Did you have a “cheat” meal this weekend? Whether intentional or accidental, many people feel guilty after a cheat meal. You hear so many different opinions in the health industry. It’s either, a weekly cheat is a good way to improve dietary adherence, or your diet is like marriage, it won’t work if you’re cheating. Like most things in life, the answer really lies somewhere in the middle.
The first step in discussing cheat meals has to be perspective. We should not look at a cheat meal as a bad meal. Looking at our diets through this lens sets an expectation that we should be following specific diets that require 100% adherence to be successful. Short of certain diets used for therapeutic intention, this is rarely the case.
We should not look at cheating on a diet like cheating on a spouse. The difference between the fad diet you are following and your spouse is that you made a life long commitment to your spouse. You didn’t make one to your diet. You should feel incredibly guilty if you cheat on a loved one. You should not if you “cheat” on your diet.
This is also not to say that you should remove all restrictions from your diet. While you’re not married to your diet, your health is in direct contact with every ounce of your soul so treating your body with respect is important. But this is not an all-or-nothing game.
Of course, we should strive to supply our body with the fuel it needs for optimal health and disease prevention. But rather than looking at your diet as a list of foods you can and cannot eat, you should look at diet through the lens of understanding what nutrients are and are not in the foods you are eating and strive to provide your body with more of the foods that it requires and less of what it doesn’t. More of what makes your body feel better, less of what makes it feel worse.
This is a long-winded way of saying, enjoy yourself a little bit. Feel free to experience delicious taste which humans have become incredibly great at creating. But be honest with yourself. Pay attention and see when it is a good time to do so and when it is not. Understand moderation which is that a little is perfectly fine but too much is too much. Understand that moderation is nothing to feel guilty about.
If the concept of moderation seems foreign to you or incredibly difficult, you’re not alone. The next newsletter in this series will discuss a theory I have called the Health Bank, which aims to help you understand the concept of moderation and how to stay healthy while enjoying yourself.
Thanks for reading,
Chris
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