I know you have heard the saying:  80% of your results come from 20% of what you do.  Well I am going to redefine this for you today in terms of dieting so that you may look at a different way of enjoying the cheat meal. 

Last post I defined a cheat meal for 2 scenarios:  a brand new person to the world of clean eating and a not so new person to the world of clean eating.  Both situations involved “being good” all week long so that you may enjoy a meal or dessert once a week that is completely off plan.  I want to make sure that I point out that in all forms of dieting I always assume that your week is full of variety so that you never feel deprived and you are not limiting your nutrients.  It is imperative that I emphasize that because that can get lost in translation as I go through this series.  You will not survive the diet game if you deprive yourself endlessly with no variety in site.

As you mature in the way you view your food, yourself, your relationship with food, you will begin to loosen up on your “rules” you had set out for yourself in the beginning.  Almost all of us have gone through the same cycle some time in our lives:  deprivation àunhealthy relationship with food àgive up dieting à start again à ease up on self negative talk à learn how to be one with food àsuccess.  You may be in the beginning of this cycle, you could be at the end or you may have repeated this cycle more than one time.  No matter where you are, you are trying to achieve what is referred to as balance or moderation.  These are elusive terms that conjure up pictures of blissful days just co-existing with a chocolate cake on the kitchen table that we only had a small slice of…one time…and didn’t pick at it…at all…not even once–kinda.

Balance can truly be achieved.  It is not fake.  It does exist.  You achieve it through the 80/20 rule: the diet pros way of incorporating a cheat meal into their diet.

Let’s say for ease of understanding and math that you eat 5 meals per day, evenly divided, with 3 components in each meal.  The components could be protein, starch, fruit or veggie or protein, fat, fruit or veggie or you fill in the combination that suits you.  Using this meal set up, four meals per day would equal 80% of what you eat for the day.  If I apply the 80/20 rule to this picture, this would mean you fulfilled your good eating for the day by meal 4 and can technically eat something not-so-on-plan for the fifth meal.  This would also mean that you could do this every day and still reach your goal depending on what your goal is and how long you have been dieting. 

As you continue and feel comfortable with what you are doing, you can do one of two things: either tighten the rule to 85/15 or 90/10 or you can keep it 80/20 but tighten the food choices that you deem as cheats.  Either one will move you through any plateaus that you may encounter and still keep you feeling in control of your diet and your progress.  The idea here is that you have something when you want it and you avoid the never ending up down up down of dieting via deprivation.  The more you feel at peace with this idea, the easier it becomes for you to follow it and then to begin to change your overall choices so that there is very little difference between your not-so-on-plan meals and your on-plan meals.  This is balance.

In my years of dieting folks I have realized that, we as fitness professionals, can only sit back and watch this cycle play itself out.  It’s like watching your teenage daughter go through all the dating trials you did and there is not much you can do to stop it.  In fact, you don’t really want to stop it because the learning she will do because of it is precious you just want to minimize the damage.  This is the same here.  You must find your way through what works for you diet-wise, but in an effort to help you through the cycle as unscathed as possible, us fitness professionals pen these articles for you.  The learning is essential but the suffering is optional.  Glean as much as you can from those that have dieted before you—it really helps.

What does a day like this look like you say?  As always, it depends.  But how about a person who is pretty comfortable with where they are in their physique goals and their eating patterns and may travel for work?  Meal 1 eggwhites, oatmeal, fruit  Meal 2 cottage cheese, ¼ sc pp, 1T Pb  Meal 3 ground turkey, big salad w/ fixings, dressing  Meal 4  protein shake, veggies w/ hummus Meal 5 Has dinner out.  Does not attack waitress on how to make food, has a starch maybe but is not worried about it so much and just enjoys the meal.  No processed food but might have a light sauce on it or maybe it is not just grilled—the point is, there is enjoyment here.  Next day, no guilt or worries—starts all over again.  That is one way to do it.  There are so many more but you need to experiment to find what’s right for you.  The take home message here is that you need to begin to trust your instinct, allow yourself some slack and begin to look at this as a life long journey instead of a season of dieting.

Trust me, I know it is hard. 

But when you finally give yourself a break and try this, you will be so happy that you did. 

