Possibly dumb question, calories/cheat day/weight?

Okay so I posted before kind of because over last weekend, I induldged in a mini cheesecake while on vacation, ontop of my alloted number of calories.

Some background info real quick is I'm recovering from an Eating Disorder and stupidly lowered my intake to 1,200 calories a day, and I know I'm losing. ( Please mind I am still really working on this, sorry.)

Anyway, I was wondering if I had a 'cheat day' once every month, what would happen? Say I ate around 3,000 calories or so in my cheat day. Would that make me gain weight eventually?

Because it seems like it would be conflicting with every other day when I eat 1,200, so if I lose on that, then gain on the 3,000 calories once a month, would it even out to a maintaing stage?

I'm sorry if this is a confusing weird question, I guess I'm just really curious and confused, and obviously not good at posting(:

But if anyone could help me out here, I would appreciate it. Thank you very much, really.

You'd still lose weight, but I betcha you'd gain more fat, and just continue losing muscle. You should eat at least 2000 calories every day and weight train.

i agree ...you need at least 2000 and yes have a cheat day...i think it would be great for you to talk to a professional to help with your meal plan or something

I do, I have a therapist, nutritionist and go to my doctor regularly. I just had a nutritionist appointment yesterday, and like I said, she is trying to help me get over that 1,200.. but I'm really wondering, what would happen if I had those 3,000 calorie cheat days when eating 1,200? I really am generally curious. Thank you for the replies so far though.

well i think your body would hate you...personally that doesn't sound healthy...one extreme to the other? Why not just try and eat a healthy number (way over 1200) each day!?

Jsharshar- I don't think too much would happen if you were to eat 3000 calories for one day once a month.  The most I think would happen is that you will gain between 2-4 lbs.  I think it also depends what you were eating, lets just say you ate a combo #5 from McDonald's (I don't know what a combo 5 is but I am pretty sure it's not good for you) there is nothing nutritious in it, so it most likely will "run" through you, especially if you don't eat McDonald's on a regular basis it will be a shock to your system.  Now if you were to eat 3000 cals. of nutritious foods ie. lean meats, vegetables, fruit, whole wheat pasta, most likely the energy from these foods will be stored in your system, especially if your body thinks you are starving yourself. 

By the way don't quote me on all of this I am not a doctor, I just play one on t.v. (jj)

I'm not a doctor either, or an expert of any kind, but if you just do the math, you can get a rough idea of what would happen. Let's pretend that you needed to eat 2000 calories to maintain (I don't know your BMR and stats, so I'm not sure exactly the number for you.) And instead you were eating 1200 a day, that's a deficit of 800 per day. In a month, there are 30 days, so 30 X 800 = 24,000. That's 24,000 calories in deficit in a single month! Even if you had a "cheat day" once a month and ate 3,000 calories that day, that would only cancel out 1,000 of your 24,000 deficit, leaving a 23,000 calorie deficit for the month!! If you assume 3,500 calories is a pound of fat, that's losing over 6 pounds a month!  One cheat day cannot cancel out 29 days of way undereating.

So, like everyone else has said, you really need to increase those calories on an everyday basis, not just a once a month cheat day. Follow the advice of your nutritionist and you'll be much better off.

Good luck!

Hi, I'm logging all my intake and exercise and I cheated a couple Saturdays ago and talked to a trainer at my gym. He said it's good to throw your body off now and then, if you consistently intake the same nutritional low calorie things, your body doesn't work very hard to process that, it is comfortable with processing the same stuff day after day. If you throw in some protiens and fats it's not accustomed to, it works hard to break them down because it's not typical for your eating habits. You can and should "cheat" now and then to keep your body wondering what's coming next... that's what he told me.  Good luck with your journey to better weight management, that's what it is, it's a journey so stick with it!!

Hey, thank you guys so much for your replies.

I weighed myself around a day or two ago, and weighed the same as I did before the trip, so I don't really know what happend there. But it's good to know that I can be able to enjoy something like that every once in a while.

It's also good to know about the whole 'cheat day' mixing up your body thing.. I've heard of that before and just hoping its true now(:

And I'm still working ohn the whole proper amount of calories per day thing, but thank you guys for answering this in the meantime, all these responses are great, thanks again.

Unfortunately your slowed metabolism will simply store every excess calorie as fat, and your muscle will continue to atrophy. Cheat days only work if you are eating enough in the first place.