Cupcakes are my kryptonite. So as my roommate spent the better half of the evening last night making them for a company bake sale, I had to leave the house. Even though I had already worked out during my lunch hour, I took refuge in my condo’s gym. I’ve never been one to do double workouts in a day but there was absolutely nowhere else to go at that hour, and in my opinion, there is nowhere better to go than a gym to kick temptation in the butt. Plus, Curb Your Enthusiasm was playing on the television sets in the cardio room (Larry David is my hero!). A 20-minute jaunt on the elliptical was all I needed to get those feel-good endorphins pumping through my body, which consequently killed my cupcake craving altogether.
This got me thinking about the concept of cheat meals.
I’ve researched this topic on-and-off and have yet to find hard evidence to support that cheat meals are good for your physique (your psyche, yes, no doubt). Yet there is ample anecdotal evidence from fitness models and those in the industry, who generally recommend one cheat day per week. Some fitness models say that they don’t cheat at all, while others swear by various diet strategies like carb cycling or carb tapering.
Tell me, how do you cheat? And how often? Do you set aside one full day to just pig out or do you treat yourself to one cheat food per day? And what is your go-to cheat meal?
Chime in. I’m dying to know!
My entire life is a cheat day.
ReplyDeleteI fully believe that, as long as you eat clean through the day, you can allow yourself a little treat here and there to keep things balanced.
My kryptonite, at the moment, is cheesecake.
Put peanut butter on anything, and I'll eat it with abandon. I stick with organic, all-natural, no salt added PB, but any clean-eating staple becomes a cheat meal when you eat it by the cupful. There's been more than one occasion when my husband has caught me with my head in the fridge and a large spoon in the PB jar. (And on the same note, don't eat the peanut butter if you come to my house.)
ReplyDeleteI've always deluded myself into thinking I'm allowed one cheat day per week, but now I know better. I allow for a cheat treat here and there – you should be consuming no more than 700 discretionary calories per week, from what I hear.
ReplyDeleteHaving said this, I've been on a cheat treat binge since Friday – it was just one of those weekends: sour cream & onion chips, street meat, cake, a Big Mac meal, Thai food, more cake, Kraft Dinner and, finally, poutine. I'm not proud of it, but I will own up to my indiscretions and get back on that clean-eating horse!
As for my go-to cheat treats? All of the above and then some! ;)
I'm also a sucker for sweets Helen! I don't know how you resisted those tempting treats. Good for you!
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm kind of strange...I love love love mashed potatos...Give me a bowl of mashed potatos over ice cream any day...I do however, only cheat when I truly crave it...
ReplyDeleteTina Rigdon
I have one cheat meal a week and it's usually a slice of cheese pizza nothing more. It's enough to hold me. If not a slice a pizza perhaps a cupcake. love those little decadent devils.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy about two treat meals (not days) per week, spaced out with two or three days in between. Yesterday I ate clean all day and at dinner time I had chicken nachos and a glass of white wine. A few days before I had Thai food, so it varies. I don't eat just any thing that is in front of me, I save my cheats for things I REALLY want!
ReplyDeleteI cheat everyday. I believe everything in moderation. At my lowest point during my carb cutting days I remember going into Subway and asking for a sub with all the fixings just minus the bread. The guy behind the counter was so confused. A couple of my guiding principles are as follows:
ReplyDelete- Eat in moderate quantities don't stuff yourself
- Eat your cheat foods during the day while you're still actively burning calories
- Remember you only live once and life has so much more to offer besides rice cakes and quinoa. So enjoy it!
Red wine (once per week) and anything with "fiber one" in the name. I just love it. The cereal, the bars, etc... om nom nom.
ReplyDeleteAlmond butter cheesecake and really anything cake! Sweets are my weakness, and when I am training for a specific goal, I don't cheat, if I did it would open the door for me to start compromising in my diet.
ReplyDeleteI will have a cheat treat once or twice a week. I can't do a full day because then I use it as an excuse to indulge in all things bad for my body. I don't do a cheat treat every day because I'm still workig on the self control when it comes to sweets.
ReplyDeleteA cheat meal for me is a slippery slope. I never really plan for them. Instead, I just allow the occasional slip to happen because there are times at the airport, a wedding or a party, that I can't exactly pull out my personal stash. I will say though, on my birthday, or when I can choose a treat, a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting, would make me one very happy girl!!
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for all of your personal tales of 'cheating'. Gleaning all this insight on how everybody deals with temptation makes me feel less alone during my cupcake withdrawal. And a special thank you to Jamie! I can't wait until you start blogging for us =)
ReplyDeleteLast Jan - April I was training for my first Bikini Competition and I put so much stress on myself to never cheat that it caused me to binge eat, something I had never done before. Now I'm allowing myself to eat more healthy protein & veggies to keep myself full so I don't care to cheat and it's working. However, if my body just isn't full after my post-workout lunch and it's telling me to have a bit of cereal or chocolate, I make sure I've gotten some extra protein and I allow myself to have that little cheat. My body was able to look great despite the binging, for my last competition. I figure if my body handled that, then my body can handle the planned cheats this time around. I can tell you 100% that my body can handle it much better than my mind can and I'm not trying to develop an eating disorder over something like walking across a stage in a bikini!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of your comments and tips guys. Cheat meals are such a hot topic - so much so that I think it's time to revisit this for a future story. So I've been in touch with one of our amazing nutrition writers, Jennifer Sygo, RD, about it. Here's her take:
ReplyDelete"Cheat" eating is a really interesting topic. There is some good evidence that the more restrained - you could even say "clean" that a person eats, the more likely they are to binge when given the chance. I once read a great study about dieters vs. non-dieters who were given free access to 3 batches of chocolate cookies. The authors told the subjects that the cookies were part of a consumer taste test, and that they could eat as many of the cookies as they wanted, so long as they were able to complete a survey about which cookie they liked best once they were finished. They were then left alone to eat the cookies and complete the survey (of course, they were secretly being videotaped, but they thought they were alone...). Sure enough, the non-dieters ate something like an average of one cookie per pile (so 3 cookies), while the dieters ate about twice as much. In other words, as soon as they were given some wiggle room, the restrained eaters/dieters developed a "screw it" mentality, and went overboard. One of the comments after your blog sounded like this - the person who had a big mac meal, desserts, fast food, etc. etc. all in a day or so, but vowed to "get back to clean eating" asap. They probably undid at least a week's worth of work in just one day!
Anyway, so long story short is that I will often "prescribe" indulgent/cheat/craving-type foods to clients who are working on weight loss, and we come to a mutual agreement of what is reasonable - could be 3 times per week for one person, just once a week for another, or a piece of dark chocolate every day for someone else. But regardless, I try to keep people away from guilt and potential obsession with eating "perfectly", which just isn't realistic over a lifetime.
Check out Jennifer's blog: http://life.nationalpost.com/author/jsygonp/