Cheat meal - what is it and how to do it correctly when losing weight

Why do you need a cheat meal?

What are the benefits of planned disruption?

Eating “junk” food, which is eaten with this method, allows you to activate the thyroid gland.
Cheat meals help improve the functioning of the digestive system. The fact is that most foods and dishes acceptable in weight loss diets are beneficial for burning fat deposits, but can harm the liver and pancreas. During breakdowns, the body receives food rich in fats and carbohydrates, which allows the digestive system to take a break from heavy amino acids.
As mentioned above, controlled breakdowns are a salvation for the psyche. Understanding that there are days when you can eat foods prohibited by diets in any quantity makes it easier to restrict your diet and food on other days.

Interesting fact: The technique was invented by bodybuilders and proved its feasibility in practice.

What is a cheat meal and why is it needed?

Cheat meal translated from English means “cheat with food.”

The idea is that you follow the diet most of the time, but once a week you can eat any food, including high-carbohydrate foods such as baked goods, pizza, beer and other things that you have studiously avoided for a long time.

Many weight loss experts believe that such a planned diet break, done from time to time, will help you lose weight more effectively.

The beneficial effect of a cheat meal is that it speeds up the metabolism, increasing the production of the hormone leptin, and helps the body burn more calories.

The fact is that limiting the number of calories on a diet leads to depletion of leptin reserves in the body, which is responsible for maintaining energy balance and weight loss. A short-term increase in caloric intake increases leptin production by almost 30%.

As a result, the effect of promoting metabolism is observed, the feeling of hunger is regulated and motivation appears for further improvement of physical fitness.

An important factor for a person following a long-term diet is psychological relief. Planning meals where you can eat some of your favorite but not too healthy foods allows you to enjoy delicious food without feeling guilty.

Cheat meals fit perfectly into holiday dinners, corporate parties or weekend get-togethers with friends.

Cheat meal rules

The breakdown is called controlled, since the use of this method during diets has a number of rules and recommendations that must be followed.

Cheat meals require a calm environment. There is no need to eat on the run, nervously, or in a hurry. Otherwise, the psyche will not even notice the breakdown that has occurred and will continue to be in a tense state.
A cheat meal is an extra meal. They cannot replace the main one.
Forget about the scales when you have a breakdown. The indicators will probably exceed the norm, but the very next day the results should become positive.
When cheating, you can eat anything, but it is recommended to give preference to foods rich in carbohydrates and proteins. This choice should have a positive effect on accelerating metabolic processes.
You need to set aside the most suitable day for a breakdown. You can arrange it on a weekend or on a holiday. Timed to coincide with a specific event, a cheat meal will bring more pleasure.
Avoid overeating. Your digestive system gets used to low-calorie foods during the diet, so suddenly receiving an excess of high-calorie food can cause illness.
The cheat meal only applies to food. Carbonated and alcoholic drinks are not included.
You can only arrange disruptions until five in the evening. All eaten carbohydrates and fats should have time to be processed before bedtime. The optimal time for a cheat meal is lunch. Eating junk food for breakfast is also undesirable, since there is a risk of overeating on an empty stomach.
Cheat meal does not require special preparation. Before it, you don’t need to reduce calories, and after that you don’t need to do fasting days. A controlled breakdown is part of the diet, and you shouldn’t punish yourself for it.

Benefit or harm to the body?

A cheat meal done correctly will not directly disrupt your diet, your body, or your progress. And this means that eating junk, calorie-dense foods every now and then that you love won't directly harm your ability to lose fat, build muscle, or achieve any similar goal in any significant way, as long as it's done correctly .

Of course, this power system is not suitable for everyone . If you have a high percentage of body fat and are on a strict diet, this technique is not recommended for you. Each “carbohydrate boost” will slow down the weight loss process, since the body will not have to give energy from fat, since you are already pampering it with additional calories, not allowing it to starve. But this also applies to those who have a slow metabolism .

