Tidbit Tuesday - Cheat Meals vs Days
Hello,
Welcome to another Tidbit Tuesday where we aim to teach you something new about health, nutrition, lifestyle, training, and so much more, every week!
Today we are talking about cheat meals or days. The classic approach to bodybuilding routines with designated cheat meals or days when you can ignore your meal plan, having pretty much whatever you want.
Often the biggest challenge to weight loss is making and sticking to new habits that support your health or weight loss goals without missing out on the foods you love, especially if you’re also trying to maintain a social life.
The plan for any weight loss goal needs to be sustainable if it is going to produce results. The best laid plans will crumble like a flakey pastry if we can’t actually stick to them, but how do we have our cake and eat it too?
Well, in order to lose weight, we know that we must be in a Calorie deficit or burning more energy than we are consuming. Depending on your lifestyle, routine, habits, and will power, there are a few ways that we can approach this to make it work for you.
Plus, giving up all your favourite treats and foods is just a recipe for failure anyways. So, what is the strategy to meet in the middle?
First, I want to mention that I don’t even like the word “cheat”, unless you are about to step onto a stage for a bodybuilding competition than you shouldn’t stress over some candy or ice cream like you’ll lose your job over it. You probably aren’t perfect in any other aspect of your life, why does your diet have to be?
I live by the simple motto of “everything in moderation.”
With this strategy you can allow yourself to, guilt free, have a small treat or snack every day or even with every meal. I personally like to indulge in a small piece of higher quality chocolate after most meals. Something about ending on a sweet note just hits right for me.
This allows me to have my treat EVERY DAY and yet I almost never go overboard and regret my choices.
The other common strategy is to use a single cheat day each week. No restrictions for 24 hours.
The idea behind this strategy is that you eat clean for 6 days, remaining in a Calorie deficit. On day 7 you get to refeed and have as many Calories as you want, not to mention all the treats, sweets, and red meat you can cram into 24 hours.
WARNING!
The most common outcome is an eating disorder or food addiction.
This method, using a single “cheat day” where you are in a Calorie deficit for 6 days and then gorge on day 7 can come with some hazards. The most common down-fall to come from this method of “dieting” ends in one of several eating disorders, so this is not to be taken lightly.
One extreme case of this is called “refeeding syndrome”, albeit rare, this can be fatal. Refeeding syndrome is defined as a metabolic disturbance that occurs as a result of reinstitution of nutrition in people and animals who are starved, severely malnourished, or metabolically stressed because of severe illness.
Basically, it is the damage done by starving yourself for a period, then overeating. While this is fairly rare, it is still something to take into consideration when deciding just how drastic your Calorie deficit is.
This happens because you force yourself to eat extremely clean for 6 days with minimal sugar or treats of any kind, which can be like a mental torture itself. While there is no reprieve from your restrictions during the 6 clean days, all you can think about is your cheat day. What meals are you going to have? All the treats you will have to make up for missing out during the week!
Eventually you start to hate the “clean” food you eat most of the week while you just wait for your cheat day.
I have seen this turn into binge eating disorders more often than not.
This is not a sustainable method for most. However, it can work. At the end of the day the strategy that is going to work for you is the strategy that you can stick to. If the single weekly all-you-can-eat cheat meal day works best for you, then all the power to you!
Otherwise, I highly recommend starting out with the daily, portion controlled treats. This way you are satisfying your craving each day, which reduces the difficulty and makes it much easier to sustain for a longer period, giving you a better chance of achieving your goal in the long run.
This is where the cheat meal strategy is tied to the psychology of weight loss. Some people can effectively resist temptation knowing that their cheat day is coming up, but not everyone can regulate their own eating behaviors in the same way. Thus, the same results cannot be guaranteed for every person.
Cheat days or meals, which allow room to indulge, can effectively motivate some people to stick to their diet but may be unhealthy for people with emotional, binge or disordered eating tendencies.
This strategy may be more successful alongside other tools, such as mindful eating and self-control practices.
Happy moderate indulging!
Your friend in Health & Fitness,
Coach Sean
