Cheat Day Diet - Lose Fat Faster With Your Favourite Foods

In the world of losing weight and fad diets that come and go the result is that we are left with lots of myths rather than the true researched facts.

Unfortunately one such myth is that you should be riddled with guilt and you’ve done wrong if you “cheat” on your diet with junk foods or fast foods.

As it happens there are certain benefits both mentally and physically that mean you can now, every 5 – 7 days “cheat” on your healthy eating plan and still lose fat and inches. This is how the Cheat Day Diet came about.

By keeping on a restrictive eating programme for too long you will naturally slow down your fat burning metabolic rate. The best way to jump start it again is to consume more calories than normal, even calories from chocolates, ice cream and pizzas etc.

Your ability to actually burn fat has a lot to do within your hormones, one hormone in particular called “Leptin”. Leptin does the job of sending a signal to your body when less calories or food are being consumed. It plays the role of preventing starvation by slowing down your metabolic rate as less food or fuel comes in.

But the thing is that leptin can’t tell the difference between you on your diet and actual starvation so as you take in less calories your leptin levels decrease and in return slow down your metabolism. Guess what happens? You try harder to diet and your weight loss slows down or even worse stops. How frustrating is that?

The good news is that leptin rises again on your cheat day to turbo charge your metabolism back up. This is a great trick to prevent you from hitting a plateau and also mentally give you the joy of knowing you can still eat your favourite naughty foods and eventually have your ideal body.

How often should you cheat on your diet? I personally have a cheat day every 7 days but I am managing my single digit body fat level and not needing to lose more fat. Though research has shown that for those who are wanting to shed those pounds can cheat every 5 days. I recommend to my clients every 7^th day because this seems to work best from my tracking of results over the years.

Each of our bodies are unique and different so depending on how often you exercise and stick to your programme on non cheat days is relevant to your results. I suppose what I’m saying here is that its trial and error for each individual so tailor it to what works best for your personal results.

A general guideline is the 90 -10 rule. Which means eat healthily 90% of the time and eat your junk foods for the other 10%. If you are eating 6 times a day then that equals 42 meals per week. 10% of 42 = 4.2 so roughly 4 – 5 of your meals can be cheat meals and you will still lose/maintain your weight.

Cheat Day Diet Conclusion

Instead of calling this your “cheat day” why not call it your “reward day” like I do . Cheating is a word that can come with guilty feelings where as a reward is your treat for being disciplined with your eating and exercise.

Start to reward yourself on a consistent basis and you will find it easier to make healthy eating a lifestyle rather than a yo-yo diet. One last important thing is on your reward day do not use it as an excuse to gorge yourself silly, keep portion control in mind and enjoy your day, you deserve it!