The Cheat Meal Phenomenon

The Cheat meal is possibly the most exciting yet the most confusing and consequently most confusing component to eating supportively and staying consistent with your efforts.  Well I’m going to make it crystal clear for you right now as to what to do to make your cheat meal a success.

So let me clarify first that I’m pretty sure you don’t need me to make your cheat meal a success in the sense that you need help with figuring out what to eat.  I’m sure there are plenty of things you like to eat but know that you shouldn’t.  It is those things that you can have as your cheat meal.  Just be sensible about it.  So if your planned cheat meal is pizza, you aren’t having four of them, rather one to two slices.  The cheat meal is meant to be enjoyed, so do just that.

Now, lets take a look at a weeks time as that will be  the best way to elaborate on how a cheat meal works.  In order to be 90% compliant, which is the benchmark for seeing results, you must eat five meals a day for seven days.  That is 35 meals.  In order to be 90% compliant you must eat supportively 32 out of those 35 meals.  That leaves some room for a cheat meal.  So what about the other two meals that don’t have to be supportive for you to be 90% compliant?  Do you make them cheat meals too?  This is where the confusion lies.

Here’s the best way that I have found for it to work and for you to remain supportive and continuing to see continuous results: Plan one cheat meal a week (and make sure it is PLANNED, don’t wing it), and the remaining two use as a cushion for the unpredictable rather than making them planned.  Missed meals count  as cheat meals, so if you get in a bind or your schedule doesn’t work out as you had planned, you have  buffer between remaining 90% compliant or falling below which is where results become compromised.  Planning three cheat meals a week leaves you with zero room for error, and we all know that things almost never go as planned, so we need to plan accordingly.

Using this approach gives you some relief knowing you don’t have to be perfect all the time and if you do get in a bind, not all is lost, you still have two ‘get out of jail free’ cards before you begin to compromise your plan.