Cheat meals and refeed days are helpful for those who try to lose weight. How? Check out below. If you ever tried to cut weight, you know that you need to reduce your portion size and consume fewer calories. Nevertheless, the sudden switch to this healthier lifestyle can be pretty hard to adapt to. It can be really frustrating when you try hard for days or weeks, and it seems to get harder and harder to stick to your plan. This is where refeed days come into play.
What are Refeed Days?
Simply put, a refeed meal or “refeed days” (or refeed DAY), is a planned increase in calories. Either for one meal only or for the entire day. Most people opt for these refeed days either once a week, or once every other week. This gives the body a break from calorie restrictions.
When you’re following a strict nutrition plan long-term, it is quite common (and even expectable) to start dreaming about baked goods, or something that you simply can’t have. That’s why refeed days are so helpful.
Why do we crave food so much?
The more strict you are with your diet, especially when you are working towards a body fat percentage under 10%, the more certain food cravings are becoming a real challenge. It is completely normal to have these types of cravings. That’s because this is the result of your body’s main driver – survival. When you do not receive enough energy to sustain your current size (when you eat in a calorie deficit to burn off that fat), the brain receives feedback, so it sends signals. Some of them are – craving foods you love.
- When you feel true hunger with those deep stomach growls, your brain is signaling that it is time to fill the fuel reserves (fat cells) that are quickly being depleted. As you continue along this path and reduce body fat long-term, your body is trying to respond in an attempt to survive. This way, it upregulates (increases) leptin levels.
So, you are attempting to eat less, but leptin signals your body to consume more. This increases hunger and cravings, making it very tempting to snack on everything you see. This is nothing more than your body attempting to survive. It doesn’t know you’re attempting to lose weight and you do it intentionally. It tries to avoid death by undereating. But we all know that you won’t be dying from undereating, you just try to lose weight and burn fat. However, this doesn’t reduce the cravings. That’s why refeed days are so helpful – they help reduce those cravings.
Refeed Days Benefits
Instead of constantly craving and literally dreaming about a box of cookies, the refeed days can be very helpful at keeping you on track. Because the refeed days (or single refeed meal) reduce the cravings by allowing yourself to intentionally overconsume calories.
While it is obviously going to get you out of your calorie deficit, you’ll be ready for the next challenges without cravings. Moreover, during the calorie deficit, your hormone levels could decrease, your metabolism could decrease, and your hunger could go up. It is not uncommon to feel lethargic and tired too. All of this runs the risk of potentially hitting a weight loss plateau. Yet, overeating during the refeed days could reduce these risks.
Cheat Meal vs Refeed Days (or Refeed Meal)
By saying all of that, lots of you may be thinking: well, a refeed day (or meal) is just a cheat meal. Well, not really. There are actually differences between the two and you should learn them.
When we’re focusing on the foods that we cannot eat, healthy eating is significantly harder. And when attempting to eat right and healthy, lots of us find that it becomes harder and harder as we’re into our healthy eating habits. So, we attempt to eat something we aren’t allowed to.
This is a cheat meal. Yet, the name alone sounds like you’re doing something you can’t be doing. Why? Because you actually are. During a cheat meal or a cheat day, we’re usually focusing on foods that we cannot have and we do not care for the macros or calorie intake. A cheat meal or a cheat day does not hold any limits when it comes to diet overall.
On the other hand, we have refeed days or refeed meals which offer you the opportunity to overeat. Nonetheless, it does not allow you to eat whatever you want, unlike a cheat meal. During refeed days, you are still consistent with your specific macronutrients. Therefore, no, during refeed days, you can’t go for that large greasy pizza or sugar filled donuts. You just eat more but in the right balance and the right type of foods. Maybe with a bit more of one macronutrient: carbohydrates. That’s why they are called “refeed days”. You basically “refeed” your body but with healthy foods and more healthy carbs.
Moreover…
Both cheat days and refeed days are designed to help reduce cravings and help you stay on track, however. But refeed days are more efficient. Therefore, cheat days/meals allow you to eat whatever you want, without counting calories. Refeed days/meals allow you to eat more calories but with the right macros and healthy foods, with more carbs. That’s why refereed days and meals are still carefully planned and controlled with an increase in calories, usually prioritizing carbs over protein and fat.