Next, alcohol.  We will wrap it up after that with how this all really looks when we put food to it.  Woop woop!:o)

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It’s winter time here in New England and we begin to look forward (it’s that the word?) to snowy days, warm living rooms, Snuggie’s on the couch (what? You don’t have one?) with a good Life Time movie starring Jaclyn Smith (yes, I’m dating myself again).  It’s a perfect time to begin trolling the cabinets for things you shouldn’t be eating.  Your mind is on fire racing through all possibilities:

That jar of peanut butter.

The bag of almonds.

The rice cakes—wait, they’re not open, yet. Whew.

I know what you are thinking.  Just a few nibbles.  No one will know and they won’t count because you promise not to chew.  What could be the harm?

You and I both know this could get ugly up in here but before I tell you how this drama concludes, let’s get into defining what really constitutes a cheat meal…

The “In the Beginning” Meal

I think all of us remember when we first started dieting.  It seemed so simple then.  You ate right—you lost weight.  Cool stuff.  But the average woman has been on at least 4 major diets (I say major because aren’t we all on a diet at some time during the day, every day?) by the time she hits 30.  That’s crazy and the body does not instantly respond like it did before.  But the beginning is the best time.  You’re a dieting virgin and you can get away with so much so why not take advantage?  If you love something, have it–please.  This also applies to the person who has a good amount of weight to lose (30 plus pounds).  Keeping your diet super clean is not prudent and it causes you to become a bit psycho—and I mean that literally.  It really is all about transition, moderation and being in it for the long haul.  

This means that extreme measures this far out will never work.  If you have been eating a slew of junk for years and then decide to clean it up (first, good for you! Yay!), don’t try to go cold turkey here.  Food is habitual and you will be good for about 2 to 3 weeks and then cave to the pressure, “cheat”, feel guilty and then throw it all out the window.  Let’s avoid all that.  What’s a good cheat for you?

The back room of a Wendy’s.

The first row of the ice cream display at Baskin and Robbins.

Any pizza—the whole pizza—at a Bertucci’s restaurant.

Everything in the cabinet at home.  You know, THAT cabinet.

Now am I serious?  No.  And I am sure you figured that out real quick but I am making my point here which is, have what you want.  Do not put any restrictions on what you eat but do restrict how you eat it.  Keep reading.

YOUR GUIDELINES

One meal.

One serving—no seconds.

It must fit on one plate.

If it’s a meal, no dessert.  If it’s a dessert, the meal must be clean.

You may NOT stuff yourself.  

Do not try to plan your day around it.  Just have it.

Don’t look back and don’t feel guilty.

Do describe it in detail and email me b/c I love to live vicariously through you.

The Blue Pill Vs. The Red Pill

Oh boy. 

You went for the red pill.  

Now you have the knowledge of good food vs. bad food.  You follow rules.  You pack your lunch.  You read labels.  You may do one of the following:  limit your fat intake, your carb intake, overall caloric intake, dessert intake and etc.  You have entered the Diet Matrix. 

There is no turning back.  You know too much now.  Your mind is forever tainted with too much information and you can no longer eat pancakes with bacon on a daily basis (which is a shame because bacon really does make everything better.)  You now know how far that rabbit hole goes.  But what does that mean really? 

It means you have been dieting long enough that you no longer have seismic weight drops when you begin a diet or you are within 15 to 20 pounds of your goal.  You have enough clean eating under your belt that your tastes should be changing and you no longer need to revisit the overly processed food gods to tame your palate.  Things like…

A good pasta dish at a restaurant.

Any meal that is not fried.

A yummy dessert but not the Jim Dandy size.

A healthy version of pizza.

A full sugar soda—16 oz or less.

You, my dear, have a different set of rules.

YOUR GUIDELINES

One meal, not overly processed.

One serving, no seconds

Should be same portion size as most of your meals. Same for desserts—no gorging.

Move away from fried food or overly cheesy meals.

Plan it into your day.

Keep in mind these are guidelines.  Everyone is different and you have to find what is right for you.  But you are no longer taking a stab in the dark, you have a starting place. This is just a tip of the iceberg for cheat meals.  I have not discussed the diet pro, yet, because they are getting their own post.  Way too much to cover there.  And I will qualify the statements above such as ‘plan it into your day’ and ‘not overly processed’ in another post. 