Mostly, cheat days are arranged by athletes during the period of muscle drying before bodybuilding competitions. At a certain point, the athlete reaches a minimum level of subcutaneous fat, and to maintain weight, he includes a planned “load” once a week. This prevents muscle breakdown and maintains optimal energy levels, which are greatly reduced on a low-carb diet.

A real cheat meal takes place two days immediately before the competition, so the muscles are filled with water and look fuller without losing definition.

What not to eat

You should not eat fatty foods, as they do not affect metabolic processes. Fats quickly settle in problem areas, which negates attempts to lose weight. High fiber foods should be avoided as they slow down the digestion process. On the day of a breakdown, the digestive system is given an extra load, so the work of the gastrointestinal tract should not be complicated. Fructose and protein products will also be useless during a cheat meal, so focusing on them is not recommended. To relieve sugar cravings, you can use Herbalife Yellow Pills. They contain chromium, which helps control hunger, and garcinia cambogia, which is a source of hydroxycitric acid, which stimulates the fat burning process. To find out how to purchase the product, visit herbalife.ru.

Meaning of the word Cheat meal

When hearing a word, it is difficult to determine its meaning. Few people have heard the saying. When people hear it for the first time, they ask a logical question: what is a cheat meal? Seventy percent of those who know are professional athletes, beginners, promising young people who use the word to improve their body.

The word has the meaning of a special disorder of proper nutrition. At first, the meaning of the word and the process may seem strange. The use is worth the result. When applying the procedure, you should know the features, nuances, and time of use.

An entertaining, easy-to-remember word justifies the process. It is completely new, little known to a wide range of people. Gaining popularity due to its effectiveness of use. Manipulation helps to lose weight and maintain normal weight. “Fraud” with a diet, without consuming carbohydrates, helps to dry out the body of a kopeck without harm.

Drying your body with a cheat meal

People who dream of losing weight use diets, drying the body, and are tormented by endless dietary restrictions. Long-term consumption of low-calorie foods increases the feeling of hunger. Pies, cakes, chips, soda seem like a dream. Many weight loss methods prohibit the slightest consumption of fats and carbohydrates.

There's a new technique that can help you enjoy your unhealthy favorite foods while continuing your weight loss efforts. The technique has a name - cheat meal. Those who are losing weight deliberately violate their proper nutrition regimen by eating tasty treats or using carbohydrate alternation. You can pamper yourself once a month.

It is worth knowing that the manipulation must be agreed upon with a nutritionist. Violation of the procedure can eliminate the results of weight loss. You need to control the food you eat on a cheat day. Overeating can lead to gastrointestinal problems.

Suitable for people who do not have precise control over the food they eat. Control depends on the level of the enzyme in the body - leptin. The hormone responds to the formation of adipose tissue by affecting the brain. The amount of enzymes decreases with weight loss. The feeling of hunger disappears with minimal enzyme production.

The body component must be produced, adipose tissue must be present in normal quantities. Violation of the natural process provokes the occurrence of pathology. The elements present in the body must function properly and stand out. Proper exchange guarantees the absence of diseases.

Insufficient leptin increases weight gain by slowing down the metabolic process. The process of losing weight goes in reverse, bringing extra pounds.

A cheat day normalizes the amount of enzyme, maintaining weight and preventing extra pounds from gaining. Long-term use of a diet provokes a slowdown in metabolism, reducing the effectiveness of weight loss. It is worth maintaining a normal balance.

How often can you have a cheat meal?

The frequency of breakdowns depends on how many kilograms you need to lose, for how long, on your lifestyle and daily physical activity. There are three strategies for repeating a cheat meal:

90/10
. With this schedule, 90% of the time you need to stick to the diet, and 10% should be spent on cheat meals (breakdowns after nine days on the tenth). This loading is recommended for those who lead a sedentary lifestyle and burn few calories daily.
80/20
. With this schedule, 80% of the time is devoted to eating dietary food, and 20% to breakdowns. You can allow cheat meals every four days on the fifth. The regime is suitable for athletes and people leading an active lifestyle. It can also be used at the beginning of a diet for those who find it difficult to adapt to the 90/10 schedule.
Cheat day
. This is the name for full-fledged loading days, when at all meals you can eat harmful foods prohibited by the diet. The method is suitable for professional athletes and sports-oriented people who do at least 4 workouts per week.

