Cheating On A Diet

One issue that many individuals have on their diet program is that of cheating - cheating being indulging in foods that you know very well should have been avoided.

How detrimental is cheating to your diet? And how long will it take you to undue your hard work? Here are the things you must keep in mind.

Scheduled Cheats

In the first scenario, the cheat is scheduled in a sense as you know an event is coming where you will likely be overeating. This could be a birthday party, a weekend getaway, or a movie night after a stressful week.

When you know the cheat is coming, you can prepare yourself so that the cheat can actually work to your benefit with respect to fat loss goals.

What you should be doing is during the week adopt a slightly stricter diet by reducing the carbohydrate slightly. Rather than eating more whole grain type of foods, opt for vegetables and fruit in replacement and you'll likely automatically slash your calories.

What this will do is first create a bigger deficit for you to run on, which further prompts weight loss, and then secondly, make your body more receptive to overfeeding, causing the overfeeding to actually boost your metabolism so when you get back to the diet you lose weight quicker once again.

Obviously this still gives you no reason to go completely crazy, but provided you have reduced your intake during the week enough, you should be able to indulge quite freely in carbohydrate rich foods.

Unscheduled Cheats

The next scenario is unscheduled cheats where you aren't expecting them to occur but rather simply give in to temptation.

When this occurs, then you haven't prepared for it quite as much and should practice some self-restraint. Just do not restrain yourself so much that you are loaded with guilt after the first bite. Doing this will further deepen the feelings of deprivation you feel, causing you to likely come back with yet another cheat in the very near future.

The rule of thumb is that the more the dieter feels deprived on their diet, the less success they'll likely have. The first way to prevent these feelings of deprivation is to choose a diet that does fit your natural taste preferences while still being healthy as well as providing enough calories that you don't feel as though you are starving at all times. Starvation diets do not work. Period.

Then, after a good diet is being practiced, the next thing to do is allow yourself to occasionally indulge. By realizing it is okay to do this and taking the ‘bad' away from the situation, you'll be less likely to really overeat and less likely to continue to binge for a period of time afterwards.

Get Back To Your Regular Plan Immediately Afterwards

Finally, the last factor that those who occasionally go off their diet without it really showing any effect on them are able to do is put it behind them right away. They ate. They enjoyed. Now they are back on track.

This goes along with being able to ‘allow' yourself to have a cheat because you can then realize when it's over. Those who feel like they just destroyed all their hard work are much more likely to give up, at least for a few days, and continue to eat how they shouldn't. Finally, once they regain composure they'll move back to their diet but by this time, damage has definitely been done.

Get back on track immediately afterwards. This is potentially the largest difference between those who are able to both lose weight successfully and keep it off in the long run. As soon as you start having a very negative relationship with food, you'll find you're always struggling with your weight.

So, next time temptation lies around the corner, keep these few points in mind. It really isn't going to set you back as long as you:

A. enjoy the cheat (if you don't enjoy it - that ‘need' won't get fulfilled)

B. Plan for it if possible

C. Get back on track immediately after it's over.