The importance of cheat meals

Diet is arguably a more important factor than fitness when loosing weight and getting fit. Like Jillian Michaels always says "you can eat your way through any workout!" So true if you bust your butt working out for an hour and burn let's say 500 calories than go eat a pizza and have a calorie surplus for the day of even 300 calories over time you're going to gain weight. Like most all things health and fitness related there are so many differing opinions on how to maintain a diet for optimal health. From the die hard clean eaters of the world to the macro counters who believe you can eat anything as long as it fits your macros. There's even the Twinkie diet the professor from Kansas State University went on to prove you can loose weight while on a sole diet of twinkles (so gross)!! In the end it's all really about moderation including some well planned cheat meals! 

Switching up your calorie intake and giving your body a surplus once a week or so will actually trick your metabolism and kick it into high gear! When our bodies are used to a lower calorie intake our metabolisms automatically slow down to store the food we eat for energy longer. So when you change it up every so often and give ourselves a calorie surplus our metabolism gets all kinds of happy steps itself up a notch. This is important in preventing and overcoming the dreaded weight loose plateaus that are so easy to get lost in.

It's also important to keep in mind were only human! As disciplined as we can make our lives its not realistic to have only healthy food all the time. This becomes especially true when surrounded by people indulging in burgers and fries! While some people can live with that kind of temptation a lot of people go way overboard and binge after too long of eating healthy and backtrack on much of the progress they made. A good rule of thumb is to look at your week ahead and pick a meal you know will be your cheat meal so you can indulge and not feel guilty but have a game plan to jump right back on track. 

One of my favorite cheat meals is pancakes! I usually plan to indulge in them either on a Saturday or a Sunday at the end of the week as a reward of a good week on track. I also make a healthy Greek yogurt version of pancakes. Although they do have lots of sugar and flour I'm controlling the controllables if you will and giving myself an option with easily 1/2 the guilt of regular pancakes!