Cheat meal: How to eat anything and stay in shape?

We all want to be slim, healthy and beautiful. And our beauty, body and health always depend on what we eat. And now you have already created a suitable diet, without sweets, fatty foods, or high-calorie foods. So, what is next? And then you have to walk around the supermarket with a sad face, past the counters with everything that stands between you and your ideal body: cupcakes, buns, chocolates, you get the idea. This is healthy eating.

To be honest, I chose such a provocative title of the article specifically so that everyone would want to read it, but believe me: what will be discussed in this article will allow you to break your diet a little without compromising your shape.

So, I want to talk about a practice called “cheat meal”. There is no Russian equivalent to this phrase, so from now on I will simply write “cheat meal.” So, a cheat meal is a fraudulent meal. This technique is practiced by many professional bodybuilders, but who said that it is not suitable for people involved in other sports? Let's get into it.

A cheat meal involves a planned violation of your diet. A is strictly 1 meal per week (for people with a low percentage of fat) or once every 2-3 weeks (for people with a high percentage of fat). You can eat whatever you want at this meal. You will be able to afford what you have been raving about, dreaming about and daydreaming about, and in almost unlimited quantities, but of course within reason. In principle, it is also possible to get overly greedy and ruin everything you strived for.

There are many opinions on the Internet about cheat meals; it has many supporters, but also many opponents. It's worth understanding whether you need it. I am inclined to believe that without such meals it will not be possible to eat properly. But I have been convinced more than once that any opinion can be challenged, so there are also those people who calmly eat only what their body needs and are absolutely happy.

It is also worth noting that a cheat meal involves a complete rejection of all kinds of “interceptions” of candy, cookies and the like. Believe me, even such small things add up to very big ones, and this becomes an obstacle on your way. Just observe how often you do it without thinking, and try to stop doing it as much as possible.

The main benefit of a cheat meal is, as absurd as it may sound, it helps you maintain your diet. Agree that if you give yourself one legitimate meal in which you can eat absolutely everything, then you will be less willing to break your diet throughout the week. Also, one of the benefits is considered to be the acceleration of thyroid function: after a cheat meal, you sweat more for several hours, that is, you increase thermogenesis.

But cheat meals have one main drawback: psychological dependence. And here you already need to decide whether you really need this, because if you cheat for several months, then it will be difficult to stop, but considering that a cheat meal does more good than harm, maybe it’s not so bad ?

Therefore, by following a few basic rules, you can direct your cheat meal to your advantage. I'll try to give the most basic ones:

Try not to cheat in front of the TV or computer. Your goal is to satisfy your need for “junk food”, and as you know, by eating and at the same time procrastinating with the help of some TV series, you will eat 2 times more.
Don't eat instead, eat together. You shouldn’t give up your regular diet on this day, eat exactly the same as on regular days and just add another meal in the form of a cheat meal.
Try to consume your cheat meal no later than 4-5 pm, leaving time for the body to process all fast carbohydrates and fats before going to bed.
Don't get carried away. Don't give yourself more than one cheat meal per week. After all, this is a disruption to your diet, not a cure-all.
Eat after your workout. After an intense workout, your metabolism will accelerate, and accordingly, food will be processed more intensively.
Avoid alcohol. The cheat meal does not include the consumption of alcoholic beverages. I don’t even think it’s worth explaining why.
Start from your lifestyle. The more intense your workouts and strict diet, the less you can limit yourself on a cheat day.
And the last rule - don't beat yourself up . This is your chance to relax and step away a little from your usual diet. Therefore, you should not depress yourself after a cheat meal. This is a planned violation that will not give you a negative effect.

There is one more opinion about cheat meals, which also cannot be neglected. If your goal is to maintain body proportions, you can create a small calorie deficit every day for a week, for example 150 calories per day, and at the end of the week you will have 900 calories that you can spend “beneficially” for yourself.

