[spoiler title=’Click for video transcript’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’] can you stick to your diet better if you cheat on it for me the answer is yes let’s talk about cheat days so back at the end of 2015 I was hovering about around 205 and I was actually starting to trend back upwards I had lost like 17 pounds but I didn’t really have a clear plan and so I read this book called the changed my thinking on a lot of things and I didn’t even do the diet that he recommends which is called the slow carb diet I did my own thing instead but one thing I took away from that book was the importance of cheat days and really I think cheat days have been a major reason for amount of success with actually losing the weight and keeping it off so what is a cheat day it is Bacchanalia basically it is eating whatever you want to eat however much you want to eat just there are no rules except for the only rule is you have to eat whatever you want whenever you want and not limit yourself so to me that sounded counterintuitive like isn’t that gonna just screw up all the good eating and everything that I did all week long if I have this day where I just basically wreck myself but at that point I thought well I’ve never really tried this before and I tend to be kind of an all-or-nothing person so what would happen historically with me is I would be on a diet and then i would cheat on it and so then I would just quit altogether because like well if I can’t be perfect then forget it so what I found with cheat days is that it really helps me to be super consistent throughout the week because I know that on Sunday there are no rules so when I started doing cheat days I had decided to really get more strict with intermittent fasting I kind of like experimented with it but I was really kind of loosey-goosey but then I started to say okay I’m really gonna do longer fast so I was doing like 18-hour fasts at that point and it was so crucial to me to have that cheat day to look forward to for example I would be in the middle of my fasting window and I would just start to have these cravings like you know my husband would be eating a turkey sandwich and it’d just be like cheap turkey meat from Walmart or something but it looked delicious and so because I could tell myself okay you can’t have that now but you can have that for lunch or whatever you want on Sunday then it it calmed the craving down and I was able to stick with my fasting plan so again my one rule for cheat day is no denying myself or anything now you may think well why don’t you just try to like be pretty good on cheat day or you know kind of curb yourself a little bit what I’ve found is if I don’t do cheat day right so meaning I just eat whatever I want whenever I want then through the week what I could say to myself in my head is like well but you know you were pretty good like you didn’t have that you know piece of chocolate whatever on Sunday that you wanted so then I don’t think well it’s okay to cheat a little bit right now because I was good on Sunday I can look forward to cheat day because it’s a day with no rules if you make it a day with kinda rules then it’s like you never really get to have that break that you so desperately need so what ends up happening is that six days out of seven I’m a superstar and I’m eating exactly according to plan and it’s really easy because I’ve stuck with it and then that one day I get to just go forth and enjoy and so it really works out well for me and Tim Ferriss goes so far to even recommend that you make a list during the week of your cheat day foods like things you’re craving so that on cheat day you really do eat those things that you crave throughout the week so what does cheat they look like for me I usually wake up early you know have some coffee we have a pancake breakfast and that’s homemade pancakes with chocolate chips and maple syrup butter usually a couple of eggs too so it’s a pretty big breakfast I hope we’ll get hungry again around noon which is so funny to me because I can normally I can be you know fasting all day no problem but it was like once I start eating the hunger starts up I usually on cheat I love to have some peanut butter ramen which is so good it’s so bad for you but so good to me and then I just eat you know whatever I want in the afternoon sometimes I like graze throughout the day sometimes I just you know I’m full until supper and supper is usually leftovers cuz I try to keep it easy one thing I do try to do is I try to always force myself to eat something around what I have done in the past has been kind of a mistake is like I’ll be so full at around 4:30 I’ll just stop eating I’ll be I’m really not hungry and then what ends up happening is Monday then you know I’m fasting for longer than 24 hours which is a little bit more of a challenge it’s doable but it’s just more of a challenge so that’s my experience with cheat days I’m curious what are your experiences or maybe a more fun question is what’s your favorite cheat day meal so thanks for watching be sure to LIKE comment subscribe down below [/spoiler]
Video Recap
In the beginning, cheat days seemed counterintuitive. I was afraid that they’d destroy any progress I had made throughout the week. But the cheat day is a very important part of my plan. In fact, my simple plan is only 3 bullet points long, and the cheat day takes up one whole bullet!
- Eat once a day (coffee with half and half 3 times a day) Monday through Saturday
- Walk 6 Miles Every Day
- Cheat Day on Sunday
I’ve found that it’s important to take the cheat day as seriously as my fasting days. If I start cheating on my cheat day (by trying to “be good”), then it’s easier to try to cheat on my fasting days. So I take it all seriously, and that has really made a very big difference.
Do you have a cheat day? What’s your favorite meal?
Resources:
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