What if I told you that you can have a cheat meal and not have it affect your weight loss goals?
It’s as if the cheat meal never happened. There is a way. In this video, I’m going to show you how.
How To Keep Losing Weight After A Cheat Meal
I love cheesecake.
It’s my favourite treat. And I’m so happy that I have a way to eat it guilt free. But there are rules you need to follow. This approach to cheat meals is how I’ve been able to enjoy them guilt free for 8 years and counting and probably for the rest of my life.
To simplify this process, I’m going to assume that you had the cheat meal the night before. Here are 8 steps on how to not have it affect your weight loss goals.
1. Don’t stress about it
This is a big one. That’s why we’re starting with it. And it starts with taking care of what’s going on in between your ears.
Because your relationship with food plays a very important role when it comes to your success if you’re trying to lose weight.
If you had a cheat meal, that’s fine. It happens. It’s just food. What you don’t want to do is beat yourself up for having it.
Because if you do that and you’re an emotional eater, the chances of you turning to food to make yourself feel better and have another cheat meal is pretty high.
And that’s another thing is that you don’t want to follow up your cheat meal with another cheat meal. Cut the cord. Keep it to just one and get back on the horse the next day.
Think about it this way. Let’s say you eat three meals a day. That’s 21 meals during the week.
If you’re following the right plan, you’re eating healthy, and you’re doing all the right things. If you had a cheat meal and you keep it to just one, that means that you’re still good with the other 20 meals.
Let’s do a little math. If you have 20 out of 21 meals where you’re on point gives you a 95 percent adherence rate. That’s amazing.
Even if you have two cheat meals, 19 out of 21 gets you a 90% adherence rate. That’s still pretty good if you ask me.
So again, it really comes down to your relationship with food. Don’t feel bad about it.
You just have to remember that one bad meal won’t make you fat. Just like one good meal won’t magically make you skinny.
But for the math to work, you need to have a proven plan to begin with. If you don’t have one, download my free Lean Body Blueprint at the end of this post.
2. Don’t weigh yourself the next day
I’m always blown away why people do this.
Why would you? What are you expecting to see?
Whatever that number is that shows on the scale, you’re not going to like it. You’re just going to feel bad about yourself.
And that number on the scale is not a true reflection of your weight. If you eat pizza for example, you’re probably going to be bloated. And you’re definitely going to be holding more water weight than usual.
Guess what? That’s probably going to reflect on the scale the next day if you weigh yourself. So, don’t do it.
You accomplish nothing by doing this except making yourself feel bad.
3. Skip Breakfast
This might be the ultimate hack in terms of being able to have a cheat meal and not have it affect your weight loss goals. No, this is not about punishing yourself.
Just think about it this way. You just ingested a bunch of calories from the night before. And it’s most likely high in carbs and sugar.
Let’s say you had pizza and ice cream. That’s going to spike your blood glucose levels because you just ate a lot of sugar. Duh. To deal with this blood sugar spike, your brain will send a signal to your pancreas to start producing insulin to store all that sugar in your body.
Insulin is your storing hormone. A lot of those calories are going to be stored in your liver and your muscles as glycogen, and the rest as body fat.
So your goal when you wake up, this is the first 12-16 hours, is to re-stabilize your blood glucose levels so your body can also decrease the insulin response.
It’s important to moderate your insulin levels because when your insulin levels go down to baseline, that’s when your body is able to tap into your fat stores for energy. It goes into fat burning mode.
So If you don’t eat right away, if you skip breakfast, think of it as your body burning off all those extra calories from the night before.
You’re not going to die if you do this. Your body will simply tap into your stored energy aka fat stores and burn it for energy.
This is also called intermittent fasting. And if you’ve been following my YouTube channel, you’ll know I’m a big fan of it.
Now, if you do get hungry, this is a good time to have something like a Bulletproof coffee or keto coffee where you’re putting MCT oil, butter, or heavy cream to tie you over until lunch time.
And it’s okay to have the things I just mentioned because pure fat has little to no effect on your insulin levels while also being satiating.
4. Eat a low carb lunch
It’s lunch time. You made it. I told you, you’re not going die if you skip breakfast.
You want to keep this cycle going of keeping your insulin levels moderated.