Well, in the end, it’s probably worth telling a little about personal experience . I’ve been doing a cheat meal once a week, not too much, around 1500 calories in addition to the main diet, for about 2 months now. I didn’t find any negative changes either on the scales or in the mirror. Naturally, all this is very subjective and most likely will not suit someone, but despite all this, I think that you should at least try and experience this technique for yourself.

How to do a cheat meal correctly

Avoid disruptions at home. Better go to a cafe or restaurant. This will allow you to get more pleasure and psychological relief.
If a cheat meal is arranged at home, it cannot be combined with sitting at the computer or TV, watching movies or TV series, playing games, or working. A breakdown is about satisfying the need for forbidden food, not satisfying hunger. Plus, while watching the same films, more food is eaten, which can lead to overeating.
You need to eat slowly, without rushing, enjoying every dish and every bite you eat.
It is optimal to drink plenty of fluids before a cheat meal. This will help you avoid overeating.
A cheat meal after a good workout is considered a good option because intense exercise speeds up your metabolism, causing junk food to be digested faster.

Psychological relief

A cheat meal will serve well not only your health, but also your internal state. Even a person with enormous willpower can spoil his mood due to the need to constantly deny himself pleasure. In order for training to continue to bring joy and not be perceived as hard labor, “fasting days in reverse” are needed.

A cheat meal serves as a kind of reward for a person for the work done on himself. This is the motivation that everyone needs to not give up on the path to their goal. Not to mention the fact that with weight loss, the energy that is needed to exercise in huge quantities often decreases.

Cheat meal - what is it?

This compound word comes from the English words cheat and meal. The first means “disturbance”, and the second means “eating”. Cheat meal - what is it? You can guess that this combination implies a violation of the nutrition plan. That is, you can eat any food for a limited period of time.

For example, once every two weeks on Saturday a person departs from his usual diet and allows himself to eat a burger, pizza, cake or something similar. This is called "having a cheat meal."

Benefits of a cheat meal

Planned consumption of unhealthy refined foods affects you in the following ways:

Speeds up metabolism;
Helps the endocrine glands function normally in conditions of limited supply of nutrients (especially fats);
Helps overcome the weight loss crisis (when weight stays the same and does not fall during physical activity);
Replenishes the lack of calories;
Positively affects the nervous system;
Perfectly relieves the psyche;
Fills you with strength and energy.

What is a cheat day and a cheat meal?

It is almost impossible to maintain a healthy diet 100% of the time. The desire to eat something outside the diet one day befalls everyone. But if you return to the path of eating unhealthy, high-calorie foods , your goals and achievements can quickly become a thing of the past. Therefore, many experts recommend not avoiding such temptations in your diet, and including a cheat meal or cheat day . [14]

official definition for it, but a cheat day has a special meaning in the world of fitness. It can be defined as a short-term, planned period of overeating. Typically this refers to consuming specific macronutrients that exceed your current caloric intake. A cheat meal is one dish that you don't usually include in your diet.

Therefore, a cheat day can be roughly defined as a day on which you do not count calories and consume food or a cheat meal that goes beyond your normal diet . Depending on your cravings, these days may include high-calorie foods or meals that you don't include in a healthy eating plan, such as burgers, pizza, sweets —really whatever you want. Cheat meals are focused more on quantity rather than quality. [4] [6]

Who needs a cheat meal?

Basically, a cheat meal makes sense, especially for those who follow a strict diet and work out a lot at the gym . This way, take a short break before returning to healthy eating. [9] Therefore, cheat meals are very popular among athletes and fitness enthusiasts. Even The Rock adheres to this rule, and on social networks he loves to share his cheat meals. For him it’s mostly pancakes, sweet pies or hamburgers. [5] [13] [14]

Cheat meals are now having a major impact on the treatment of diseases associated with overeating . An eating disorder (BED) is a life-threatening but treatable disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating . Subsequently, people suffering from this disorder develop mental problems such as feelings of shame, fear or guilt.

