Should you have a cheat meal
Cheat Meals. I don’t know where the term came from, but it’s problematic. I’ve been hearing and for a time using the term “Cheat Meal” since I began my health and fitness journey. Over the years, I’ve come to find the idea of a cheat meal to be more harmful than helpful.
Typically, any meal that falls outside of your nutritional plan could be called a cheat meal. This implies that things are off-limits in your diet, and you choose to do something “wrong” and cheat on your nutrition plan. There are two main reasons I find this troubling.
Problem 1: Cheating Big
I have yet to meet anyone who holds back on a cheat meal. Once they’ve given themselves permission to break the rules, they go all out and eat anything and everything they can get their hands on. Afterward, they feel awful and have a lot of negative self-talk about their poor choices and lack of self-control. This added stress may do more harm to the diet's goals than the food eaten in the cheat meal.
We treat fitness as a lifestyle. It’s not about fad diets and being overly restrictive. We want to find a sustainable approach to fueling your body to reach your health, fitness, and aesthetic goals. Binging on an entire pizza and a large cream sundae and hating yourself is not sustainable. This doesn’t help you feel successful in making long-term lifestyle changes.
Problem 2: A Cheating Relationship
More often than not, our discussions with clients get more complicated when we talk about food than when we talk about training. Everyone seems to have a broken relationship with food on some level. I think it’s safe to say that, as a nation, our relationship with food is dysfunctional. We’re bombarded daily with the latest and greatest get skinny quick scheme or things you should or should not eat at a certain time. All of which is a distraction.
Eating well is an ongoing up-and-down relationship with food; like all relationships, it can be really hard to deal with. A cheat meal is not only mentally unhealthy in developing a functionally healthy relationship with food, but it opens the door to more and more cheats. Some diets recommend a cheat meal to make up for calorie restriction in the days leading up to the cheat, but that sort of up-and-down cycle on your emotions, mental processes, and hormones is not a practice that makes developing a healthy relationship with food any easier.
We prioritize health (of all kinds) over everything else. For us, that means we want you to have skills for eating healthy for the rest of your life, and we don’t want you to sacrifice that big picture for a quicker way to lose body fat. In a society that celebrates life hacks, we say slow down. Look at what’s most important and do things the right way.
Follow sound nutritional practices 90% of the time.
Keep calories at a level that supports your fitness but not excess body fat.
Eat protein, fruit, or vegetables at every meal.
Avoid highly processed foods.
Then when you’re at your niece's birthday party, have a piece of cake because it’s fun to celebrate, and don’t give it a second thought.
