I love alcohol.  Seriously. 

Nothing beats a great glass of wine with an even better steak dinner.  It can be relaxing, yummy and almost daring depending on how often you indulge.

But consuming it on a regular basis is not going to get you the body that you want.  It may get you some extra pounds—not because it makes you gain weight, but because it drops your guard and you make bad choices—or possibly some temporary relaxation, but drinking in and of itself makes for a crappy cheat meal.

Occasionally I will read of a trainer saying it is ok to have a drink with their meal as a treat and to count it as a cheat meal.  I hear you trying to keep the client focused and not putting them in a “box of denial” and normally I am the most easy going of folks when it comes to rules.  But alcohol is one that I have a no tolerance policy for when you have a goal that you are trying to reach. 

I get it, too, that it is easy for me to say that because I am no longer shooting for that “look” anymore.  But when I was going for it, I did not drink.  Ever.  Not at Christmas parties, birthday parties, never.  Just was off limits. 

Why?

Because it wastes so much precious time. 

It’s as simple as that. 

Alcohol does not cause you to gain weight.  It just keeps you from losing.  After you get over the dehydration caused by your drink or two, you then have to go about shuttling all the toxins through your liver.  That takes precious time away from your liver to do the thing it likes to do: breakdown fat.  So how do we make this work as a “cheat meal”? 

Once a month if you want to keep progressing—and it would be the only cheat that I would have that meal, that day, that week.

I am typically asked if it matters if it is “lite beer” or “gin vs. vodka” because of the calories.  This has nothing to do with calories.  This has everything to do with the fact that your body does not recognize alcohol as anything but a toxin.  It is not a carbohydrate.  It carries 7 cals per gram when carbs carry 4.  It takes about 24 hours to make it through your system and it is a stimulant typically causing you to have an increased appetite—i.e. munchies. 

Some of the biggest arguments I have had as a nutritionist have been about alcohol.  I get it, it helps you relax.  I know you want to have a glass every night but I am telling you, it will catch up to you more than anything else in your diet.  I can tell when I drink.  I don’t like it so I have since stopped (although I turn 40 this year and I can tell you it is going down!  Sorry…time to focus.)  being as casual about it as I have been the last year and a half so I am back to my original policy of general avoidance.  But for the brief time in my life that I let it back in to my food choices, I could tell the difference and it was not worth it.

Cheats are personal.  Some people can do the nibble thing.  Others need a meal and that’s it.  Some need to know that have the freedom to have something whenever.  Regardless, choose your weapon of choice sans alcohol when you are trying to lose weight or affect a change in your body.  Nothing is worse than wasting time and that’s exactly what alcohol does for you.  Wastes time.

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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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