The Argument for Cheat Days: Rewarding Yourself
Some say that giving yourself days of indulgence is giving yourself a
needed break from your diet. These cheat days are a relief valve that
help you stick to healthier foods.
The philosophy behind this basically goes something like this: Healthy eating requires some
willpower—willpower
you’ve used to keep yourself from forbidden foods—so to reward your
constraint, it helps to have one scheduled day (or meal) per week where
you’re allowed to eat some of the treats you’ve been avoiding. When you
give yourself a window to enjoy these off-limit foods, it’ll satisfy
your cravings, replenish your
depleted willpower, and, some studies suggest, even increase your production of the hunger-dampening hormone leptin while boosting metabolism.
The Argument Against Cheat Days
So cheat days sound like a good thing, right? Not so fast. The the
logic behind these days has more than a few flaws, and it’s due to the
psychology and physiology behind them.
The Name Is to Blame
The trouble with cheat days starts with the wording.
“The very phrase ‘cheat day’ sets up enjoying a meal as something forbidden,” says
Sondra Kronberg,
R.D., executive director of the Eating Disorder Treatment
Collaborative. “Separating foods into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories
encourages you to associate eating with guilt and shame.” This means
that instead of enjoying everything we eat, we feel bad about ourselves
when we eat something we consider “bad.”
What’s more, when we deem certain foods “bad” or “cheating,” the negative name doesn’t help us pump the breaks.
“When a food is off-limits, it can develop a specific, emotional
charge,” explains Melainie Rogers, RD, a nutritionist and eating
disorder specialist. “You begin obsessing over it, fantasizing about,
and looking forward to that ‘indulge day’ all week. Then, when you
finally have access to it, you overeat.”
On the flipside, labeling foods as “good” or “healthy” can also
backfire. Science shows when we think something is healthy, we’re not
concerned with
portion control and thus overdo it—whether it’s a “normal” day or a “cheat” day. Yes, there can be too much of a good thing.
Along these same lines, thinking of a meal or snack as “healthy” can have a surprising affect on our hunger.
Studies show
merely considering items we put in our mouth as “healthy” can literally
make us feel hungrier—especially if we select a “good-for-you” item out
of obligation over something we’re truly hungry for.
Attack of the Calories
Folks who assume they can compensate for giving into temptations—say,
by holding themselves back on all days except their cheat days—are
actually
less likely
to reach their dietary goals. This is because they’re more likely to
consume a greater number of calories, not just on their cheat day but on
the days following it.
Restricting ourselves throughout the week and then
slamming our bodies with sugar
and fat once our cheat day rolls around, can have “a massive impact on
blood sugar and insulin levels,” Rogers says. “You’ll wake up the next
day craving more sugars and simple carbs, and you’ll find yourself
feeling pretty ragged. And if you repeatedly increase your caloric
intake above baseline, you may inadvertently end up gaining more weight
over time.”
Cravings serve as a sign that your nutritional approach isn’t sound. “Most
cravings come from overly restricting your food intake, using food as a drug, or over exercising,” Kronberg says.
Binging Leads to Extra Cheat Days
There’s a very fine line between a cheat day and a free-fall into
food binging, especially if you’re, “white-knuckling it during those
other six days of sticking out a meal plan you don’t particularly like,”
says Ryan Andrews, R.D., author of
Drop The Fat Act and Live Lean and coach with
Precision Nutrition.
Once that day of indulgence comes, it’s not about enjoying the foods
you haven’t had all week. Instead, you’re approaching it out of a need
to consume all you can before the day goes away. “It feeds into a
feast-and-famine cycle,” Andrews says.
We can thank our biology for cheat days turning into these all-out
food fests. We’re wired to chase down food when we’re caught in the
feast-and-famine cycle. “People will eat beyond satiety when they’re
coming from a fear of scarcity,” Rogers explains.
Binging on a cheat day also makes it challenging to confine cheat-day
foods only to that designated 24-hour window. “It’s very hard for
people to compartmentalize their diets,” Rogers says. “‘I’m only going
to have those cookies on Saturday’ can easily spill over into ‘I’ll only
have a few cookies Sunday too.'”
The Solution: Stop Restricting, Start Enjoying—in Moderation
So if cheat days don’t work, are we all better off eating whatever we want, whenever we want?
Well, not quite, says
Corby K. Martin,
Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and food intake researcher at Pennington
Biomedical Research Center. “Following a healthy diet means including a
number of foods—all of which are consumed in moderation,” he says. “If
weight loss is the goal, this usually means three square meals a day
with planned snacks, incorporating treats but in smaller portion sizes.”
Research suggests eating a balance of foods—with none of them off-limits or labeled “bad”—is the best way to
reduce the kinds of cravings that can lead to a binge.
During the first week of a new diet, most people experience an
increase in hankerings for coveted foods, but when people stick to a
balanced weight loss diet, the tendency to occasionally
overeat actually goes down over time, Martin says.
So what does a game plan for a healthy eating with no cheat days look like? Remember these three things:
1. Listen to your appetite.
“If you want to eat spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, have it!”
Andrews says. “Don’t find the low-carb version with the fat-free sauce.
If you actually eat what you want, you’ll likely end up eating a more
reasonable amount of it.” Eating in tune with your hunger is a principle
of intuitive eating, and it’s shown to have a positive effect on both
your weight and your wellbeing.
2. Enjoy treats from time to time.
Research shows (and experts agree) that sprinkling reasonably sized
desserts or treats into your daily diet encourages you to find pleasure
in meal time again—and that pleasure will help ensure you don’t feel the
need to go overboard.
So instead of confining your treats to one single day, drop them into
places throughout the week. For example, enjoy: “a cookie or a few
pieces of chocolate after dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,”
Rogers says.
3. Savor every bite.
Once you place any item of food into your mouth, take a moment to:
“taste, smell, and experience it as a whole,” Rogers says. “When you
take the time to be mindful about what you’re eating, you tap into your satiety cues.”
The Takeaway
Forget about designating a cheat day to reward yourself. Denying
yourself most of the week and then indulging like crazy on your one day
“off,” just promotes guilt, anxiety, and shame around eating—which means
you won’t likely get to the health outcome you’re looking for. Instead,
make every day a great day by listening to your appetite, periodically
adding in some of your favorite foods in small portions, and savoring
each and every bite of everything you eat. This sustainable approach
will help you think of all of your eating as enjoyable, and that’s what
gets you down the road to where you want to be.