Again, insulin is what controls your body weight. So you want to eat a meal that doesn’t trigger a huge insulin spike so your body can go back to burning fat once it’s done digesting your meal.
Out of all three macronutrients, carbs, especially refined carbs and sugar spike insulin the most.
Common sense suggests that you want to eat a low carb lunch and you want eat it with some protein and fat to keep you satiated. Because fat and protein activate your satiety hormones. It keeps you full longer.
Maybe have a big colourful salad with some protein, some hard boiled eggs, along with some nuts and cheese. Sounds delicious if you ask me.
Here’s the thing. If you’re still not hungry, don’t eat. Keep your body in fat burning mode.
5. Do a HIIT workout
I mentioned earlier that some of those excess calories from your cheat meal gets stored as muscle glycogen.
Doing a HIIT workout is probably one of the best and fastest ways to empty out those muscle glycogen stores and burn it for energy.
Once you drain your glycogen stores, assuming that you’re metabolically flexible, then you can start using your body fat and burn it for energy.
What I don’t want you to do is go for an hour long run because you’re trying to accumulate calories burned on your fitness tracker.
All that’s going to do is trigger your sugar cravings because it’s too stressful. And you’re more likely to have another cheat meal because of that.
You want to make sure that you keep your HIIT workout short, but intense.
And if you’re interested in how to properly do HIIT workouts make sure you check out our 21 Day Weight Loss Challenge (it includes HIIT workouts).
You also get bonus points if you do your HIIT workout in a fasted state.
For example, if you do it first thing in the morning of before you eat lunch. Because you’re basically doubling up on emptying all those glycogen stores when you fast and you do your workout in a fasted state.
6. Go for a walk
This is something that you should be doing a lot anyway and you want to incorporate it throughout the day.
Because one of the fastest ways to slow down your fat burning metabolism is prolonged periods where you’re completely sedentary.
In terms of exercise physiology, walking keeps your heart rate below your maximum aerobic heart rate. Why is that important?
Well, your maximum aerobic heart rate is the point where you reap maximum aerobic benefits, that’s maximum fat burning, with a minimum amount of anaerobic stimulation.
If you’re trying to lose body fat, that’s exactly what you want.
Walking also decreases your cortisol levels which is your stress hormone. It’s important to do that because it’s the hormone that’s mostly tied to weight gain around your belly.
7. Eat a low carb dinner
It’s dinner time.
Again, you want to keep this cycle going of keeping your insulin levels moderated. So again, eat a meal that doesn’t trigger a huge insulin spike.
Something like a piece of salmon or a small piece of steak with some mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower drizzled with melted butter. That sounds absolutely delicious if you ask me.
All those vegetables I just mentioned are low in carbs. So you can eat as much of it as your want, and they’re extremely filling. And then, you just want to keep repeating this cycle of eating.
Here’s the thing. If you keep eating a diet that moderates your insulin levels, then you’re going to keep up regulating your fat burning metabolism.
Which means that you’re going to be metabolically flexible. You can easily tap into your fat stores for energy which means that you’re not going to feel hungry all the time.
You’re not going to be hungry first thing in the morning. Which means that you can eat a later breakfast or skip it completely.
Again, this is where intermittent fasting comes in. And you can just keep giving your body more time to burn your fat stores for energy. That’s what body fat is there for. It’s stored energy waiting to be used.
And you just keep repeating this cycle, keep burning body fat, until your next cheat meal.
8. Schedule your next cheat meal
You actually want to schedule and plan your cheat meals ahead of time. Be intentional about it.
Oprah said is best when she said, “You can have it all. Just not all at once.”
The concept of delayed gratification is what I’m trying to get to here. You can have it, but you have to be willing to delay it. Wait for it.
But again this will only work, if you have a plan that’s actually moving you towards your fat loss goals so you can start following the 90/10 rule.
90% of the time, follow the plan. The other 10%? Live your best life.
So you have to focus on that 90% part. Keep making deposits every day by following the steps I just laid out so you can eat cheesecake guilt free or whatever your heart desires.
As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!
Need More Help?
Use this simple 4-step process to melt ALL the fat around your stomach and look good shirtless WITHOUT going on a crazy diet or wasting hours at the gym. Get the Lean Body Blueprint here for free!
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