I think looking up words when you try to write something can be a great way of expanding your vocabulary. It's very natural, because it's entirely based upon your own needs. My English is really advanced, but I still regularly look up words (in particular: synonyms) when writing. And I surely don't consider it cheating. You just need to be aware that you won't be able to perform as well when you need to write things quickly (when chatting online or so), or when talking. If you want to minimize the chances you forget a word you just learned, put it in flash-card software like Anki. I wouldn't recommend using Google Translate for generating translations. Google Translate is really bad when it comes to grammar (and idiom), so you end up with very bad (and sometimes incomprehensible) phrasing. I think it's mainly suitable for making some sense of text you can't otherwise understand. It can work for finding translations for individual words though. I think the only way to pick up grammar is to read a lot or really study grammar rules ( dutchgrammar.com is a great resource).

Cheating as in using Google Translate or something haha. I had run out of things I could legitimately say without looking too many things up. I guess It's not really a bad thing to have to look up words. I figured I wouldn't remember the words if I wasn't using them legitimately?

Why do you think you'd need to cheat to write more? What do you consider cheating?