If you’re currently undergoing a weight loss program, you’ve probably wondered where you will insert your cheat days. Cheat days can be a great way to add variety and excitement to your diet while still sticking to your healthy eating goals. But what happens when a planned "treat" meal turns into a full-blown "cheat" evening, leaving you feeling terrible and guilty? This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to effectively get back on track with your diet after a cheat day, incorporating practical tips and addressing potential challenges.
What Exactly Is a Cheat Day?
A cheat day is when you can treat yourself to things you wouldn’t often consume as part of your diet. This could include foods like pizza, cake, ice cream, or anything high in sugar or calories. An alternative concept-cheat meal, means pretty much the same. However, instead of taking an entire day off your diet, you can have a single meal, eating whatever you want.
Why Should You Have a Cheat Day?
There are a few reasons you should have a cheat day in your diet.
- Stay on track with your diet. If you’re always following a strict diet, you might get bored or frustrated, leading to cheating on your diet. Because you have something to enjoy on your cheat day, you can avoid all problems down the line, such as cravings, eating problems, and other similar cases.
- Maintain your weight loss. If you’re always eating healthy foods, your body might start to adapt and burn fewer calories, which leads to weight gain. A cheat day can help prevent this by providing your body with a temporary increase in calories.
- Emotional well-being and motivation: Any food restrictions or calorie deficits can have a massive impact on your emotional health. Restrictions can cause emotional hunger, sugar cravings, and overall poor mood. Occasional cheat days, on the contrary, can give you a break from these restrictions and thus, help you improve your well-being and even restore your motivation.
- Metabolism boost: When you follow a specific diet for a long time, your body gradually gets used to it and the initial boost in metabolism can slowly go down. A cheat day is meant to give your body an extra boost in metabolism. According to studies, eating a larger or more unusual meal can increase leptin production by as much as 30% for up to 24 hours. Leptin is a hormone that signals satiety and tells your brain that there is no shortage of food, thus, boosting your metabolic function.
- Increased glycogen production: Prolonged fasting has been shown to deplete the body’s stores of glycogen-a form of glucose that is the primary source of energy. When its stores deplete, you can notice overall lower energy levels and worse physical performance in workouts. A cheat day can help you restore this compound and perform better in your workouts.
How Often Should Be Your Cheat Day?
Since every weight loss program is unique, there is no conclusive response to this issue. However, most people recommend having a cheat day once a week. This will allow you to indulge without jeopardizing your diet or weight reduction objectives. Remember that the frequency of which you cheat should depend on how close you are to your health goals.
What to Do After a Cheat Day: Practical Tips for Getting Back on Track
When you plan a cheat day, it’s also important to determine what exactly you’re planning to do after it. The truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. What to do after a cheat day pretty much depends on your previous diet and your body goals. In the case of prolonged intermittent fasting, the best choice after a cheat day is to get back to your habitual fasting schedule the next day. This will help you receive all the benefits of indulging while continuing your weight loss path without binge periods. Here’s how to make sure that your cheat days are as effective as possible:
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1. Plan Your Cheat Day
Don’t just choose any old day to have your cheat meal or day. Instead, plan it so that it falls on a day when you know you can afford to indulge a little bit. For example, if you’re following a strict diet during the week, your cheat day could be on the weekend. Start with preparation. Spontaneous cheat meals and days can make you easily exceed your desired calorie count and experience unpleasant side effects on your gut. Planning your cheat days in advance, including planning the specific meals you want to have, can help you keep the process more controlled.
2. Keep Your Cheat Day Meal Simple
Don’t try to go all out on your cheat day. Instead, keep your meal simple and within your normal calorie range. This will help you avoid overindulging and feeling guilty later. As an easier way to plan out cheat meals, nutritionists often recommend the 80/20 Rule. Instead of devoting an entire day giving in to indulgences, nutritionists recommend satisfying a single craving.
3. Stick to Your Normal Routine
Don’t turn your cheat day into a cheat week. Make sure to stick to your weight loss program the day after your cheat day. This will help you get back on track and avoid any negative consequences.
