Refeeding 300 cals over for a day while on a 500 cal defecit will hamper fatloss. That basically wipes out 2 days of dieting. Unless you're sub 12% and have been in a consistent defecit for awhile you really don't need one unless it's to keep you mentally sane. The biggest problem is that so many people do as one poster suggested....eat all the pizza and ice cream you can. If you want a refeed day you need to include it in your weekly calorie budget. If you want to burn that magic pound a week you'll need to have a roughly 3,500 cal defecit over the week. Rather than using daily calculations get into weekly calculations and divide by 7 to find your average cals consumed over the week per day.Basically someone that says they eat 2,000 cals a day 6 days a week except for a cheat day are not really eating 2,000 per day. If they need to be at the 2,000 mark daily to lose fat then they're hampering their progress.