Cheating on your diet sounds like a bad thing. But if you’ve eaten cleanly for a week, having a cheat meal can work in your favor when it comes to controlling body fat. This is especially true if you eat a low-carbohydrate diet. Enjoying a cheat meal can give you psychological satisfaction while “shaking up” your metabolism and making it easier to eat cleanly for another seven days. Cheating has benefits when it comes to staying lean.
Why is Cheating on Your Diet Important?
When you eat a diet that’s low in calories and carbohydrates, leptin levels drop. Not only does leptin keep hunger pangs at bay, but it also speeds up metabolism. So, low leptin levels aren’t necessarily a good thing when it comes to staying lean since it can send your metabolism into hibernation mode and make shedding body fat more difficult.
So what happens when you eat a high-carb cheat meal? Blood sugars shoot up and insulin levels rise. This boosts leptin levels, and your metabolism speeds up. At the same time, you feel satisfied after enjoying a splurge. In fact, you WANT to eat foods high in carbs with a cheat meal to encourage your body to pump out more insulin and leptin. Don’t feel guilty – you’re not doing this every day. Sometimes your metabolism needs a shake-up.
Cheat Day versus Cheat Meal
Should you limit your cheating to a single meal or an entire day? For most people, a cheat meal is the safest way to go. An entire day of overindulging on high-carb foods can make it more difficult to eat cleanly again, and it may leave you feeling overly stuffed and guilty. A cheat meal that’s high in carbs is satisfying and gives your metabolism a boost, and it shouldn’t cause any damage in the way of fat gain.
There are certain people who have restricted carbs for long periods of time who may have very low leptin levels. For them, a single cheat meal may not be enough to boost leptin sufficiently to prime their metabolism. These people may need a day of eating a high carb diet to reap the benefits. If you’re far from reaching your weight loss goals, stick with a cheat meal every 10 days, and keep it as a single meal. Don’t turn it into a cheat day. If you’re pretty close to where you want to be from a body fat standpoint, a cheat meal once a week works well.
Having a cheat meal is also psychologically liberating because it gives you the opportunity to eat things you wouldn’t normally eat. This is satisfying and can make it easier to return to clean eating. But don’t push yourself past the point of satiety. There’s no need to try to fit all of your favorite high-carb foods into a single meal. Make it a high-carb meal, but don’t turn it into a binge. Also, be psychologically prepared for several pounds of weight gain after a cheat meal as your body replaces its glycogen stores, and you retain more water.
The Bottom Line?
Cheat meals are not only good from a psychological standpoint; they also have physiological benefits by boosting leptin levels and keeping your metabolism primed. Enjoy them, and use them to your advantage.
References:
Muscle Fitness Hers. “Seven Ways to Cheat”
Bodybuilding.com. “Leptin”
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