One type of treatment for eating disorders is the use of restrictive diets . In such cases cheat meals easier for people to fight the disease. Incorporating cheat meals has been shown to reduce eating disorders in people with food addiction tendencies or an inability to regulate their eating habits. [19] [4]

Do you need a cheat meal while cutting?

Cutting is a term that refers to the process of preparing an athlete for exhibition competitions, which consists of reducing the percentage of fat and water in the body. Drying involves a strict and long-term low-calorie diet, which mostly consists of proteins. During drying, all athletes experience a whole extravaganza of various emotions, from delight to the desire to quit everything at once. It is the cheat meal that helps athletes stay afloat, avoiding nervous breakdowns. It happens that it is morally difficult for an athlete to eat a forbidden product, since a responsible event is at stake. But you shouldn’t worry about this, since in the process of further cutting back on your diet, all the extra calories will burn out very quickly.

On what diet is cheat unloading allowed?

As mentioned above, “forbidden” food intake is not permissible on every diet. The most suitable option is considered to be a low-carbohydrate or no-carbohydrate diet, a diet with limited consumption of fats and carbohydrates. It is on such a power system that cheatmeal will have the greatest effect. Whether you really need it or not, only you can decide personally, having assessed all the pros and cons of the system.

Is cheatmeal allowed for drying?

If you are concerned about the question of whether it is permissible to arrange a belly fat festival while drying, the answer to it will be positive. Even professional bodybuilders regularly resort to this technique to achieve even more impressive results. And you can read above about how to properly do a cheat meal while cutting - the rules are the same both during weight loss and during cutting.

Video on the topic:

The main mistakes you can make

NOTE: Everyone can make mistakes that will not allow you to get one hundred percent effect from cheatmeal. Let's look at the most common ones below:

You are giving yourself an overly “clean” cheat meal. Some people are so afraid of “forbidden” foods that they avoid them even during a cheat meal - they prefer to simply increase the portion of their daily food, thereby deceiving not their body, but themselves. It is worth considering that such a strategy will not work as expected - you will just get the usual excess calories.
You choose evening time on a weekend. If for you the essence of a cheat meal comes down to sitting on a Friday or Saturday evening in a cafe with friends, then it’s worth remembering that, firstly, you should eat as usual all day (and not sleep until noon and eat your fill in the evening , skipping breakfast and lunch), and secondly, you should not eat or drink too much (no alcohol, remember?).
You forget about regularity. A pre-designed meal plan with a cheat meal schedule is what will help you stick to the right strategy. Since the regularity and systematic approach is very important.

THIS IS INTERESTING: We can say that a cheat meal is universal, since it suits most people - those losing weight with varying amounts of excess weight, professional athletes, and those who have gained weight in the process of losing extra pounds.

Now you know a lot about cheatmeal: what it means, why it is needed and how to properly make a cheat meal when losing weight. Having the knowledge of how to do a cheat meal correctly, you will help yourself lose weight even more effectively and quickly.

All over the world, a huge number of people who have embarked on the path of weight loss adhere to the rules of cheat unloading, and they have already been able to appreciate all its undeniable benefits. Periodically allow yourself your favorite, but at the same time, undoubtedly unhealthy foods, and at the same time continue to lose weight? Previously, this seemed fantastic, but now it’s enough just to regularly arrange a cheatmeal for yourself.

Rule 90/10

Have you heard of this rule? It basically means that 90% of the time you should eat according to your diet plan and 10% of the time you can give in to any temptation. Eating cheat meals this way won't ruin your fitness goals and achievements . [13] [14]

The first thing you need to understand with this rule is that it is a cheat meal, not a cheat day. For example, if you want to follow a diet that includes five small meals throughout the day, then you will consume 35 meals per week. If you follow the 90/10 rule, you can include up to 4-5 cheat meals per week. [5] [13] [14]

Differences between a cheat meal and a refeed

There is no need to confuse these two concepts. Despite the fact that they are similar (they are planned diet violations), there are significant differences between them.

You should not confuse such concepts as cheat meal and loading day. The latter is carried out over 24 hours, is used mainly by professional athletes to build muscle mass and is more reminiscent of a refeed.