Healthy eaters revere the almighty cheat meal for its ability to help them get leaner, add muscle and act as a temporary break from “clean cuisine”. We know that long term nutritional success depends on a “healthy eating is a lifestyle” mentality. A cheat meal every 5-7 days certainly helps develop this routine. We’ve worked with a variety of people over the years who have goals to get (and stay) in amazing shape.
Through a lot of experimentation, we’ve established some golden rules that when applied to cheat meals will help you get the best results.
Make Your Cheat Meal the Last Meal of the Day
We’ve found that when you cheat at breakfast, you’re more likely to continue the pattern throughout the day. For most people this isn’t ideal and a cheat meal will work out better than an entire cheat day. Another fact worth noting is that insulin sensitivity tends to be higher in the evening for most people. This means that the body will produce less insulin during the evening splurge. This is good news, because more circulating insulin means more fat storage.
Eat Protein First
This little trick helps keep blood sugar down when the rest of the meal is loaded with carbs. Protein is also very satiating and seems to make an otherwise high carb meal seem more “complete”.
Make It Count
A well planned cheat meal at your favorite restaurant will feel much more rewarding than an impromptu trip to the drive through. Satisfaction certainly plays into the “healthy eating is a lifestyle” mentality mentioned earlier. It’s important that the meal you pick is something that you’ve really been looking forward to and acts as a “temporary vacation” from your normal healthy eating.
Set a Time Limit
It may sound a little strange, but we’ve always recommended that clients set a 1 hour time limit for a cheat meal. This goes back to not letting it turn into a cheat day. You can imagine how someone could bend the rules and extend that one meal out for hours. This person is a restaurant buffet’s worst nightmare!
Keep Carbs High To Raise Leptin Levels
If calories and/or carbs drop too low for an extended period of time, Leptin (a hormone that greatly influences fat loss) starts to fall. One important role of this hormone is to tell the body whether or not its starving. A reduction in leptin will slow the metabolic rate and reduce energy levels. Luckily, a high calorie meal with plenty of carbs will help reset leptin and get your body back in that “fat burning mode”. If you’re an already lean individual, we recommend that your cheat meal contains 1 gram of carb per pound of body weight i.e. a 200 lb male will need 200g of carbs. If you’re looking to get a lot leaner, try .5g of carbs per pound of body weight until you get under 12-15% body fat.
