You think you can diet without cheating? Think again. The key is to find the right way to cheat on your diet. After 20 years’ consulting with clients in my practice I’ve picked up exactly where they go wrong with cheating – and I bet you are doing it too.
One of the most frequent discussions with clients in my practice was on the topic of “cheating/ bad days” on a weight loss. Maybe it was because of the fact that people used frequent cheating as an excuse for why they didn’t lose weight.
After a bad cheat meal or cheat day, people behave in one of two ways. They either 1) completely go off the rails and continue cheating for the rest of the day or even for a few days, or 2) they recover by not eating anything for the rest of the day (and then get so hungry that they binge eat later in the day). Neither of these is helping you. Both tend to be very destructive.
How do you cheat without ruining your hard work?
“Cheat, get over it, and IMMEDIATELY get back on track”.
I know that this is one of my sayings that impacts the most on people. I can see in their eyes – how they just get it. How it makes sense.
Eating is a science. It is the difference between input vs output that makes us lose or gain weight. It is a scientific fact that to gain 1kg of body fat, you have to eat 38 000 kilojoules more than the previous day. 38 000 kJ equates to 3 large Pizza’s (pizza with meat toppings) AND 3 large Beef burgers and chips AND 4 Bar one chocolates. Let’s be realistic, very few of us can cheat with all that food in a single day.
However, when you climb on the scale you will see a weight gain effect after a cheat day. Unless you consumed all the food listed above – the weight you see on the scale is just body water that you retained because of all the salt and sugars in the “junk food” you ate.
When people tell me about their cheating (mostly to explain why they did not lose weight), I always ask one thing:
“Ok, lets see how many “bad days” did you have in this 3-weeks on you weight loss diet?”
If they report that they cheated on their diet at least 5 days in the 3 weeks – I will then ask: “But what about the other 16 days in the 3 weeks?”. If they were good days, then according to the science of weight loss there should be a significant weight loss result.
A weight loss plan should always have, what I call a “grey zone”. It should not be all “black and white”. What I mean with a “grey zone” is that the diet should allow for mistakes. When you “step out of your diet”, by this I mean cheat (have a bad day), then you have stepped into the grey zone. You simply have to “immediately step back into your diet”.
Unfortunately, most weight loss diets do not allow for this “grey zone” for mistakes. An example is a Ketogenic diet (more popularly known as “Keto” diets). Keto diets definitely do not allow for cheating or mistakes. This diet “forces” your body to use a different energy cycle by excluding all forms of carbohydrates. The moment you cheat by eating carbohydrates (even a very small amount), you take yourself out of this energy cycle and have to start all over with day one of your diet. The cheat will have a great impact on your weight loss.
One of the nice things about testing your DNA is that it will give you more info on exactly what you can cheat with. It tests your body’s response to carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and caffeine, among other things. It will, for example, show you if you can cheat with more lamb chops or more of the potato dish at a braai.
A DNA eating plan is a “grey zone” diet that allows for “cheat, get over it, and get back on track”.
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