No More Cheat Days!!

Yup, you read that correctly, no more cheat days. Zero. Zilch. None.

But it’s not what you think. It’s not the cheat day or meal that I have an issue with, it’s the word “cheat”.

To defraud, to deceive, to elude. Every meaning of the word cheat has negative connotations. So whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, every time you are having a “cheat” somewhere within your mind you are thinking:
“I shouldn’t be doing this.”  
“Cheating is wrong.”
“Cheating is bad.”
“Only weak people cheat.” 
or something else along those lines. You may not be aware of it at the time, and you may not even be aware of it now looking back, but it happens. 

So why does that matter? Well, we’ve largely disconnected our bodies from our minds thinking they are two separate entities, but logically we know they are one. And even though it is often an unconscious thought, every time you “cheat” your brain cringes a little bit. It knows that at least part of you is registering what you are doing as a problem and gets a little bit stressed. When your body gets stressed it releases cortisol the stress hormone, which over time can lead to excess body fat when left chronically high. Can one cheat meal/week cause chronically high cortisol? Honestly I don’t know, but what does it matter when the solution is not to cut out the cheat meal, but to change our wording.

Let’s replace the word cheat, with the word “treat”


Now doesn’t that sound better? All of these meanings are positive and make me feel happy and kind. Doesn’t it sound much nicer to allow yourself a particular pleasure or enjoyment rather than to defraud yourself? Doesn’t it make you smile to think of having a treat, versus cheating on your meal plan? 

I don’t know about you but just thinking about a treat makes me a little giddy. It makes me smile and you can be sure that my brain isn’t detecting anything negative here. Instead of being stressed out (even if only a little), it is instead releasing dopamine (the happy hormone) which makes me even happier, all without the side effect of added body fat.

Is that to say that if I eat my weight in cake that I won’t gain weight as long as I think of it as a treat? Certainly not. But if I associate a single slice of cake with the negativity of “cheating” I’m more likely to cause my body to hold onto those calories than I would be if I truly thought of it as a treat.

So please, treat yourself now and then. But start to move away from using or thinking about the word “cheat” if that is part of your eating vocabulary. It’s not doing you any favours. Besides, when someone says they are having a cheat meal, I immediately think of them stuffing their face with every bad food imaginable. But when I think of a treat meal, I think of someone enjoying foods they love, but don’t often allow themselves to have. And isn’t that second visualization a better one?