Cheat Day or Cheat Meal: Is it necessary to break the Diet?

The “cheat day” is the day of the week when we can eat, with “moderation,” foods that aren’t allowed in our regular diet plan.

What’s a Cheat Day?

Known as a Cheat Day or Cheat Meal, it’s a day of the week when we literally break our diet

In other words, a diet-free day, where you can eat and enjoy any food, no matter its calories or nutritional makeup.

Interestingly, this “phenomenon” of alternating strict dieting and “food partying” is more common among people who follow, swear by, promote, and/or chase a fit body and lifestyle…

Is a Cheat Day Necessary?

The answer is No

Want to treat yourself? Go ahead, nothing and no one’s stopping you. But once you do, don’t look for any method to “minimize the damage” or “maximize the use of this huge calorie load…” Oh, and the whole with moderation thing is just a joke 😆

No need to tell you that the amount of empty calories you’re stuffing down is the opposite of healthy

Benefits of Cheat Day

The main (and only) benefit of cheat day is basically related to the psychological aspect

You could say it serves to “free your mind from the pressure” of having to eat “restrictively.”

This is the (wrong) take most people have. But honestly, if you think like this, you’ve got a problem, bro…

When Food Isn’t Fit

When a stew isn’t fit, when milk makes you bloated, when carbs at night make you gain weight, when fruit can ruin your gains, when you remove the white part of serrano ham, when you throw away the egg yolk, when bread is your enemy… and a thousand more.

Wait, wait… but these same ideas, some pushed by the hottest influencers, throwing science out the window, often show off their Cheat Meals under their Instagram posts

When Your Diet Is to Blame

If your idea of “dieting,” living healthy, or anything fitness-related includes these ideas:

Having a cheat day doesn’t necessarily mean overeating or only eating “junk food or crap.” It means allowing yourself small treats that usually aren’t part of the plan and is kind of a reward for the hard work and sticking to a restricted diet all week

You’ve got a problem bro…

“Well, well… you’ve been dieting for 5 days but tomorrow’s Saturday, so we can throw it all away… Although tomorrow’s Sunday, we can keep going, and Monday we’re back to the convent…

Diet Adherence

If you’ve ever followed a diet plan, at some point you’ve felt uncontrollable cravings for some “forbidden food” (pizza, burgers, chocolate, ice cream…), the blame is on (you) the nutrition plan itself.

Of course, we all crave that sometimes, no doubt. But the problem here is creating the (made-up) need to have a day or meal to eat like there’s no tomorrow…

Conclusions

I might be showing a pretty rigid view of what cheat food is with this post

I’m not a tali at all, actually I’m pretty flexible on this. But seeing the trend on social media, I wanted to share my take.

Do it your way

I’m the first to happily do cheat meals, but the way I see it, this meal has a different meaning far from free will.

I’m more into “homemade,” meaning taking the chance to unleash your chef spirit or enjoy dishes you don’t usually have time to carefully prepare during the week. That doesn’t mean you have to stuff yourself with kcals and kcals of sugar…

Treat yourself to a cheat meal like this…

Don’t make excuses

Cheat day isn’t part of your weight loss plan, nor will it reduce cravings or boost willpower

I think it’s quite the opposite. It’s not normal to “bash” certain foods, exclude them from your diet, then use that as an excuse to go all out one day. I don’t think it should be taken lightly. Then come the mental mess and obsessive behaviors…

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