Cheat Meals: What’s the deal yo?

You’ll notice that the title reads “Cheat MEALS” not “Cheat Days”. If you hadn’t, you are now acutely aware of it.

Nutrition is 80% of this whole fitness thing, in case you didn’t know that already. Exercise is merely the trigger, but the actual outcome is shaped largely by the foods you eat. Cheat meals ought to be a planned part of your nutrition and diet plan. The trick with utilizing cheat meals, in addition to the psychological benefit of gorging, is understanding how they really work and how they can actually be a positive aid in your fitness regime.

Let’s do some quick sciencing for your young minds first shall we?

Fact: You have a hormone in your body known as “Leptin” which has an integral role in regulating energy intake and expenditure. Leptin is largely fueled by the influx of sugars and carbohydrates into the bloodstream and directly boosts metabolism and fat burning in the body. Now that I mention that, it’s important to get back to the original point of it being a cheat meal rather than a cheat day. Leptin is a hormone that takes a single meal to spike its levels in the body and can take up to a week to drop; meaning that’s it’s easy to boost and remains with you for a while. Leptin is so important in fact, that people (or animals) who are unable to produce it or build up a tolerance to it are more likely to be obese!

This is Leptin. Say Hi Leptin! [Image source: Wikipedia]

You see, your nutrition should be clean 90% of the time in order to really supply your body with quality ingredients that end up producing desired results on account of your fitness regimen. Eating too much “junk” food would however result in a spiked insulin that can lead to increased fat storage and a heap of other ailments which can include diabetes on the long run. That’s the real trick in relation to cheat meals, it’s about giving it a boost every now and then so that you’re not constantly causing a spike in Leptin which would only result in increased tolerance and decreased efficiency.

Cheat meals, a once a day - once or twice a week - occurrence on the other hand, end up regulating your Leptin levels - which can take up to a week to drop - by raising them almost instantly. So this should be part of your nutrition arsenal, once or twice a week, in one of your day’s four to five meals, you should include something sinful, but don’t get too excited.

You see, a cheat meal, while a moment of indulgence that puts your mind at ease as much as it does your Leptin levels, does not necessarily have to mean that’s junk food. The trick with cheat meals is eating stuff that still provide some nutritional benefit of sorts. Think burgers, pizza or shawerma, just make sure it ticks off all the boxes in terms of the proteins, carbs and fats ratios so that you’re not just stuffing your face with a chocolate cake that - while absolutely delicious - isn’t doing you much benefit past the indulgence bit. Another thing to take into consideration is the quality of your cheat meal, have your burger, absolutely, but you should skip out on the fries. This ties back to the concept of benefit I just mentioned. French fries serve little nutritional benefit, I’d rather you eat sweet potato fries - but do try and skip on fried foods altogether is possible or at least make them yourself instead of going out to eat them or using processed pre-packaged versions.

[Image source: Twitter]

Plan your cheat meals ahead. Make them a joyous occasion. They are a reward for the mind as much as they are for the body. Two weeks ago, my cheat meal was a double burger from Mince with a side of sweet potato and a salad. The week after it was two shawerma sandwiches, this week it was 450 grams of sirloin steak with similar sides. Next week I’m planning to make tacos with shredded chicken and the whole Mexican shebang!

Cheal meals can be a powerful weapon in your arsenal, suffice that you understand how they work, their psychological and biological importance, and how you can utilize them for your benefit.

Oh, and do try and place them on the day of the week you’re actually working out you tub of lard.

Death to Your God: Stop Letting The Scale Control Your Life

Let’s get one thing clear here. 99.99% of you hold the weight scale as an indicator of progress/failure around your fitness routine. 99.99% of you are bonafide morons. Yes, we’re going tough love on the blog. It’s the only thing that’ll work at this point.

Fun fact: The human body is composed of bones, fat tissues, muscles, organs, liquids, probably some poop, more liquids and a few other ingredients thrown in for good measure.

Want to know what the only thing the scale shows you? All of it. A combined number of all of that. Want to know what the only thing you’re seeing when you look at the scale? Fat.

The human brain is ridiculous like that, it sees what it wants to see, and for some reason we’ve become hard wired to read those numbers as connoting only to fat. Our brain conveniently forgets we’re made of muscles and bone and only sees the number as indication of fat content. And my God we’re fat. So fat. I better put in three more hours on the treadmill yo! That shit won’t burn itself!

Yes, there are scales that can measure your body mass by content, it can tell you how much fat % you’ve got in relation to your muscle %, but you won’t find those in your average gyms and certainly not in your bathrooms so for the purpose of this article, those scales don’t exist.

And neither should yours.

Your perception of fitness progress/failure should not center around those three or two digits on the scale simply because it does not account for actual progress unless you’re an obese 140-kilogram man who’s got more fat in him than a slap stick of butter; in which case those numbers decreasing is good news for your heart and bad news for your heart doctor.

Your progress indicators should pertain to things you feel and see. Like what, you ask? Well, for starters…

• How long you can go on the treadmill before panting out of breath and succumbing to the sweet sweaty embrace of death
• How much heavier you can lift and how much you’ve progressed in that department since you started working out
• How your clothes feel looser and that your belt needs more tightening
• How your friends are family are commenting on how different you look
• How you see yourself in the mirror

The scale and its fancy digitized numbers can’t tell you any of that. All they can tell you is that you weight XX and you’re shit out of luck if you’d know how much % of that is fat or muscle.

This is a personal plea to stop letting gym and bathroom scales run your life and lead your progress. Did you step on the scale today and it said you’re one kilogram heavier even though you trained your balls off yesterday and were eating like an Olympian athlete? Have you considered the fact that you drink water which actually weighs something? Ever heard of water retention? Did you know your poop can weigh a substantial amount? Hell, your farts can actually weigh enough to tip off the scale by 300 grams sometimes!

Another negative aspect of focusing on the weight scale is in relation to those who take up weight lifting concurrently as part of a program to get fit (which includes fat loss) relates to muscle gain. Your weight scale - unless specialized - cannot tell you if those increasing numbers on the scale are muscle or fat, only you can tell that by seeing the difference on your physique.

My point is, you are more than a few digits on a screen. Your progress is not and cannot be limited by what you see on that contraption. Your progress is defined by you and no one else. You can run faster now, you’re stronger now, you need to buy smaller clothes, you look better, you feel better and you’re healthier; and your scale can’t tell you about any of it.