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

[lozen]

100% for a free day. i personally think it can keep you motivated. I do believe it can fool the body as stated in Body for Life

[kyleb]

without a free day i would never be able to diet and exercise as hard as i do

usually tuesdays are free days since i have baseball games on the weekends and train hard on mondays

[gwp]

I'll usually have two cheat meals on a Sunday as opposed to an all out free day. I do make a pig of myself for those two meals though [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[kyleb]

yeah i don't go ape-[censored] on a free day. i usually eat a pizza and a sandwich from paseo (cuban place in seattle) and do some light rotator cuff band work.

[d0nkaments]

I was thinking about this topic too,

Lets say through diet and excersize, we have a calorie defecit of 2000 by Sunday. Then, on the free day, we eat whatever we want, drink whatever we want, and thus lets say our total calorie intake that day is 3200 (totally possible). This means the 2000 calorie deficit we banked, is now only at ~1000. Meaning HALF of our efforts are "wasted."

Is this the correct mindset? It seems awfully inefficient to me, but without it, it's also very hard to stay strictly motivated.

[kyleb]

Weekly deficits don't necessarily work that way, though it's a good guide. Besides, a deficit of 2000 calories over 6 days isn't that great. It should be easy to eat 2000 or less calories/day and work out 3 days burning 400-500 calories per session, netting you 900-1100 calorie deficit per day.

[Thremp]

[ QUOTE ]
Weekly deficits don't necessarily work that way, though it's a good guide. Besides, a deficit of 2000 calories over 6 days isn't that great. It should be easy to eat 2000 or less calories/day and work out 3 days burning 400-500 calories per session, netting you 900-1100 calorie deficit per day.

[/ QUOTE ]

This will grind down very very fast, and is way too quick for longterm.

OP,

Cheat meals are std. But free-for-alls are idiotic and pointless. This is like fitness 101.

[kyleb]

Could be done over 3 months without a problem. Not a full year.

[SmileyEH]

ftw