Thoughts on "free days"?

[Jihad]

Many diets and general fitness programs recommend a "free day." For instance, on my current program I'm working out 6 days a week and eating 6 good meals a day, but Sunday is my free day and I intentionally eat like [censored]. I will usually just take whatever I've been craving all week, soda, lasagna, whatever, and go for it.

What do people think of this fairly common practice? I am having mixed feelings myself, sometimes it really helps me focus and motivate for the upcoming week, but sometimes I just get that "WTF did I just do that for" feeling. As I have moved into the 3rd month of this program, I'm starting to see some amazing results, but I'm also not taking as much advantage of the free day as I was previously, and I actually just got back from a run tonight.

When I was in the best shape of my life, college 6 years ago, I was close to competition level. I would have never even thought about eating [censored] for a day. If I can get under a specific weight anytime soon I plan on getting very serious, and will probably either completely eliminate free days or significantly change the rules.

Just some random musings on the subject, looking for some friendly discussion and debate.

Jihad