When cleaning up a diet, there is a lot of talk out there about Cheat Days.
A Cheat Day basically gives you one day a week to stray from your healthy eating plan and eat what you want. It’s a motivational tool to ensure you stick to your eating plan when you have that beacon of hope within your week.
Looks like you’re cheating on your cake with salad. (From wedding cake tasting!)
For me, Cheat Days don’t work.
When it’s my Cheat Day, I suddenly think it’s ok to eat an entire pizza, have a king sized candy bar, eat an entire bag of popcorn, and devour a full box of mac n’ cheese. It’s a cheat day. It’s cool. As long as I don’t eat any of this garbage on a non-cheat day.
“I’m not sharing” = Cheat Day mentality.
Consider, instead, the idea of a Cheat Treat. (Say that 10 times fast!)
A Cheat Treat is one, small treat you allow yourself during the day. Did someone bring cupcakes to work? You can have one (half is better), but that means no dessert after dinner. Going out to a nice restaurant that has delicious desserts and flavored martinis? Pick your poison to be either or.
Rob is obsessed with these.
Cheat Treats work much better for me. I know I have one opportunity throughout my day to have a small “guilt” food and therefore, I don’t overeat on my one designated Cheat Day.
A typical full Cheat Day food.
Right now my Cheat Treats have included one of the following: a small handful of mini M&M’s, 3 cookies (eaten veeerrrryyyy slowly), a few sips of ginger ale, or about eight of the Brookside Acai with Blueberry chocolate bites. These small portions are enough to satisfy my craving without ruining my regularly programmed healthy eating plan.
Loving these. The pomegranate is even better.
Plus, I don’t end up in a food coma the way I do after eating a whole pizza on Cheat Day….not that I’ve done that…
RQ: Are you a Cheat Treat or Cheat Day kind of person? What do you think would work best for you?
I’m Brooke Selb, a Personal Trainer and Health Coach specializing in helping busy moms and moms to be to easily juggle mom life with family friendly recipes, and easy exercise routines to help you achieve your fitness goals that fit in with your already busy life with sound nutritional advice.
I am 100% a cheat-treat person, too. I do the same thing as you if I have a “cheat day” — eat ALL the things!
ALL the things are just so darn good! Cheat treats is much less dangerous.
I employ this same technique. When friday comes most people look forward to hitting the bar for a few drinks, and all I can think about is the fried chicken, pizza or linguini with clam sauce I’m gonna eat. That one meal helps me get through the week. I also drink hot cocoa/chocolate milk to fight that chocolate craving that i can never seem to shake.
Ooo, hot cocoa is a good idea. That would definitely help. There’s a new study going around about the recovery benefits of chocolate milk. So it’s a win-win.
I love the idea of a cheat treat. I have employed this in my eating for a while now. My eating habits use to be terrible back in the day. I would always have 2 servings and eat treats like they were going out of style. I use to eat ice cream almost every night.
Now if I want something to eat, like ice cream, I get two scoops instead of a pint, I have a few pieces of chocolate instead of the whole bag. I also eat one serving and let my belly get full and I also loveeeeee water!
Thanks for sharing!
Nice job on the junk food control. There is definitely something to be said for plating your food. I used to just grab the tub of ice cream and sit down with it…not good.