Cheat meal or cheat day?

[dl1874]

If you read the title, then your quick response will be, "It depends on what your goals consist of", or, "how often you talkin' about?". The goal of this thread is for me to determine when a cheat meal should be taken advantage of, and if it's okay, a cheat day (or two)!

My current stats are:
Age: 27
Height: 5'7 (unfortunately, I don't anticipate it changing!)
Weight: 162lbs
Bodyfat: 5%
Waist: 29

My workouts are a little different in nature than most of you, mostly due to the fact that I'm a gymnist first, and a weight lifter second. As I'm getting a little bit older these days, I find myself doing fewer sessions of my gymnastics stuff (I do the olympic rings by the way) and more general weight lifting. A typical ring session for me would consist of some warm up movements (ring push ups and pull ups, some hanging L-seats (raise your feet to your legs are parrallel to the ground)), and some suspended iron crosses to wake up the shoulders. This would last about 15-20 minutes in duration. After that, I then do the various routines which really exhaust everything from the pelvic region up. This takes place twice a week, usually Tuesday and Saturday.

My weight lifting sessions are good and getting even better. I do a good job in changing it up every month so I feel the results which helps me maintain the mental edge in working out. Since I do other resistance training exercises in my gymnastics, I focus on doing pull movements one day (back and biceps) and push movements another day of the week (chest, shoulders and triceps). I even like to do a "tricked up" work out on occassion that consist of a push movement, then immediately followed up by a pull movement. I find that I'm at my strongest when I do these types of work outs for whatever reason. I don't do that much training on my legs, mostly due to the fact that I was discouraged to do so by my gymnastics coach when I was younger (you won't ever see guys who do the olympic rings sporting large legs!). I do have decent sized legs, though, that are strong enough to get me up to grab a 10ft basketball rim, believe it or not.

My cardio consist of various exercises usually lasting no more than 30 minutes in duration. It may be basketball, mountain bike riding, jogging, or jump roping. I like to follow up my resistance training with some cardio, but it all depends on what I have in the tank at the time.

My diet is very clean and I follow the 40/40/20 rule. The only nutritional supplements that I take at this time are Dymatize's Elite Whey protein, ProLab's Lean Mass Matrix MRP, and Dymatize's Expand product (the energized version). My daily caloric intake averages at around 2800-2900 calories a day. My old cheat days, which took place every Sunday, consisted of LOTS of good, clean food. Here lately, I have lightened up quite a bit and eaten some crap on my cheat days. I got married 10 months ago and my wife makes some yummy stuff on occassion. I have found where my cheat days are still taking place once a week, but they're turning into half day marathons of eating junk. I don't eat myself sick, but I do take advantage of the moment by making it count. Obviously my body is absorbing it quite well or I would feel/see the difference and would have probably already made the necessary changes.

So what do you guys/gals think? How does your cheat meal/day effect your overall goal? My goal is to remain lean for as long as I can, but also be able to enjoy my life with my wife. I have been tearing it up on my cheat days for about 4 months now and I can honestly say that it's not causing too many problems. Heck, it's probably doing me a ton of good. And if you all think I should be eating more and maybe cheating a little bit more often, then PLEASE let me know. Hell, I'd be most happy it I looked like Vander, but I know that aint happening! I guess that I'm finding myself slowly walking away from my old ways (gymnastics) and looking towards to BIGGER and better things. Follow me?

Thanks,
David

[redsquirrel]

With the level of activity you are doing, your metabolism is sky high. It also sounds as if you are going to continue w/ this sort of regimen for quite some time.

Once the body becomes accustomed to burning all the time which it seems your body has, then cheat meals, or days for that matter, actually do you some good. It actually ends up shocking your body because it's food your body doesn't regularly see. Even BBer's training for a comp will have a cheat meal or day. I would say you may be able to have another cheat meal or two as long as you don't let it get out of control. And, in all honesty, your cheat days of junk food may not be really that bad.

[dl1874]

Thanks for your response Redsquirrel. My activity level will remain high, especially since we're in the hot summer months and I want to remain lean. My plans are to put on some good weight in the fall. My metabolism is very high right now, but I know it won't always be there due to the aging process.

I tend to use the fit and feel test to monitor my results. When I do find myself eating more sometimes and putting on some extra muscle, I tend to go back to my old ways because I start feeling really bad. I tend to feel constantly bloated and out of shape when I hit the gym hard and eat more food, and the mental side of things tends to get the best of me. I've tried a few different ways in gaining some extra mucle without drastically increasing my diet, but it just doesn't work out that well. One approach was to eliminate cardio entirely, but I lost that battle as I started to feel less lean after one week of trial.

I think what it all boils down to is that I have to decide between being extremely lean with nothing but lean muscle mass, or taking the plunge and putting on some weight. I just see so many people overweight these days that I fear gaining some unwanted weight and not being able to make it go away if I want it to. I'll attach some pics later this week to give you guys a visual of what I look like today.

Thanks,
David

[dl1874]

Here's a picture of me that was taken about one year ago. At the time, I was was weighing in at about 168-170 at 7% body fat. I am leaner and lighter now, but it's amazing how much bigger that I look now that I'm leaner!

David