Today we have chosen to tackle a topic close to our hearts (and most importantly to our digestive systems) and one that is often asked of us from those interested in gaining an edge on their training: how do you do it? How can you stick to a diet without losing it?
Simple psychology – whether you think cheat meals will propel you forward in your diet and training or hinder your results, our truth is every fourth day we love to dabble into a high carb meal, when we bulk. When we cut we tend to stick to a cheat meal once a week or once every other week, depending on our results.
What do you do?
Even though our favorite treat remains the good old Mexican burrito (Matt) and triple chocolate cookies (Yo) lately we were willing to discover what the local cuisine has got to offer.
And since doing some considerable traveling, we were fortunate to discover new flavors, improve our pallet and diversify food intake while on a bulking faze.
But why is it important to have high carbs day and a ‘cheat’ or ‘bliss’ meal at least once or twice a week?
The general misconception surrounding cheat meals tends to be that if you do dabble on the wrong side of the diet fence, Nutrition Police will sanction you and you’ll suddenly become less than an athlete. Nothing further from the truth!
Ever noticed feeling and looking in better shape after a night of indulging in some civilian food and drink than on days of strict dieting?
Truth is your body will love it training and dieting results will be faster due to exactly that – the weekly cheat meal.
When dieting purpose is to trick your system to believe it is not starving and storing or preserving resources is not necessary, therefore it will give up more of the subcutaneous fat store.
Simply put, when looked at in body chemistry terms, your body releases more Leptin which controls T3 levels which deal with the speed of your metabolism.
It is often stated that a diet can retard the level of your metabolisms usual speed to help hold onto precious fat stores – remember your body hasn’t evolved much beyond pre-history – it is convinced it may starve if it sheds the important fat that you hold.
When bulking, it is simply to get extra calories in – it’s often not easy when you are on the larger side to consume all the calories you need – pushing up the weekly calorie totals doesn’t hurt, once or twice a week. We’re not saying eat junk, but a little extra of what you like can often help.
So, how do you do it? Do you stick to a once/twice a week starter/main/desert cheat meal or do you tend to have few snacks during the week?
PS: Note to remember when dieting – for every carb you ingest you will retain approximately 3gr of water that will shed in about 5 days. So if you suddenly rock the scale, no need to panic, you haven’t become fat over night, you have just retained some water.
Would you like to see how Kai Greene ate after his win in Australian Pro? Check out the video!
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