Engineering the Perfect Cheat Meal

I’ve been sharing a lot about my training progress and a little bit about my diet. But, I want to share something that has been working wonders for both my diet compliance and my progress: the Cheat Meal.

Oh, the glorious cheat meal. It really is a wondrous thing. To the uninitiated, here’s the lowdown:

What is a cheat meal?

It’s a damn break from the monotony! It is the one meal per week that you get to eat whatever you want. 

How often do you eat a cheat meal?

This can vary depending on goals and how your progress is going. For me, I get one once a week.

Why use a cheat meal?

It gives the dieter an all important mental break from the monotony of a calorie restricted diet. It also gives your body a caloric bump to keep the metabolism on it’s toes. The body’s metabolism is lazy as hell and will adjust down to match calorie restriction as soon as it figures out what you’re up to.

Nutrition is not my thing, so there are tons-O-resources available with detailed information, should you need it. I know the basics and claim to know nothing beyond that!

This is the first time I’ve ever used cheat meals. In my dieting past, I only did bingeing at the end of a very tough period of dieting. UGH. Not the way to do it.

Here are my tips for constructing your own cheat meal.

1. Make sure your meal design is reasonably aligned with your goals. As my coach put it: don’t clear out the buffet. I try to keep it fairly clean and prefer to stay at home and make meals from scratch, rather than going to a restaurant. But, I definitely indulge.
2. Make it an event! My husband and I plan our date nights in coordination to the cheat meal. It's a lot of fun and an opportunity for us to make the meal an experience.
3. Plan a menu or be planned in the restaurant you attend. We usually begin planning our meal on Wednesday for a Saturday night. I think that's a real testament to how much we enjoy the experience.
4. Fucking enjoy yourself!
5. Get back on the horse the next day.

Potential pitfalls:

1. Going overboard: this is the most significant one. I really enjoy myself during my cheat meals. Lots of calories from a wide variety of delicious foods + some wine and/or beer. I think I have been able to get away with this so far because I’m very active, often training 1-2+ hours per day 6 days/week. I also work an active job that allows me to walk around continuously. If you aren’t training with that much volume or just aren’t that active overall, you should definitely keep the cheat meal reasonable. An enjoyable meal with a drink or two and some dessert. Perfect!
2. Letting the floodgates open: I have found that some foods are a real slippery slope for me. Meaning certain foods initiate cravings that are stronger than I care to deal with and will last for a few days after first consuming said delicious treat. Doughnuts, chips, cookies all fall in this category. This can be terrible. My approach is to just avoid these foods all together.
3. Alcohol: if you’re training for some performance gains, like I am, then alcohol can really screw up an important training session. So be careful and intelligent. I have been, at times, neither.
4. Having too much fun: false. You can never have too much fun. But, you may have too many calories... see above #1.

Give this method a try. Crush it all week and savor an evening (or whenever you choose) to enjoy some good company and great food.