low/depleted the body can store a very large amount of extra carbs from a feed without adding extra body fat - one study suggests up to 500g carbs can be consumed before any risk of fat gain, with a total capacity of carbs to glycogen at a whopping 15g of carbs per 1kg of body weight. During the day of such a re-feed however the body will switch almost entirely to burning carbs for energy over body fat so you won't lose any body fat that day and any dietary fat consumed will be stored, so the bigger a carb re-feed the smaller you want to make your dietary fat intake.

IMO structured re-feeds have more advantage (physiologically) than cheat days.... however, many people psychologically can only stick to strict dietary plans with the knowledge that once a week they get to pig out, so for some people to get to stick to plan at all a cheat day (that isn't totally OTT) may be more beneficial for long term stickability to the plan. For the dedicated though the best results will usually come with a structured re-feed - IMO best frequency is once a week if low-moderate carb the rest of the week, or once every 5-6 days if very low carb/keto the rest of the time. It is individual dependent though. Obviously no need to re-feed at all if cutting on high carb/low fat.


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

@dtlv an excellent informative post as always .



dtlv said:


> ...one study suggests up to a whopping 15g of carbs per 1kg of lean body weight.


I'd be curious to have a look at that if you happen to remember the reference details?



> Obviously no need to re-feed at all if cutting on high carb/low fat.


At the risk of appearing even dumber than usual I'm going to admit that isn't completely obvious to me, any chance of a quick explanation? Is there no drop in leptin caused purely by a calorie deficit then? Thanks.


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## nWo (Mar 25, 2014)

I'm pretty much IIFYM. The way it was supposed to be followed, of course; I'd say I eat around 80% clean, the remaining percentage I fill with what I fancy. Even then, what I fancy might still be fairly clean, like a Subway or whatever. Some days though, if I'm planning to eat a takeaway with horrific amounts of fatty calories, I'll make sure I don't eat so much throughout the day to make way for the calories, too easy to get 5000+ calories in one sitting on these occasions :laugh: Obviously, these sort of days would be spárse on a cutting cycle.


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## dtlv (Jul 24, 2009)

Ultrasonic said:


> @dtlv an excellent informative post as always .
> 
> I'd be curious to have a look at that if you happen to remember the reference details?
> 
> At the risk of appearing even dumber than usual I'm going to admit that isn't completely obvious to me, any chance of a quick explanation? Is there no drop in leptin caused purely by a calorie deficit then? Thanks.


The reference is here - http://m.ajcn.nutrition.org/content/48/2/240.short

I've just read my previous post back to myself and edited because I typed it slightly wrong - it's not 15g carbs per kg before any fat gain, it's 500g carbs can be stored as glycogen in a low carb state before fat gain (and only some fat gain after that), with a maximal glycogen storage capacity of around 15g carbs per kg of bodyweight.

In regards to your question about leptin, leptin is secreted in higher amounts when body fat levels are higher because sub cut fat is where leptin is synthesized, so leptin will drop when body fat drops but not specifically because of the calorie deficit but because of diminishing body fat levels.

That said, although the amount of leptin is related to body fatness, the thing that actually stimulates it most significantly is blood glucose, so when cutting by going low carb, leptin will fall away immediately even before body fat levels have gone down.

This is why after a re-feed on an otherwise low carb diet people feel great for 24-36 hours and then feel like they are going through hell again, because by the 24-36 hour point glycogen and blood glucose levels are back down again and so leptin has gone down again too. This is also my rationale against a once a week only re-feed for the purposes of boosting leptin because the boost is only for one day out of seven. IMO more frequent smaller re-feeds are more effective.


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## mal (Dec 31, 2009)

il add a bowl or 2 of oats/wheetabix in over 2-3 days,im hot and filling up by then and its enough.

I take in a lot more bcaa's on them days as well,makes it a more pronounced effect,plus

a few more bits n bobs.


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## Benchbum (Apr 20, 2011)

I'm planning a structured re feed Saturday. .. currently feeling very lethargic and tired. Have written it all down and given it to the mrs... Normaly I do all my food prep but due to loss of self control the last two Saturdays I am banned from the kitchen and she is making it up...

Doing usual daily diet in the day but zero carbs till get home. Then having extra 500 cals over usual and 150g total extra carbs on top of my usual 80. Not a massive amount but hopefully enough to refill a bit with out doing any damage


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## damn shame (Jan 2, 2015)

My cheat day consists of eating out. I still hit my macros but go way over calories.

Today is my cheat day. I will probably have oats for breakfast then sizzler and a subway, along with some peanuts and a couple of protein drinks.


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