In most diets, there is the concept of cheat meals. The purpose of cheat meals is to decrease envy and psychological stress. Imagine, you’re dieting and you have to go to a special event (birthday, etc.). Do you think you can eat the number of calories required by your diet? No, you’ll eat more calories.
Be careful because there are good and bad ways to handle cheat meals. The right way is to eat a few more calories a few days a month. Because you do it a few days a month, you’ll always have results.
The wrong way is to eat a cheat meal with a huge amount of calories, especially with dietary fats. It’s important to know that they contain chemicals that are like body fat. So, your body burns a small number of calories to produce energy to transform dietary fats into body fat.
Fat in cheat meals
Go further. Carbohydrates and proteins contain chemicals different from body fat. This means that your body must burn a good amount of calories to produce energy to turn them into body fat. Dietary protein, weight loss, and weight maintenance is a study that shows it.
In comparison, meals high in fat lead to the fastest and most significant fat gains. The result is a meal rich in carbohydrates or protein is a great choice to stay on track. This study, fat and carbohydrate overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage gives more details.
I noticed that there is a misunderstanding about a cheat meal. Some people do a cheat day instead. The problem is that they can eat 3,410 calories at the end of the day. This cheat day can destroy a week of progress.
Here is another fascinating fact, alcohol. When you go on a diet, you avoid it, but once the cheat meal is there, you drink. During this, you expect that you will be able to eat and drink the things that you cannot. Unfortunately, this is a bad idea. Alcohol stimulates the way your body converts the food you eat into body fat ( dietary fat, protein, etc.). Here’s what’s fascinating. Alcohol doesn’t make you fatter by itself, but it influences your body to produce more fat from what you eat.
Cheat meals help you reduce the pressure of dieting. Sometimes you want to eat something that you used to eat and you miss its taste. Use cheat meals in moderation to continue to have results. Don’t succumb to the temptations of those around you. You’re the one and only person who can transform your body, no one else will. Take care of your body.
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-Steph