Good Diets Don't Need Cheat Meals
If your diet is so great, why do you feel the need to cheat on it?
Cheat meals can develop a negative relationship with food, leading you to spin your wheels. You should be able to have a diet that fits your lifestyle while allowing you to reach your goals.
More often than not, cheat meals tend to turn into cheat days. Most of the time this is from restrictions and rigid diet plans, where you not only crave foods high in calories that aren't on your plan,or because your deficit is so large, that it's not sustainable and your hbunger will eventually take over causing you to spiral.
By definition, cheating means you’re breaking the rules. Having rigid rules around food is treading another dangerous path. You’re far better off establishing healthy but flexible principles around food that allow for some spontaneity, rather than attempting to achieve a level of perfection that simply does not exist. Guidelines offer flexibility. Rules do not. For many people, adhering to very strict food rules can lead to disordered eating. In fact, there’s a name for it: orthorexia nervosa is a diagnosis given when clean eating is taken so far that it creates anxiety and mental health issues.
Food should provide nourishment and enjoyment. Some foods are indulgent and should be considered a ‘sometimes’ food in the context of a healthy lifestyle. Treating them as a luxury or a treat increases your enjoyment of them, whereas treating them as a bad choice sucks all the joy out of those special occasions. Of course, you may choose to stick to a healthy eating plan the majority of the time. Even if you do only treat yourself once a week, consider changing the language you’re using. Replace the word ‘cheat’ with ‘treat,’ and remember that a little flexibility and spontaneity is what life’s all about. Nothing wrong with that.
The cheat meal philosophy also emphasizes rewards (“good”) and punishments (“bad”) around diet and exercise. This leads us to shift our focus to healthy foods as being undesirable and the cheat meals being a reward. This focus will not support long-term health or lifestyle changes.
Instead of a focus on punishment for eating a less-healthy food, perhaps you can focus on something positive: how to more mindfully eat the foods that are less healthy. Focus on slowing down and seeing the “unhealthy” foods for what they really are—a source of calories and a satisfying flavor. Perhaps we can learn to appreciate the cheat meal items for what they are and consider these foods acceptable as long as we eat them mindfully.
As weight loss continues, some may look for foods that provide more pleasure. This pleasure-seeking is expected and a normal part of weight loss. However, we want to focus on how to cope with this instead of looking to cheat our way out of success.
Instead, try these “hacks” to help you stay on track:
Re-create your favorite guilty pleasure food and create a healthy twist to the recipe. For example, if you enjoy fried foods, try baking or using an air-fryer instead. If you love baking and have a sweet tooth, try substituting half the sugar with stevia, or using a fruit substitute like applesauce or mashed banana in the recipe to help sweeten it.
Share your pleasurable food with a friend! This reduces the portion size, and adds to the fun and experience of eating.
Follow the ¼ of the plate rule when seeking a pleasure food. Fill no more than ¼ of your plate full of an item that you know will not lead you towards your goals.
Overall, we like to put the focus on diet consistency. This is a positive term to help encourage a focus on eating for your specific weight-loss goal. By creating or following a meal plan that also has those less nutritious foods or meals within moderation, this significantly reduces the tendency or urge to binge eat, and not only that, it also teaches us a positive lifestyle change for long-term results where we can be consistent day in day out and you never need to cheat on it.
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