Diets and the art of cheating
Is cheating sometimes OK? We're told throughout our lives that cheating is a bad thing
. But many health and fitness experts promote the use of "cheating." This essentially involves meals or days during the week, when you can be more lax about the nutritional value of your diet.
To determine whether you should use cheat meals or cheat days, it's important that you learn the ways you can implement them, as well as their pros and cons.
First, it depends what "cheat" means. Some people cheat a little, by consuming a special food (such as a dessert) that wouldn't normally be a part of their daily diets. Others go hog-wild, and consume anything and everything that they crave. An alternative to these extremes is to have a periodic "cheat meal," rather than an entire "cheat day." This allows you to eat whatever you want for that particular meal, before returning to your regular meal plan afterwards.
What are the benefits of cheating? It increases your muscle glycogen levels. Glycogen is the stored form of glucose, which originates from carbohydrates. What's so important about glycogen? It's crucial for your body's ability to produce fuel for physical activities, such as bodybuilding. The skeletal muscles and liver store most of the body's glycogen.
Another major benefit of cheating on your diet is that it lifts your energy and performance levels. Obviously, that's a good thing when you're bodybuilding. Due to the rigorous workouts required, it's often difficult to maintain high energy levels. By infusing your body with some comfort foods, you get a boost of energy that can improve your performance levels. Basically, your brain gets a memo from your body that you're consuming tasty foods.
Next, cheating can replenish calories and carbs that you've lost during your workout regimen. In fact, some experts recommend that your cheat meals or cheat days should include an increase in carbohydrate intake. Your workout can convert the carbs into usable fuel, which will in turn boost your energy levels and improve your performance.
Finally, yet another benefit using cheat meals or cheat days is that you'll experience a boost in your metabolism level. This is crucial if you simply want to lose weight, or to transform body fat into lean muscle mass. You could also boost your metabolism by eating foods such as ginger, onion, garlic, chili peppers, and citrus fruits.
Now, how about the drawbacks of cheating on your diet? One has more to do with perception. If you feel the neat to cheat, then arguably your diet is depriving you of the foods you enjoy eating. The key to maintaining a healthy diet is changing your lifelong eating habits, rather than depriving yourself of tasty food. Also, while you could fairly easily work off a cheat meal, an entire cheat day could virtually devastate your weight-loss goals.
So let's return to the original question: is cheating on your diet OK? It basically depends on why you do it, and how you compensate for the unhealthy binges. When done correctly, cheating on your diet can be a good thing.
Diets and the art of cheating
By: Nancy Richards
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