Much more to come like alcohol, functions, restaurant vs. eating at home and etc. so keep checking for more posts.

But what happened to the scenario above?  She realized the harm could be how she would feel the next day, so she opted for a cup of herbal tea and finished watching the movie.  What did you think she would do?:o)

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Cheat meals are both a blessing and a curse.  When we first begin dieting they tend to be the biggest worry for the newbie dieter:

Can I have a cheat meal?

What counts as a cheat meal?

What can I have as a cheat meal?

Just the thought of eating off plan the first two to three weeks for some folks is too much to handle because ‘they want to get everything right’ or they are trying to maximize the amount of weight they can lose in that time.  During this time you try to eat as clean as possible and deny yourself the right to even breathe by a bakery much less walk into one.  I am going to venture to say that you go over the top during this time by trying to over diet.  This eventually backfires when you just cannot take it anymore and do the backstroke through the buffet table at the Beansprout restaurant.  Not pretty.

The other end of the spectrum is counting down the minutes to your cheat meal to the point where you have a counter on your blog stating: 3 days 2 hours 25 min 32 sec til my cheat meal.  There’s cause for concern if this is you.  You’re going to wait until you have a cheat meal but you’re going to treat it like it’s the last meal in the year 2012.  Not only do you plan it down to the moment, but you have built it up to the point that unless this meal comes served with a 2 week vacation in Maui, you are not going to be happy.  So now you cannot stop with just the meal.  You’re actually let down so you start trolling through the cabinets for something to satisfy the fantasy you just basted all week long.

For the next couple of posts I am going to dissect the cheat meal for you.  I’ll talk about what you can get away with, pitfalls, fallacies and etc. with the hopes of getting you through this holiday season safely (I don’t want anyone throwing their back out hucking their scale out the window.lol).  There is an art to this and you can master it.  If you understand what makes you psycho, you can get in front of it and own it before it owns you.  Also, if you also understand how much damage this meal doesn’t do, you will handle the day after so much better. 

Get ready to venture into the land of cheat meals…WOOP WOOP!:o)

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I am a pen fanatic. 

Actually, I am a pen, journal, notebook, audio book, make up and fitness fanatic.  But for right now I’ll just focus on the pens.

Not only am I a pen fanatic, but I am a ‘complete set’ pen fanatic.  So if I find a pen missing from the set of 8, I give the set to my kids and move on to the next set.  Yes, disturbing I know.  Disturbing enough that you are sitting there thinking, “umm..where are you going with this?” 

Well this morning I found a highlighter on my daughter’s desk that was part of a gorgeous set I had.  She essentially mangled it.  I will eventually get over it (after years of therapy, a mini public rant followed by a book deal and a bad reality series off shoot about the incident that doesn’t go anywhere) but it got me t’thinkin’:

Don’t you just hate it when…

            You have a favorite treadmill/elliptical/gauntlet etc. and someone is on it when you get to the gym.

            There is no one else in the gym and someone has to get on the machine right next to you—then turn up the tv!

            Your favorite class instructor is out and you were really looking forward to her class.

            Your gym changes its hours—and you didn’t remember. Boy it’s cold in the morning.

            You are ready to get-it-together-and-start-again-on-Monday-type-deal and you wake up (fill in the blank here: late,     sick, cranky, with a headache, sore, tired, somewhere unknown—sorry, that’s another post).

            Starbucks/Dunks runs out of your favorite coffee flavor or someone makes your coffee all wrong.

            You get to the gym and realize you forgot your sneakers.

            Your gym stops towel service—and didn’t tell you.

            For some reason, everyone is in the shower today and you have an 8am meeting.

            You forget your shampoo—and you realize in the shower.

            You are on a pee marathon (no idea why) and you cannot get anything done in your workout.

            You suddenly hate your playlist.

All of these only occur on Mondays.  It seems as if it happens no other day.  Then you spend the rest of the week using them as the ‘omen’ for your workouts and diet progress saying to yourself…

I would have lost those 2 pounds if:

            My favorite lunch place didn’t run out of chicken at the salad bar (you hate their tuna).

            I didn’t leave my lunch on the table when I was late this morning (see above).

            I liked the substitute instructor who taught for my favorite instructor (see above).

            My Monday wasn’t a total wash (see above).

