It depends on how bad you cheat. What did you eat? How much of it did you eat? How often?
If you were perfect all week and had 2 slices of pizza on Saturday and Sunday, you’ll be fine. But if you had pizza, ice creams, sodas, booze, pasta and a variety of other bad things multiple times over the weekend, you will not lose as much as you want by weeks end.
I have had this same problem mostly because I don’t have work to distract me. I try and keep at least 14/15 hr fast on the weekends, and it has been fine for me. I don’t notice any weight gain after weekends. I bet it’s “slower” but more sustainable for me. Hope that helps!
Weekends are tough, there’s something about not having the structure of work or weekday life that does make it harder. Maybe something about being at home around food and also social situations come a calling more often.
Certainly lots of folks will ease or change their schedules on the weekend and still see success, but the devil is going to be in the details. In a perfect world you’re 5 steps forward with 2 steps sideways. But weekends and “cheat days” have a habit of being more like 2 steps back, if not more. A couple of brunches can easily out do a week of good progress.
Personally, my approach is to sort of split the difference so while I open my schedule up more on the weekend, I do try to keep it more or less still to how I’m eating on the weekdays with a light meal, a large meal, and little to no snacking. So more flexible with my timing, but still trying to eat roughly the same to avoid unrestricted “cheat day” eating.