Splurging. Falling off the wagon. Cheating.
Whatever you call it, The Cheat Day essentially means the same thing. For one day – or for one crazy weekend in Mexico, don’t ask – you break every rule that you’ve established for yourself when you set off on your weight loss journey.
Cheat Day!
It’s glorious. Can’t you just imagine the bacon-encrusted doughnuts for breakfast, barbecued jumbo hot dog tacos for lunch, and maybe more of those doughnuts for dinner with a side of maple bacon and baby back ribs.
It sounds ridiculous because it kind of is.
I’d argue that when you diet in a healthy, responsible and intelligent manner, it renders cheat days pointless.
Look, I get that conventional diet plans pretty much force us to focus on a metric which can be altered to effect change, e.g., reducing caloric intake to drop pounds, adding weight to a dumbbell to increase muscle mass, etc., but honestly, a good, healthy, an LIFE-LONG diet plan is simply consuming food in moderation and performing a few minutes of activity per day.
For all the diet plans, supplements, calorie counters and fitness apps out there, it really can be that simple.
In fact, for some, counting calories, carbs, sugars, or goodness-knows-what-else, can become tiresome or overwhelming. You spend time after every meal solving college-level equations trying to determine exactly how many grams of sugar you consumed in that half-order of breadsticks you ate at Linda’s going away lunch.
If you’re like me, all those numbers never seemed to add up to any real results.
So I gave it up. I stopped counting every single calorie. I stopped calculating sugars and watching carbs with an eagle eye. I also stopped allowing myself to enjoy cheat days. All cheat days really do are underscore the fact that you exceeded your allowance for the day. When I stopped calculating, it rendered chat days pointless.
Let me be absolutely clear. I still watch what I eat. When I say I gave up counting and calculating, I do not mean to imply otherwise. There’s just no more mathematical equations! I know what foods are good for me, I know which foods are not and I eat accordingly as often as I can.
By eliminating the “rules,” I’ve removed the possibility to cheat.
Can it work for you? Perhaps. Call us at Mediplan or click the Schedule an Appointment button above and we can talk about customizing a health, fitness, and diet plan for you.