70.
I have food cravings most days but people often don’t believe me when I say that.
“You probably eat perfectly all the time,” they’ll tell me. Nope - I crave fatty foods. I love pizza, greasy burgers, and peanut butter.
A while ago my wife was searching our kitchen for a jar of peanut butter and asked me if I knew where it was. When I told her I had eaten it she was a little surprised.
“We had two full jars last week. You ate both of them?”
I had been on a peanut butter bender. Most days I would sit down at my computer to read sports news and would grab a couple of bananas and the jar of PB on the way. Without realizing it, I was eating three, four, or even five bananas drowned in peanut butter. And when the bananas were gone I’d sometimes eat PB straight from the jar by the spoonful.
I decided to go cold turkey and stop eating peanut butter altogether.
The first day was fine. My willpower was strong. Day two was good as well – no peanut butter. By day three I started having little PB cravings, and by the end of the week I was back eating peanut butter!
I suspect you’ve gone through similar attempts to clean up your eating. Swearing off foods you love, only to find yourself eating them as soon as your willpower gives out.
This is why I’m not going to ask you to give up any of the foods you love. The mental (and physical) effort required to resist eating those foods far outweighs the value of cutting them out of your life.
For five days each week I am asking you to eat according to the plan we laid out in Chapters 11 and 12. During those days, there are off-limits foods that you will avoid, and there are guidelines directing how much food you should eat.
On the sixth day of your weekly plan I want you to enjoy any foods you like to eat. You can forget the rules for one day and simply eat whatever you want.
Having this cheat day is a psychological tool that will help make your 5-day eating plan more doable. Knowing that you can “save up” any indulgent foods for cheat day becomes a built-in reward for following your plan the previous five days.
The cheat day also acts as a reminder that it’s okay to indulge occasionally. There is no reason to feel bad about the things you eat that day because you know that it’s only 1/7th of your week – You can let your guard down and just enjoy food that day. No guilt.
I wasn’t able to swear off peanut butter for life, but I could certainly do it for five days, especially knowing that my cheat day could be filled with as much peanut butter as I want!
Cheat day is more than a psychological coping mechanism. There are physiological benefits of eating extra calories on a regular basis. In fact, doing so actually teaches your body to burn more calories.
Yes, eat more calories, burn more calories…Here’s how it works:
Your thyroid is a gland located in your neck that has great control over your body’s metabolism. A low-functioning thyroid gland causes a depressed metabolism, and a depressed metabolism leads to fat storage. This is obviously something you want to avoid. What causes it to slow down in the first place?
Often your thyroid will slow down if you are eating too few calories on a consistent basis.
“What?” you may be asking. “I thought I was supposed to eat less in order to lose weight? Now you’re telling me eating less will make me fat?”
Eating less (i.e. creating a calorie deficit) can lead to fat-loss for a short period of time, but if your body becomes accustomed to eating less food then it will make some adjustments. Your body is designed to survive so it will do its best to conserve calories if it senses that food may be scarce.
One course of action your body can take is to limit the product of two hormones (T3 and T4) that direct the functioning of your thyroid. Less T3/T4 causes your thyroid to begin slowing down, which then reduces the speed of your metabolism.
In other words, eating too little sends your body into “conservation mode” for survival. It will actually slow down your metabolism to avoid using up precious calories. This will put the brakes on your weight-loss.
Adding a weekly cheat day can offset this unwanted effect. One day of extra calorie intake is enough to stimulate T3/T4 production, thereby preventing your thyroid from slowing down. The added calories on your cheat day give your body a signal that “conservation mode” isn’t necessary – You are not short on food and therefore do not need to store calories as fat.
In short, eating more calories one day per week allows your body to burn more calories during the rest of the week. This is a good thing!
Your cheat day can be scheduled for any day of the week you choose. This allows you to schedule it for those days when you know it will be difficult to follow your 5-day eating plan.
For example, imagine you have a party with your coworkers on a Thursday evening. There will be lots of food and alcohol and you don’t want to feel guilty about joining in.
Schedule your cheat day for Thursday and then you can enjoy the party guilt-free. This simply means that the preceding five days will ones that you eat according to your 5-day eating plan (review Chapter 11 and 12 if you need a refresher).
Yes, you only have one cheat day per week. Knowing this will help you make wise choices. “Do I really want to eat this pizza right now OR would I rather save my cheat day for that dinner party I’m going to tomorrow?”
Scheduling your cheat day will become an exercise in prioritizing and will help you evaluate when it’s really worth it to indulge in treat foods and drinks.
Oftentimes clients ask why we don’t just have “little cheats” each day instead of one entire day set aside for indulging. There are two reasons:
First, those “little cheats” add up much more quickly than most people realize. Like I was doing with my peanut butter and banana meals, it’s too easy to say, “I’ll have just one ______” and end up eating two or three before you know it. Mindless snacking is a dangerous way to eat because of how quickly the calories can pile up.
Second, losing weight (and maintaining a healthy weight) requires healthy habit-building. If you choose to indulge in a few treats each day, what habit are you establishing? Is that a habit you really want to strengthen?
Using one scheduled cheat day promotes healthy eating habits for the majority of your week. It also helps reinforce mindful eating (the opposite of mindless snacking) because five days of meals are completely planned ahead of time.
I know it might feel nice to say, “I’ll just cut back on the treats I eat each day”, but I promise that this is not an effective strategy to lose weight.
You will find much more success establishing a set plan and following it week after week until your new way of eating becomes an ingrained habit.
After working hard to follow your 5-day eating plan, it can seem a little scary to throw all rules out the window for a day. Many participants in my “10 in 4” groups have this fear: “I don’t want to lose all the progress I’ve made!”
Fortunately, one cheat day is not going to undo your progress.
You’ve likely heard that a pound of fat is created from 3,500 calories. So, even if your cheat day got really wild and crazy, you’d have to eat 3,500 calories MORE than you burn off just to gain a single pound that day. Good luck with that!
As you begin following this plan you will also notice some changes in how your body reacts to cheat foods. Most of my clients report feeling unwell after they cheat too hard, and soon their cheat days tame down because they don’t have the same cravings they once experienced.
You do not have to worry about ruining your progress with one cheat day per week.
There is no planning required for cheat day – You can literally eat whatever you want. But, there is one caveat: You must record everything you eat and drink on your cheat day and then share this with your accountability buddies.
This record keeping process is another exercise in mindful eating. Even on cheat day (when “anything goes”) it is good practice to be aware of what you are eating.
This cheat day food log can also be very motivating to look back on after a few weeks or months. You will likely see a stark change in your cheat day eating patterns as your body develops new food cravings and you become accustomed to healthier eating habits.
71. What foods will you “save” for cheat day?
72. What social events do you attend that would be helpful to have on your cheat day? If there are many, think about which ones you would prioritize – How are you going to use your weekly cheat day?