Why Would I Need Refeed Days?
Going on a total binge-fest on high fat, junk, and highly processed foods will surely not do any good for your goals. But a temporary calorie surplus can help kick your weight loss again. That is because if you’ve been in a calorie deficit for a while, you could notice that your weight loss can slowly until ultimately totally plateau. That’s because of the hormones that start to change as you’re in a calorie deficit. Your body attempts to survive and searches for ways to limit weight loss. The body encourages calorie burn and regulates your appetite when hormones are on point.
When the hormones are low, the brain enters an unknown period of calorie deprivation, so it burns fewer calories. This is known as adaptive thermogenesis. When it happens, your brain “tells” your body to eat more and burn less. This is a protective process of your body, slowing your metabolism, decreasing energy output, and slowing weight loss. When it happens, food cravings increase too. So you basically want to eat more, and your body burns less calories.
On the other hand, the refeed days can control it, alongside controlling those hunger pangs, which can be extremely hard to control as you push for low body fat levels. When you significantly decrease your food intake, the body goes through a “shock” and wants to hold on to what it has. Refeed days are working as “anti-stressful measures” for your body. They encourage fat cells to release more leptin, reduce cravings, boost energy levels, and metabolism, and overall boost the weight loss process. They work so that you consume significantly more energy than is normal for your body, signaling your brain and body that there’s no need to stop the weight loss process by activating the “survival” mode.
However…
It is important to understand that refeed days should only be started by those who are already into their weight loss cycles for a while and notice plateaus in their progress. Moreover, do not confuse plateaus in weight loss progress when you’re actually working towards it (maintaining your diet and training program on point), with plateaus as you start to have “refeed days”, every day. Weight loss won’t occur as long as you do not eat in calorie deficiency.
So, refeed days are helpful in preventing a plateau in weight loss and preventing binge eating. But they are helpful for those who have been dieting for a while now. You shouldn’t even think about refeed days (or especially cheat days/ meals) if you haven’t been dieting for at least 1-2 months now.
Refeed Days Downsides
There are lots of benefits that refeed days can offer. But there are a few downsides that you should take into consideration.
- May not work as we think. Some researchers are still arguing the topic of adaptive thermogenesis. If they’re right, it means that refeed days do nothing else than just… increasing your calorie intake.
- Easy to get carried away. It is obvious that it depends on your self control. However, people who have issues with it may be tempted to go overboard with their refeed diet after a refeed meal.
- It is still a “diet” mentally. While adding refeed days will encourage temporary “rehab” from calorie restriction, it can still emphasize a diet to lose weight as you’re still not allowed to eat whatever you want.
What Does Refeed Days Look Like?
If you try to add refeed days into your regimen, here’s how you can set it up. It is extremely important to ensure you do it all right, stay within the regimen, and do not fall off the bandwagon.
Most people go for the long term strategy with refeed days once every two weeks. However, you can adjust this according to your goals and body fat %. I would recommend starting your refeed days at least one month into your weight loss diet.
- Men with body fat of more than 10% should have refeed days once every 2 weeks. If your body fat is less than that, go once a week.
- Women with body fat over 20% should have refeed days once every 2 weeks, those with body fat less than that can have it once a week.
*women should have at least 10-15% of body fat to support reproductive and overall health.
You can add more complex/healthy carbohydrates such as pasta, rice, wheat, and others. But still have enough healthy fats and protein during the day.
Conclusion
In the end, refeed days are designed to give your body a break from a strict calorie deficit, offering you sanity and your body what it needs to keep on running at its fullest, without entering the “survival” mode and blocking the weight loss processes. It is important to remember not to build an unhealthy relationship with food, regardless of your diet type of goals, however.
Refeed days are to improve your leptin levels, curb your weight loss plateaus, and keep you on track with your body fat goals, lowering the risk of binge eating.
However, some research still suggests that refeed days may not be as helpful as we tend to believe. Whether you believe that’s true or not, is totally up to you. We just recommend going for the strategy that works best for you and your body to continue your weight loss and fat burning efforts.
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