            I paid attention to the new gym changes.

I could go on for days. 

Finding a way to get past these things makes us who we are or defines us as to who we are not.  You know it’s the holidays and these pitfalls are just lurking around every corner so be aware and be diligent. Do not let them get you down or define the rest of your week.  Mondays are just that, they’re Mondays.  They have nothing to do with Tuesdays, Wednesdays and etc.  So stay focused and stay healthy.

Do you have your most dreaded “I hate it when”?  Or a good gym-story-gone-bad?  Let us know so we can all share in your pain and laughter (and learn how to get around it too). WOOP WOOP!:o)

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Lately there seems to be a push to bring everyone back to nature…and honestly, it’s quite refreshing.  Now I cannot say I am totally sold on this yet but it has my learning antennae up and on.  The following is just a brief synopsis of the different ways you can take food or training back to nature.

Barely There

The first push out there and the one with the most steam is the barefoot running craze.  I am eyeballing this one like a son of a gun.  I know many that have tried this but they have been on treadmill and to me that’s not much of a stretch.  What I want to know about is the person who went running on the Charles in 40 degree weather with no shoes on–can I get a report on that? 

I know about Vibram Five Fingers and have thought about trying them out (I will do a full review if I do) but I have not ventured there yet.  Right now I am living vicariously through my clients and friends to see how they handle the winter time.

Geico to the Rescue

The next push is to eat like our ancestors do.  I can definitely get on board with this type of eating and thinking when it refers to eating foods in their natural state.  I have been saying this for years and truly mean it:  the more natural that you can eat—the better you will feel.  But eating like our ancestors takes it one step further by eliminating all grains, potatoes and dairy and focusing more on meat, fruits and veggies. 

I am not pro-paleo diet as a 7 day per week prescription for your food but I can see it having its benefits at least 3 to 4 days per week.  My biggest issue with the diet is eliminating oatmeal.  I can’t.  I’d cry.  Maybe if I went through extensive therapy and mind control I could do it, but not right now.  Everything else is easy for me but I would need counseling for the oatmeal.

Your Backyard is Your Gym

Lastly is the go-into-the-backyard-and-grab-a-big-rock-and-squat movement.  This one has been around the longest for me and frankly, I think it’s hot.  I love the idea of going into my back yard and lifting something outlandishly heavy, blowing out my back, ripping a good outfit—that’s matching none-the-less—most likely breaking a few nails, scaring the neighbors but releasing some major tension all during the process.  Ahhhh.  How about showing up at your kids favorite park and doing something ridiculously embarrassing on the remote end of the park so that your 11 year old never speaks to you again.  Mmmm, love it!

Training like a beast can be fun if you have the right equipment—nature!  Bodyweight exercises, rocks, tires, sandbags and etc. make for some really fun training if you dig that kind of stuff and can really make your friends and family talk amongst themselves.  The best thing is to let them see you go wild like that, grunting and all, and then 2 hours later you have the hottest outfit on with the best makeup application.  Ah yep, perfection for me.  Who would ever know?

Well, I will keep an eye on the trends and let you know of any good ones hanging around out there.  If you run into any in the mean time, let me know in the comments below.  Stay focused!  Woop Woop!:o)

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During a typical work week I come across a myriad of people with all kinds of fitness questions. 

Can I eat this food?

I heard that this makes you gain weight.

Tell me honestly, do I really have to do that to be successful?

Those kinds of questions.  And normally the person asking me seems to be pretty balanced in their approach to me.  They are not too tense or too overly anxious; some of them are genuinely interested in all I have to say whereas others just want me to get to the punch line: so, what’s gonna make me hot?  All in all I am pretty used to a Q & A session when I either go to meet a client or speak somewhere and etc. Yesterday, however, I was reminded again of how important it is not to take life or dieting to seriously and to be aware of how your dieting may be affecting others. 

You always hear people say it’s the journey that counts—not the destination—and etc.  How they should take this one day at a time.  They cannot be perfect so don’t try to be.  Cut yourself some slack and be prepared for pitfalls.  This is all true and so imperative to hear and take in.  When I encounter a barrage of questions about dieting and they are all about the “rules”:

Don’t have fruit after….

