I am often asked: can I have a cheat day? A day each week to eat whatever I want? Junk food, fast food, deserts, chips, as much as I want. Then, I get right back on my ‘diet’ the next day.
My experience has been that having a day of meals where you eat or overeat unhealthy foods can cause a weight gain of 1-2 lbs. Now it’s not all body fat, some water weight will be included. It then takes 1-3 days to lose the weight and the net weight loss for the week is typically lower. For most individuals, you can splurge one meal per week in moderation and probably still lose weight. Splurging 2 meals per week may still lead to weight loss or possibly weight stabilization or maybe gain and 3 splurge meals per week is usually a weight gain for the week.
Some eat healthy during the week, but then eat multiple less healthy meals on the weekends, thereby gaining back the weight they lost during the week. Individuals eat out, take out, go ‘off’ their plan. So, whether you take one full day and have 3 splurge meals or spread them out over the week or weekend, eating multiple splurge meals, about 3 or more in a week, can slow down weight loss and possibly cause weight gain.
In addition, having a full splurge day by eating multiple less healthy meals over the week can cause lower energy, indigestion, and contribute to feeling worse overall. However, taking a full day off of healthy eating means 52 days per year you are not eating healthy. The goal is to not only lose weight, but also live your healthiest, disease free, most energetic life!
In addition, the goal is to eat healthy so we start to prefer eating healthy. And then it gets easier because it’s in alignment with who you’ve become, a health and fitness person. I actually prefer eating healthy, feeling great and having energy. In addition, when I eat healthy, I also have better bowel function and tend to get sick less often.
We can have social occasions and simply like to eat out once in a while and skip cooking and dishes. What I recommend is saving eating out or ‘splurge’ meals for special occasions and social situations with others. If you know this weekend there is a holiday dinner, save the splurge meal for then. Even better, eat as healthy as possible at the social situation!
When it comes to numbers, I typically recommend limiting splurge meals to one splurge meal per week or even less such as twice per month. If once per week, that’s 20/21 healthy meals which is 95%. If you eat healthy 95% of the time, you will get healthier and lose weight.
I strive to get as close to 20/21 as possible by not splurging at breakfast or lunch. 365 days per year I have a rule not to splurge at breakfast or lunch. That gets me to 14/21 right off the bat and is easy for me to do at this point. I rarely have cravings at breakfast or lunch so that’s my low hanging fruit, so to speak.
In addition, if I splurge at breakfast for example, it’s starts my day not feeling my best and may lower my energy. I like to start my day off with energy and feeling great. In addition, humans tend to have more willpower earlier in the day when we have more available energy. By the end of the day, we’ve used much of our available energy for the day and willpower can wane.
Keep it simple and strive for 20/21 healthy meals. After you’ve gone 14/14 during breakfast and lunch, then aim for at least 5/7 or 6/7 healthy, tasty, satisfying, weight loss producing meals for dinner!
Have a healthy day!