Ever start a diet and count down the moments until Saturday night hits when you’re going out with your friends for a “cheat meal” to celebrate how great you’ve been at your diet!?
If this sounds like you, I gotta be honest: I hate cheat meals. I personally don’t ever have cheat meals or even cheat days and I don’t think you should either if your goal is to lose weight and tone up. But before you freak out, stop reading and think how the hell are you going to stick to your miserable diet long term so you can lose weight… I want to explain why cheat meals are sabotaging your weight loss goals and the small, but massive mindset change around food you should make to lose weight without feeling deprived.
First off, let’s not avoid the elephant in the room. Cheating is bad, and you shouldn’t do it whether it’s on an exam or it’s your boyfriend!! And for these reasons, this is why I believe cheat is one of those words I don’t think you should have in your vocabulary fit babe! I mean you look it up online, and Oxford Dictionary literally says:
“Cheating is to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain and advantage. Cheating is fraud or deception.”
So when you’re “cheating” on your diet, what does it really mean?
For most babes I work with, cheating on your diet usually means you’re taking a break from the strict diet you follow “perfectly” during the week to indulge in a bad way on things you know that you shouldn’t be eating. And as a result? You feel gross for eating these foods and immediately feel off track with your weight loss goals.
Well… here are a few things wrong with this.
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In the first place, you’re giving up your foods for no reason. What if I told you that you could literally eat whatever FUN food you love and lose weight… if you realized how many calories you were eating!?
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Cheat days are reinforcing that certain foods are “bad” and should be off limits. Unfortunately, you want what you can’t have. The more you say don’t have a slice of cake at your friend’s wedding the more you want that cake and take too big of a slice. And as a result, this makes you more likely to overeat the cake and over-do it!
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The whole idea of cheat days means cheating on your diet, aka your diet was never a lifestyle for you! The point of developing healthy eating habits when trying to lose weight is to understand how to eat balanced so you can lose the weight and maintain your results. Eating a certain way to lose weight is great, but if you can’t keep that weight off you’re just going to gain more back.
This is why I don’t like cheat days and I don’t encourage my clients to have them when working towards their weight loss goals.
Instead, I make my clients remove the word cheat from their vocabulary (and diet) and instead use the word FUN once they learn my proven weight loss method. Because the thing is, FUN meals or even days are a normal part of being a fit babe and can actually support your weight loss goals.
Eating pizza isn’t bad. Having ice cream doesn’t have to be a big freaking deal. And most of all, you’re not cheating on your freaking diet by ordering a sandwich with BREAD instead of a salad at lunch!!!
The only thing labeling food this way does it creating a “F*** it” mentality around food. It makes you feel bad for eating it, ashamed that you wanted it in the first place AND worst of all… 9 times out of 10 causes overeating! The more you do this and have cheat days, oftentimes the more “off track” you get and it can’ sometimes be super difficult to get back.
So, when you’re thinking about indulging a little more for a special occasion or you’re just in the mood to have a juicy bacon cheeseburger… I want you to know that having these foods doesn’t mean you’re cheating on your diet.
When you eat the proper amount of calories and balance your plate with my proven weight loss method… you learn that most days you’re eating more “healthy” foods and other days when you want more FUN foods it’s also no big deal.
These meals aren’t as big of a deal when you improve your relationship to food. In fact, learning how to eat FUN foods can help you stay on track and lose the weight once and for all.
