Alright let’s talk CHEAT NIGHT!!!!

I have been dying to talk about cheat night!!  This is something I am a true believer in because I’ve seen it make a difference in my life.  Many experts including those on bodybuilding.com  go into great detail over why it’s good for you to have a cheat night. 

There are a few things that come out of a cheat night

1.       It’s a lot easier to stick to a clean healthy, balanced diet during the week if you have something to look forward to.

2.       The foods we crave taste a lot better when you eat them on cheat night instead of indulging on them everyday throughout the week.

3.       Having a cheat meal will help reset your metabolism so you don’t plunder down a black hole.

What is a cheat meal??

A cheat meal is a night where you can eat whatever dinner you want within reason (not to the point where your going to throw up said meal).  Whatever you have been craving EAT IT!!!  Whether it be pizza, Buffalo Wild Wings, Pasta you name it.  Then you can also have whatever dessert you want too.  That is my favorite part J You don’t have to feel guilty doing it!  You have to remember you worked your butt off! You earned it!!  It’s not going to hurt you as long as you make sure you’re sticking to your well balanced diet throughout the week.

A cheat meal is something you would have on your rest day for the week (YOU NEED A REST DAY IT’S VERY IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BODY TO RECOVER).  This is usually the day where it’s ok to have a high carb day.  When I first started Jim Stoppani’s Shortcut to Shred I would usually take my rest day on Sunday.  But since we like to eat out as a family on Saturday’s that was the day we would cheat.  Then Sunday I would go back to my regular weekly diet.  After a while I found that on Sunday’s I would DRAG!!  By 9:00 I literally could fall asleep standing up.  Then the last few weeks I have started taking Saturday as my rest day then eating higher carbs throughout the day.  I would still make sure that all the carbs I was eating were good carbs like oatmeal, 100% whole wheat bread, Honey, Protein bars, fruit, ect.  Things that being on a .5 carb per lb of weight diet wouldn’t normally include.   Then that night I would have whatever my heart desired for dinner and dessert.

Now to address #1

It’s a lot easier to stick to a clean healthy, balanced diet during the week if you have something to look forward to at the end of the week.  For the last two weeks of my program Shortcut to Sred I was on a 61g carb diet.  It was really hard!!! I had never before in my life actually counted carbs.  I was basically living off of protein shakes, string cheese, the occasional almond, grilled chicken salads, turkey burgers with one half a whole grain thin bun, broccoli, cottage cheese, eggs, turkey swiss wraps, and no bean homemade chili.  It seems like a lot but eating those things only for 2 weeks in a row gets mind-numbing. 

For me to stick to a strict healthy well balanced diet I had to have something to look forward too.  If I didn’t have a cheat night I really don’t think I could have done it!

#2

 It’s so true that when you don’t have something for a while, something that you love, when you do have it, it tastes soooooooooooooooo good!!!  We love to go to Buffalo Wild Wings a lot for our cheat meal, and it doesn’t really matter whether the food is ACTUALLY good or not, we probably wouldn’t notice.  It still tastes that good to us. 

#3

This is the most important one!!  I have noticed this one myself.  Your metabolism will actually get a boost from having a cheat meal.  When you go day to day with a routine and a well-balanced strict diet your body can start to plateau.  So the cheat meal will actually reset your metabolism and make sure it’s working at its peak.  I find that even eating 1500 calories the night before I will weigh less the next morning than I did the day before.  Plus now I’m hungry all the time my metabolism works so well.  So it makes it even harder to stick to my diets.  But I love love love the results I’m getting, so I am determined to keep it up. 

So there is something to look forward to through all your hard work.  Because weight lifting is not a walk in the park.  It hurts!  You get really sore! But the results and the good that comes from weight lifting outweigh all the hard things about it.