Sugar is bad for you…

Fruit is bad for you…

Don’t eat late at night…

I tend to shy away and steer the person in a more productive direction than just following a bunch of rules because you honestly can start to become “wiggy” with it (downright obsessed; deer caught in a headlight; manic; very unhealthy).  Can you imagine how surprised I was when the person asking me all these questions was a male and he was quite young. 

I honestly do not know how young he was but he was young enough that it was alarming to me that he had all those rules in his head and was quite concerned about getting them right.  Honestly, it made me stop dead in my tracks (mind you I was presenting in front of a group) and think to myself, “Holy moly.  Someone is really feeding this person some information and boy is it affecting him.”  He is either around someone who is dieting or had someone close to him lose a bunch of weight (because he was perfect weight for his height and has always been) and he was truly affected by it.

I finished the presentation by really driving home the fact that these rules are not necessary to be successful in life and there are so many different ways to diet/life life/eat right/etc. that getting hung up on way is counterproductive.  I think I made some head way there but I am not sure.  In the mean time, I am deeply affected by that meeting.

Dieting is a personal decision and it should be your decision.  Bringing everyone else along in the family for the healthy ride is awesome and encouraged, but if you have a list of diet rules that you have made yourself a slave to, please rethink passing them along.  Not only is it unhealthy for you to be tied to an arbitrary set of rules in the long run, but you may be affecting someone else close to you without you even knowing it.  You can get the body that you want and the health that you desire without having to get all wiggy with it.

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I realize it is that time of year now where fitness professionals start giving out hints and tips for staying focused during the holidays.  They tell you how not to gain weight and how to stay on track and etc.  I may or may not pull one of those out of the closet this year but before I do, I am going to give you at least 3 or 4 posts that say to you, “Really? I mean really?”

My main message has been and most likely will stay as ‘what you need to do to look good naked’.  You want more out of your body and you expect more out of yourself.  This means the proverbial “put some extra veggies on your plate” type of lecture almost seems out of context here.  But we are human right?  We’re not perfect and we should never try to be.  So I am sure you’re wondering what’s on my mind right now…

Snacks.

Yes.  Snacks.

They torment you so they torment me. 

If I had a dollar for every “I know what to eat for my meals but what can I have for my snack?”.  Umm…food.  The same stuff you have been eating all day.  Just have less of it.  

Somewhere some clown made all of us think that there is this *snack fairy* who is going to come along and give us this unknown snack food that is clean and legal that is going to WOW us like no other.  This food is rich and full of flavor, bursting with color and juiciness that sends our eyeballs to the backs of our heads.  Motion stops, breathing stops, the world stops as we savor this snack as if it was our last meal.  The phone is ringing, kids are crying, mountains are moving—heck, the universal health care debate is being solved and we just don’t care!  We have our snack, by golly and dammit it’s amazing!  Why haven’t we eaten this before?  Why didn’t Jodi tell us about this snack?  It has no calories, amazing texture, can be eaten everyday without any ramifications; it has protein galore and no ST count in it.  OH MY LORD I THINK I HAVE FOUND UTOPIA!

Then you wake up.  Wipe the drool off of your face.  And realize you are holding a cup of plain Fage yogurt with cut up strawberries in it.  Good.  But not where your mind just was…

Snacks are only elusive to you because you do not want to admit that there is no secret snack out there.  There is nothing majorly new under the sun.  Really what you are saying to me is, “Jodi, this is your problem that I find food boring.  You need to make up some new food so I can stick to my plan.  Because you refuse to make this exciting for me and force me to find a cookbook or recipe on my own, I can fully justify this really yummy pastry I found in the office lounge because you have abandoned me in my time of need.”  Sound familiar?

Most of you are savvy shoppers.  You are google fiends.  I am not falling for the “I cannot find any snack ideas (that do not involve copious amounts of starchy carbohydrate).  There are none that are clean (that I like or feel like eating) with protein in them.”

Ummm…yeah….

So here is the deal.  You want what you want when you want it.  So you are going to have to do what you have to do when it is time.  Period. 

There are plenty of snacks all over the web.  I will post them for you as we get deeper into the holidays if I come across them, but let’s be very real here:  The issue isn’t the lack of recipes floating around or the lack of information available to you, the issue is your mindset and *deciding* on how you want this holiday season to go. 

Feel free to let me know what your decision is.

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