Cheat Days – Restrictive or Indulgent?

All throughout the week we work hard on our body, consciously eat healthy and clean, watch our activities and habits, and follow a healthy routine. But suddenly one day we become less watchful and indulge in those heavy calories laden foods and that’s what we call a cheat day. Bummer!!!!

Is it really true that cheat days help in achieving healthy goals? Well, as for me I am a foodie and I like to eat a variety of food but when it comes to restricting my diet every day, it makes me feel deprived and instead of one cheat meal or a cheat day it becomes cheat days with “S” for me and I find it extremely difficult to go back to my healthy diet. So are cheat days really beneficial?

I personally don’t like the name itself “cheat days”. We eat whatever we want that day for a meal, yet we don’t enjoy because we feel guilty and our mind constantly tries to remind us not to eat and yet the taste buds play tricks with us. We are left with a feeling of nowhere. We eat lots and lots of empty calories and then feel low and sad instead of feeling satisfied. Eating our favorite food becomes a punishment and of course has an adverse effect on our body.

So why do we follow cheat days? Is it only to make us feel good? Or does it really motivate us to work more for our good health or does it derail us from our health path? These question keeps lingering in my mind since I always fail to go back to healthy eating the next day.  I finally decided to do away with cheat days and eat every day.

So here’s what I did:

I eat healthy and in controlled portions every day. But just to satisfy my taste buds and feel free from psychological deprivation, I pop in some of my favorite snacks once a day every day. For example : if I see my little one eating sugar cookies with frosting, I obviously crave for it too, so I just take a bite of the cookie and get it out of my mind, instead of feeling hungry and deprived all day. Or maybe snack on a couple of chips after lunch or dinner just to satisfy my feelings. Soon I realized that, it was not that I was hungry, but only a psychological effect that I wanted to eat junk food, because I have been depriving my body all week long. Now, since I don’t feel deprived and my mind feels relaxed that I can eat everything at any time of the day or week, I don’t crave for junk food as much. Even if they are kept in front of me I naturally opt for healthy food. Isn’t it amazing?

I am not saying not to follow cheat days. Every individual has different requirements and demands so if cheat days work for you go ahead but if you have any doubt then try what I did I am sure you will soon realize the benefits of eating all foods but make sure to eat all the types of food in moderation and never skip your workouts.

Health tip of the week

“ Eat everything and at all times but in moderation”.