Does this sound familiar?
Most days, you stick to your diet and eat the amount of calories you planned to.
But on other days, something gets screwed up, you overeat, and you end up consuming more calories than you should have.
It happens to all of us at some point.
But the question is…
What should you do when this happens?
- Should you make up for it by eating less the next day or doing extra cardio?
- Should you just get back on track the next day without trying to make up for it?
Which approach is better?
Which one is more likely to prevent you from gaining any fat, and get you back to losing weight as quickly as possible?
Let’s find out right now.
Here’s How We’re Going To Answer This
I’m going to play out both options – 1) eating less the next day to make up for it, and 2) just getting back on track the next day – and then let you decide which option to choose.
To start, let’s pretend the following:
- Our example person is trying to lose fat.
- Their maintenance level is 2500 calories.
- They’ve created a daily caloric deficit of 500 calories.
- Their target is 2000 calories per day.
- They’re expecting to lose about 1lb per week on average.
And let’s also pretend that for the last few weeks, they’ve been hitting their 2000 calorie target every day and are successfully losing about 1lb per week as planned.
Awesome!
But then…
It happens!
They overeat and go over their calorie target today!
Oh no!
How much did they go over?!?
For this example, we’ll say they went 500 calories over and ate 2500 calories instead of 2000.
Note that they could have gone over by 300 calories, 700 calories, 1000 calories, 2000 calories, or whatever else. That part doesn’t matter. The rest of this applies just the same either way.
So they went 500 calories over their target.
What should they do?
Option #1: Eat Less The Next Day
If they want to make up for it tomorrow, they’d need to eat 500 fewer calories. For them, that means eating 1500 calories.
That would be 1000 calories below their maintenance level, which represents a deficit of 40%.
Since a deficit of 20% is considered a “moderate” size that’s ideal for most, it would be accurate to consider a deficit of 40% to be pretty damn big.
And what happens when we have a deficit this big? Or even just when we eat a lot less one day than we usually do? Or hell, even if we just skip a meal (e.g. lunch) that we normally eat?
We get extra hungry!
So let’s say this person successfully manages to eat 1500 calories tomorrow. Many people won’t even be able to do that due to the real-time hunger it will cause, but let’s say this person makes it through the day.
The next day, they start to notice they’re a lot hungrier than usual. Eating way less the previous day tends to have that effect.
So what happens?
The extra hunger gets to them at some point and they end up eating more than they were planning to and going over their calorie target… again.
And what do they do?
They eat less the next day to make up for it.
And what happens the day after that?
They’re extra hungry from eating less the previous day.
And what do they do?
They eat less the next day to make up for it.
And what happens the day after that?
They’re extra hungry from eating less the previous day.
This cycle continues in one form or another, with no fat loss progress being made, accompanied by frustration, confusion, guilt, sometimes the beginning or worsening of disordered eating habits, lots of stupid thoughts (“I must be in starvation mode!”), lots of stupid adjustments that only make things worse (reducing calories even further, adding more cardio, etc.), and so on.
So, yeah, that’s Option #1.
Option #2: Get Back To Normal The Next Day
Now let’s say they decide to simply get back to eating their intended 2000 calorie target the next day instead of trying to eat less (or burn more) to make up for the previous day of eating those 500 extra calories.
What happens now?
The person doesn’t notice any negative effect to their hunger levels like they did with Option #1.
They feel perfectly fine the next day (if anything, they’re slightly less hungry than usual since they ate more the previous day) and they’re able to successfully hit their 2000 calorie target every day for the rest of the week just like they’ve been doing.
No problems at all.
What else happens?
They lose fat that week.
Wait, what?!? How can that be?
Shouldn’t they see no progress that week? Or a bunch of fat gain because they went over their target that one day?
Nope.
Why?
Because one day of going over your calorie target – whether it’s by 500 calories or 2000 calories or anywhere in between – isn’t enough to cancel out your overall deficit for the week (let alone put you into a surplus) as long as you’re back to normal the next day(s).
Think about it.
If this example person hit their target every day, they’d end up with a total weekly deficit of 3500 calories (500 calorie deficit each day x 7 days in a week = 3500), which causes about 1lb to be lost per week on average.
This week, despite going 500 calories over their target one day, they still end up in an overall deficit for the week.
It’s just a total weekly deficit of 2500 calories instead of their intended 3500.
But that’s no big deal at all.
That’s still going to lead to fat loss progress, just slightly less than intended (for just that one week), and that’s far from no progress at all or fat being gained.
The truth is, “no progress at all” or “fat being gained” are things that only happen if you:
- Go over your calorie target most or all of the week. Especially for multiple weeks in a row.
- Go over your calorie target one day, think “screw it!” and then intentionally go over your calorie target the next few days… all because you incorrectly assumed one day of overeating ruined everything when in reality it didn’t even make a dent. (Full details here: The Weight You Gain In One Day Isn’t Fat)
- Go over your calorie target just one day, try to make up for it the next day by eating a lot less, and then end up in that cycle of undereating and overeating we talked about before, which prevents progress.
But if you just put it behind you and got back to normal the next day, you’d avoid all of this nonsense and STILL make progress that week.
What else happens?
You feel fine. There’s no frustration, confusion, guilt, or anything like that.
What else happens?
You probably notice your workout the next day goes better than usual thanks to the increased strength and performance that comes from the higher calorie/carb intake you had the previous day.
What else happens?
The next time you go over your calorie target (and yes, it will happen), you don’t freak out, or feel like you’ve ruined your progress, or start thinking about what to do the next day to fix it.
You now have the first-hand experience needed to know that as long as you get back to normal the next day, you’ll be fine. And you’ll still end up losing fat that week.
What else happens?
You no longer feel stressed or anxious about going into special occasions like Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, etc. when you know you’ll probably go over your calorie target.
Now you know it’s no big deal at all if that happens every once in a while, so you can relax, enjoy the food, and get back to normal the next day so you’re hitting your target the majority of the time.
Option #1 vs Option #2
So, there you have it.
You can either try to make up for going over your calorie target by eating less the next day (Option #1), or you can simply get back to normal instead (Option #2).
I’m not going to tell you which option is right for you, but hopefully I’ve provided enough info for you to make your own informed decision.
(It’s Option #2!! For the love of all humanity, go with Option #2!!)