4. Enjoy Yourself
Remember, cheat days are meant to be enjoyed! So go ahead and indulge in your favorite foods. Just do so in moderation. Don’t give in to guilt. It can be easy to get discouraged, but one bad meal or one bad day is not indicative of failure. The first rule of integrating cheat days into your diet? Don’t think of them as cheating, more so a meal that you earned and should enjoy - without the guilt.
5. Consider Your Workout Plan
If you plan to consume a larger amount of calories, try to do it on a day you can burn them off. Nutritionists agree that you should indulge in your cravings, but if you do, do it on the day of an intense workout. The best approach is to have a cheat day after a workout and at least a day before the next one. This will help you avoid putting additional stress on your body.
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6. Hydrate Well
Eating unusual foods, such as sugary or high-carb ones, can make you retain liquid and feel bloated. To overcome this, start your fasting day with proper hydration. Consider adding electrolytes to aid your digestion. Upping your water intake can also help wake up your digestive system, flush out toxins, and reduce inflammation caused by the junk you ate the day prior. Want to help your body reboot? Just add water, which can help flush out any excesses from your system. Plus, proper hydration is key for your body to operate at an optimal level in so many ways. It helps your digestive system, it’s good for your blood, and it benefits your kidneys, your skin, even your teeth. Bottom line: If you’re hydrated, you just feel better.
7. Take a Smooth Start
If you used to have a 16-18 fasting window, jumping right into it after a cheat day can feel incredibly stressful. To avoid this, consider starting with a smaller window, for example, 12 hours, and gradually extend it. One of the most effective tools for this is to utilize Intermittent Fasting and fast for 12-16 hours after your “cheat” meal. If you have been using Intermittent Fasting in the past, you may notice that you feel particularly hungry during your fasting period after a “cheat” meal. This is normal after a starch or sugar dense meal the night before. With high amounts of carbohydrates, your body will release higher levels of insulin. This high level of insulin will typically result in low blood glucose levels after the meal.
8. Break Your Fast Wisely
Breaking the fasting window after a cheat day can be tricky and cause gut discomfort. To avoid this, opt for smaller portions of nutrient-dense but light foods. At 16 hours post-“cheat” meal (or less if you find that you need to break your fast early), now it’s time to eat a meal that will further emphasize blood glucose stabilization. These are meals that provide a good amount of protein and fat while minimizing insulin producing carbohydrates. Eat your vegetables. When our bodies crave junk food, it’s really a cry for more micronutrients, which are easy to find in green vegetables. They’re also high in fiber which will help you feel full. Avoid skipping meals. Don’t try to make up for over eating by under eating the next day. This will start a binge and restrict cycle that’s dangerous and doesn’t make a difference anyway. Get back on track with your regular and balanced diet and forget the cheat meal even happened!
9. Leverage Physical Activity
Low-impact physical activity, such as yoga or a walk, can be very beneficial after a cheat day. It can help you stimulate digestion, reduce bloating, and boost your mood. Get moving. Want to move that food out of your system? Then get yourself moving. It’s like a natural detox. Physical activity increases gut motility to push all of that extra junk - the calories, the fat, and the sugars - out of your system. Movement also triggers your brain to release dopamine and serotonin, feel-good chemicals that can boost your mood and help you get back on track mentally. So, go for a walk or hop onto an exercise bike for a quick spin to get your body in motion and your mind focused. Tackling some chores - such as cutting the lawn or vacuuming - can get the job done, too. One important thing to note is that you shouldn’t try to workout to make up for the cheat. It’s nearly impossible. A typical cheat meal is 2,000+ calories and if you made it a cheat day (more power to you) you’re likely over the 5,000 mark. In short, you cannot burn that many calories in one sitting, nor is it a healthy way to mentally process the cheat.
10. Don’t Be Too Hard on Yourself
It’s not uncommon for women to feel guilty after indulging on a cheat day and strive to take their eating under stricter control afterward. Needless to say, such an approach will only enhance the stress and won’t do you any good for you. Thus, the last and most important tip is not to be too hard on yourself. Remember that a cheat day won’t ruin your progress. On the contrary, it can help you enhance the result. So instead of dwelling on guilt, you should allow yourself a bit of indulgence and get back on track the next day. Be kind to yourself. Don’t judge yourself harshly after a deep dive into the refrigerator or pantry. It happens. It’s not uncommon to have a periodic food binge. So, give yourself some grace. Lastly, don’t give in to guilt. It can be easy get discouraged, but one bad meal or one bad day is not indicative of failure.
