Should you have a Cheat day?

Our times of 'feasting' must be goal oriented. What we eat will directly correlate to the results we get. Are you trying to lose fat or gain muscle? Are you trying to achieve both? What body type are you? The answers to these questions will have a huge influence on what and when we need to be eating. No matter what your goals are, you have to have some room every once in a while to have some fun and rest from all the hard work you have put in. There are times for fasting and times for feasting.

There is a huge physical benefit to having times of feasting every once in a while, especially when you’re not wanting to plateau with your weight loss. When we eat for weight loss our body becomes accustomed to the negative energy balance and our metabolism can start to slow so that we can survive.

So, having a day/meal where we can eat higher calories than we would normally so that our body can have that calorie variance. By having this calorie variance, we can make sure that all of the metabolic processes in our body don’t plateau or slow down.

A 'treat' is perfect for this because first, it will keep our body on its toes and our metabolism high; and second, it is something that we can look forward to so that we don’t get burned out on what we are trying to accomplish.

With that said I don't love nutrition strategies or diets that drastically reduce caloric intake. While there are times for this in extreme cases, most of the time people see initial results, but long term their body doesn't run efficiently. I have seen this time and time again...

Here is an example:

Let's say you need $2000 per month to run a non-profit efficiently. But consistently you are only bringing in $1100. Something is going to have to give. You will have to do one of two things:

1. Bring in more money so you can have the resources you need to do everything to its fullest and with excellence.

2. Reduce your capacity and do less with the limited resources you bring in.

It's similar with your body and metabolism. If we constantly give it less than it needs, it will shed fat at first, but after a while it will have hold on to fat because it doesn't want to go without those storages for emergencies. It won't function optimally

Another example:

Pretend you lost your job... You have some savings to fall back on, but eventually they start to diminish. The closer they get to empty, the less likely you are to spend money because you don't know when you will get income coming in.

My suggestion is for you to eat the right things, in the right amounts, at the right times. It's ok for you to have a slight calorie deficiency at first, but we must be intentional in how we are fueling our bodies. We must think of what our bodies need, rather than what it doesn't need.

But with that said, feasting can be good for us if we do it in the right amounts and at the right times. It can give our body the energy it needs to not plateau.

If we use these times of feasting strategically and make sure that we exercise on the days that we have it then we can eat our cake and have it too in some ways, as long as it’s a delicious chocolate quinoa cake.