Monday, December 9, 2013

You Just Haven't Earned It Yet...

Sometimes, it's okay to be a cheater.

Alright hear me out on this one.

When it comes to diet plans and weight loss, you may hear the terms "cheat meal" or "cheat day" used with a fair amount of frequency. So, what do they accomplish?

If you've been living in caloric deficit, meaning: you're eating less than a maintenance level of calories to cause weight loss, your hormones are postively and negatively affected. In many ways, you get the response you're looking for by losing weight. However, when you spend too much time in deficit, your body might stall with progress.

Many diet plans add in a cheat meal or a cheat day to accomplish one of a couple scenarios

1) Allowing you to have the food you've been depriving yourself of so you can justify the restrictions of your "proper eating"
2) "Reset" your hormonal balance so you can return to weight loss again

I've found something else interesting can happen as well...

Let's say you've been eating really well from Monday through Friday. Calories are in line and you're not bingeing on foods you might normally.

Then on Saturday evening, you have something you normally wouldn't like: cheeseburger and fries, or pizza, or a slice of cake. Typically, your body recognizes that you're eating junk and a thermogenic effect can happen internally. In other words, signals go off in your body saying "This shouldn't be here!!!" and your body works overtime to help flush the system of the food.

This is where the cheat meal can be really beneficial for those who are trying to lose weight.

That being said, you HAVE to have dietary consistency for this to work and it does NOT work for everyone.

Taking our typical week as an example, let's say you eat really well on Monday and Tuesday but you go out with your friends for chicken wings and beer on Wednesday. You most likely won't get the option of having a cheat on the weekend as well. Your body needs/craves/wants consistency in many ways. When you can establish several days in a row of clean eating, you stand a better chance of the cheat meal having positive effects.

I'll add this as well: the thermogenic effects tend to be more pronounced if you have a "greasy" meal.

But here's the other thing: if you have a significant amount of weight to lose (let's say over 30lbs), you would be better served to stack up several weeks of consistent eating to lock down the habits before you can even consider a cheat meal.

The downside to adding the cheat in prematurely is, from a behavioral standpoint, you may not know when to stop eating the "unhealthy" food choices. It can trigger more poor eating and turn a cheat "meal" into a cheat "weekend".

So, while there can be some really positive outcomes to an unhealthy food choice, you have to EARN that luxury first.

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