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Additional Tips for Overall Well-being
- Avoid heavy exercise the day after a cheat meal. This can spur further sugar cravings because your body is likely already in a low blood sugar state and craving sugar as a result. Adding HIIT or running into the equation will double down on these cravings and make it near impossible to ignore.
- Prioritize sleep. Poor sleep can lead to increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol the next day. Higher amounts of cortisol have been linked to increased sugar cravings. Allow for plenty of time to sleep and improve your sleep quality by boosting your natural melatonin (sleep hormone) production. You can do this by not using any melatonin disrupting electronics (phone, laptop, TV, etc.) at least 30 minutes before bed.
- Stay off the scale. If you go on a food binge, it’s possible that a higher-than-usual number may pop up on the scale if you step on it. When you go back to your normal eating routine, you’ll go back to your usual weight. Give your body a few days to reset back. Weight isn’t the only or best measure of health. Feeling strong, sleeping well, having an extra bounce in your step … those are going to be better indicators for you.
- Don’t purge. Taking forcible action to undo a food binge - whether by vomiting, using laxatives or exercising excessively to suddenly subtract consumed calories - isn’t a healthy solution. These are eating disorder behaviors and they can cause serious damage to your body. If you’re binging and purging, talk to a healthcare provider to get assessed.
- Identify reasons for a food binge. A food binge often is tied to either an emotional or environmental trigger. Understanding what that is may help you prevent a future binge. Emotional triggers like stress, trauma or even boredom can send you to the pantry in search of comfort. The best defense to that? Learn how to separate yourself from food if you get that urge to binge. Do something action-oriented, like calling a friend or going for a walk. Take your focus away from the food until the feeling passes. Environmental triggers: Just seeing certain foods can make you start nibbling. To put yourself in a better position to avoid mindless eating in situations, try: Keeping healthy snacks such as fruit, nuts or trail mix on hand. Eating a little before heading to a party so you don’t arrive hungry and camp out at the buffet table. Portioning food to avoid overeating. And if you know that certain foods are always triggers, don’t buy them at the store and bring them to the house. It’s much easier to make healthy choices if you have healthy food available.
- Start a food journal. Keeping a journal noting what and when you eat can help you identify what food breaks down your defense mechanisms and what days or times you’re prone to overindulge. Track your intake and learn what’s really going on. You can’t address a problem until you identify it.
- Build your relationship with food. Look at your daily diet in totality. Don’t beat yourself up for treating yourself to a donut. Instead, enjoy it and make adjustments elsewhere. When food tastes good we eat it. That doesn’t make you bad. It makes you human.
Common Challenges After a Cheat Day
Given their diverse benefits, it makes pretty good sense to schedule regular cheat days while on intermittent fasting. Yet, the main problem always lies in getting back into your daily eating habits after letting yourself let go of control. After indulging, getting back to restrictions can be challenging in a number of ways:
- More pronounced cravings: When you let yourself break your diet and enjoy your favorite food, it’s quite common to experience more intense hunger and cravings the next day. This is especially true if you eat something sugary and high-carb that causes insulin spikes.
- Mental challenges: Although fasting can give you a sort of emotional release, it can also backfire on you emotionally. For some people, it can be hard to put to terms with the fact that they need to restrict themselves again after having a day full of freedom.
- Bloating: The day after indulging, you can find yourself more bloated than usual and generally feel less energetic and well. This can make you doubt the need to continue fasting.
- Binge possibility: For some women, especially those who are dealing with a binge eating disorder, it can be hard not to let a planned cheat day turn into days or weeks of indulging.
Is a 24 Hour Fast After Cheat Day a Good Idea?
Sometimes, when you overeat during your cheat day or simply eat something very unusual, you may feel less energetic, bloated, and even guilty of consuming excessive calories. In this case, your first instinct may be to follow on with an extreme fast the following day. If you feel this way and consider going on, for example, a 24 hour fast after cheat day, it’s generally not recommended to do this. When you’ve been on intermittent fasting and healthy foods for a long time, a cheat day can put certain stress on your body. An extreme fast, such as a 24-hour one, will double this stress, making the recovery harder.