Cheat Meal Mistakes

So the reason for this post stems from a personal experience. A very recent one. As recent as last night.

One of my girlfriends and I have started the tradition of having a cheat meal on Tuesdays #cheatdayhumpday. It’s been amazing so far, we try different cuisines, have a glass of wine. We never ate too much or something too naughty. Until last night.

We have been wanting to go to this place for weeks, it’s quiet far and busy so we’ve been putting it off. We finally made it last night, with our very hungry stomachs.

I won’t disclose what we ate because it’s disgraceful, but we must have had around 3000 calories during that meal. The amount of sugar I consumed could and probably would last me a lifetime.

Do I regret it? No. Even though my body is giving me all the signs that I made a huge mistake last night.

Because of all the pain I am in (still worth it), I thought that no one should feel this way. So here are cheat meal mistakes that people make and that you should avoid:

First, let’s make something clear. Cheating itself is not a mistake. I think you should cheat. It makes your diet more enjoyable and generally improves compliance. That said, how you cheat matters.

Having Too Many Cheat Meals: This is quite self-explanatory. Cheating involves overeating, so cheating frequently means you are eating too much too often. Not what you want to be doing for fat loss.

Eating Too Much in a Cheat Meal: Guilty!! Many people don’t realise how many calories are in the foods they eat in their cheat meals. And many are shocked when they look it up. One of the big problems is that because restaurants want to produce delicious food they add loads of oil, butter, and sugar. Some research even found that calorically speaking, there’s not much difference between fast food and full-service dining.

Indulging in Cheat Days, Not Meals: I hear this often “Today is my cheat day”. If you are one of those people, let me tell you that you are not doing yourself a favour. Being good during the week doesn’t allow you to cause havoc during the weekend. Imagine the damage you can do to the hard-work you’ve been putting in by eating what you want all day long and sometimes for days. You’d undo all the work. It’s a cheat meal and that’s it.

Drinking Too Much Alcohol: Some people think that if you drink lightly and sporadically you will get fat and stay fat. This is not true, actually moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower weights, not higher. Crazy, right? A study even showed that drinkers averaged 16% less calories each day than non-drinkers. The reason for this? Alcohol can actually reduce appetite, improve insulin sensitivity. The most important and amazing fact is that alcohol simply cannot be stored as body fat.

There’s no way for your body to convert ethanol into fat that can be stored.

The downfall is, that drinking alcohol accelerated the speed at which dietary fat you’ve eaten can be stored as fat. So it’s not the calories from alcohol making you fat, but all the things you eat with it.