To win with dieting, do you need a cheat day?

When it comes to cheat days they can occur for a number of reasons. Cheat days can follow an eating schedule of limited caloric intake, a portion controlled period, occur after fasting and cleansing. The kind of cheat day I’d like to elaborate on here is a cheat day when you can break your nutritious eating habits and indulge on foods that are considered to make you unhealthy. This kind of cheat day is preceded by a very structured and/or strict diet that focuses on eating more of this and avoiding a lot of that is the turn to approach for dieters, gym goers and everyday people all around the world. Why are these cheat days, also often referred to as free days, so inviting? Because many claim that when you have endured days of strict eating there is nothing you need more than an ‘eat-whatever-you-want day.’ Irrespective of the reason you use a cheat day, there is no doubt that they serve a very important purpose; to compensate and return you to balance. After all, you can only suppress an urge or craving and stick to rigid rules for so long.

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I believe, a free eating day is more often an eating error than an eating essential. A cheat day is a sign that your dietary habits are out of balance. In fact, the only reason you would need a cheat day or an over expression day, is if your diet if filled with over-suppression. The cheat day is therefore designed to balance your over indulgence with your over suppressions. The problem here is you are using two extremes to balance each other.

It is essential that you align with a diet that is balanced, this way you won’t need to dedicate almost an entire day just to feel better. Imagine you align with a diet that you can sustain and are no longer dependent on a free day. Could there be something better than a cheat day? Yes. What’s better is a diet that fulfills your mind, mouth and body, that is not filled with rules and restrictions but that is balanced by design. You don’t need to endure six days of restricted eating just to make it to one day of over-indulgence. I’ll leave you with this practical exercise to chew over. List all the foods that you are suppressing and regularly craving and see if you can find a home for them in your diet, in a moderate and balanced way. If you can figure this out, you will see that you don’t need to cheat to win.