A Cheat Meal? Really?

 

YES! I said it. A cheat meal. Since I began my fitness journey I have been on many different eating routines from eating enough calories a day to build muscle to lowering my calorie intake & how much of each nutrient I feed my body in order to lean out. One of the scariest things a person who is changing their eating habits can hear is the phrase "cheat meal." There is a  misconception all over the world that as one diets, there should not be any kind of meal that includes junk at all because it will push you further away from your goals and you will gain weight, reversing what you intend to do, which is either lose weight or build muscle.

Here's the scoop, & this is one big heaping scoop of Italian Gelato if I may, Cheat Meals are good. Yep, I said it. They are. Now, don't get me wrong, taking a day to eat anything you want filling your body with thousands upon thousands of calories that day is not the correct way to go about a cheat meal. There are absolutely different methods of cheat meals where on certain diets (lifestyle is better than the word diet) where through the week you are paleo, which means very very little carbs and the cheat idea behind it is to eat what you want in a 6 hour window to re-boost the insulin levels for the week. However, the normal cheat meal and preferred by me is one cheat meal a week. If you have a lot of carbs through the week, and you use a day to have a cheat meal, it should be 1 meal (i.e. dinner & a reasonable dessert) because you're getting the insulin spike through the week. 

So for instance, lets say you want a pasta dish or a steak with a potato & some bread. Fine. Then afterward you have some ice cream, a slice of cheesecake or something to satisfy the sweet tooth. That is considered a legitimate cheat meal. If you abuse that day you choose to cheat by eating everything you can get your hands on, yes you will more than likely ruin your long term goals. You don't want to do that. If you really need to have out of the ordinary meals from your diet all day, a refeed would be the best way to go about it. 

Refeeds include the intake of carbohydrates which are the body's main source of fuel instead of just consuming a ton of junk. Some people prefer this method due to the fact that if they have a junk filled dinner & dessert, their mentality starts to give them a guilty feeling that what they are doing is wrong & will go to the extent of purging what they had just consumed, which is not good at all. Others feel the cheat meal will lead to more than what they set out to eat & therefore avoid doing it all together.

Here is the 101 on the cheat meals. As a person diets, the LEPTIN levels in your body, (which is the mother of ALL fat burners) drops, and you aren't burning fat at an optimal rate. Your body needs the cheat meal or refeed once a week in order to maintain the burning of fat at an optimal speed. Its like a fire. Once its lit, it goes strong for a good period of time, but as that time passes on, the fire slowly dies down & you have to add more fuel or wood to get it going again. Its the same thing with your body. You need that boost so you will continually burn fat. Don't be afraid to have a cheat meal once a week. Not once a month, once a week.                                                   

I am great friends and work with many professionals, some of who get on stage to show their figures in competition & include this method as well, and have extremely low bodyfat due to the fact that they have a lean diet where they incorporate a cheat meal once a week to keep burning fat the way the body needs to. This not only aids in burning fat, but it can also help to keep someone from going on an all out binge & destroying everything they worked so hard to get. Its not easy to eat clean foods all the time, but we do it for our health and when we have a goal we want to reach. Take into consideration that its not going to kill or destroy what you have going for yourself as long as you can control it. If you can't control it, then a refeed is more for you & will help your mentality from freaking you out and screwing everything up. 

Your body composition will determine how much of a cheat meal you should have. If you are pretty lean, you can generally have a little more on your cheat day/meal. If you are heavier, you should take into consideration that right now isn't the time to have such a big cheat meal & just do something small once a week like a piece of chocolate or 1 scoop of ice cream. Don't begin to think I'm telling you that everyone can have the same amount in a cheat meal or that it won't effect us in different ways. Generally the leaner you get, the more your body needs to boost the lepitin & you can add a little extra to that cheat meal.

We're all human, we all crave certain things & our bodies let us know what we are craving. The whole goal is not to let what our bodies are craving self destruct our long term goals. Go into a cheat meal with the knowledge of what its going to do for your body. Knowing that it doesn't need to be out of control like drinking sugary alcoholic drinks all night or hitting every dessert bar you encounter. Just keep track of the food you consume, make it legitimate and if you are concerned, talk to someone who knows about the science of the body a little more than you so it can be put into perspective and you take away not only a good feeling that once a week is fine, but the understanding of how the body works & why people incorporate the cheat meal.