I don’t believe in cheat days.
Cheat days still “count”
There’s the obvious problem with them:
No matter how much you want to believe otherwise, calories still “count” no matter what day of the week it is. Your body and metabolism won’t agree with any arbitrary pronouncements you make about when it’s okay to overeat.
Cheat days disrupt habit-building
There’s also the issue of building habits. You want eating right to be something you do automatically. Spending one day a week where you eat tons of garbage disrupts the habit-building process.
You wouldn’t skip brushing your teeth or taking your heart medication. A diabetic isn’t going to say, “I’m not going to take my insulin because it’s Tuesday.”
Eating right should be like that.
Cheat days are a symptom of a flawed strategy
But also, the fact that you feel like you need a cheat day is a clear sign that you’re doing something wrong.
This relates to what I discussed in Everything You’ve Heard About Dieting is Wrong. Most diets are simply too hard.
A traditional diet relies on you being miserable. So you may incorporate a cheat day as a sort of escape valve.
You don’t want to be miserable all the time. Instead, one day a week you’ll allow yourself to eat the things that make you happy.
But a diet that relies on you being miserable six days a week isn’t much better than a diet that relies on you being miserable seven days a week. You’re still spending most of your time being miserable.
Being miserable is no way to live. And it simply isn’t a way that you’re realistically going to live. You won’t be able to keep it up for the rest of your life.
After a few weeks, you’ll get tired of being miserable, and quit the diet. Just like you have every time in the past. Which is why you’re still trying to lose weight, and aren’t already skinny.
Remember, an effective diet isn’t something you do for a limited time to reach a goal weight. A healthy weight loss strategy has to consist of permanent habit changes that you are able to maintain for the rest of your life.
And making yourself miserable, even if you spend one day a week not being miserable, just isn’t going to work for that.
Anytime you find yourself needing a cheat day, that’s a clear sign you should rethink your entire weight loss plan. It’s demonstrating that your diet is unlikely to last, and you have to come up with better strategies.
Cheat days build an unhealthy relationship with food
Moreover, cheat days build the wrong attitude.
When you use cheat days, you’re brainwashing yourself into believing that eating right is unpleasant, while shoveling a massive amount of garbage down your gullet is a reward.
As long as you have this mentality, losing weight is going to be extremely hard.
You need to build the mentality that eating right is the pleasant and rewarding activity, not the opposite.
A better strategy
So what should you do instead?
Simple: Follow the basic weight loss habit. Each time you consider what to eat, make a rational decision about what and how much to eat, and then celebrate your good decision.
If you decide to eat high-calorie/junk food that can still be a good decision.
It’s a good decision if it will make you happy, and you’re only eating it occasionally, in moderation.
None of the factors that make it a good decision have any connection with the day of the week.
You may occasionally make the rational decision to turn your brain off and not think about the food you’re eating.
Perhaps it’s a trip to Disneyland, or a once-in-a-lifetime dinner at a fancy expensive gourmet restaurant, and you want to enjoy all the food without any worry. That’s okay, but it should be something you do at most a few times a year, and not “because it’s Saturday.”
Conclusion: The cheat day was invented because diets don’t work
The cheat day only came about because bad diet strategies make people so miserable.
If you currently use a weight loss strategy that incorporates a cheat day, you may be resistant to giving the cheat day up, because it’s the only thing keeping you sane and allowing you to stick to the diet.
To clarify, I am absolutely not saying you should stick to that diet without the cheat day.
I’m saying you should change diet strategies entirely, so that you don’t need the cheat day at all.
Did you find this article helpful? You might enjoy my book The Weight Loss Habit: The No BS, No Gimmick, (Sort Of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever. Available now on Amazon.
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