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Dieting and counting your calories doesn’t have to mean depriving your body (and your mind) of the things you are craving. In fact, even if you’re training for an upcoming event, a cheat day—a day or a meal you set aside to relax your food ruleswith your daily diet —can actually be a good thing, and actually help youshed more fat. Here are our tips to make the most of a cheat day to help keep you on track with your competition goals:
1. Prevent Metabolism Slow-Down
If you strictly follow a low-calorie, low-carb diet for a prolonged period of time, your body can actually start to make up for the lower intake byburning fewer calories. This will actually inhibit your goals. Incorporating a cheat meal in controlled increments will give your metabolism a boost and keep your body working towards your body-weight or training goal.
2. Lower Risk of Binging
Cheat days help stimulate theleptinlevels in the body; an important hormone secreted by fat cells which helps regulate your energy levels. When your leptin levels have reached an optimal point, they signal to your body that you’re full. On the other hand, when these levels drop, your body’s hunger signals for will spike dramatically, which can result in overeating or binging. This makes it important not to restrict calorie intake too much over a prolonged period of time—you could actually be setting yourself up for failure. A cheat meal every so often is a good way to maintain a balance in your leptin levels so your body doesn’t fall into binging mode.
3. Mental Break
Reward yourself for all your hard work. While you don’t have to go crazy, maybe have that slice of pizza you’ve been craving all week as you eat your skinless chicken and broccoli—but get back in the gym tomorrow! Generally, best practice is to schedule acheat mealof 500-800 calories every 7-10 days, depending on your size.
4. Enjoy Events and Special Occasions
Birthdays, weddings, family reunions—you don’t want to be “that guy” or “that girl” bringing your two afternoon meals of chicken and egg whites in Tupperware to the family barbeque. This is the perfect opportunity to use a cheat meal. Go ahead and enjoy a burger and some of Mom’s famous potato salad, just eat right the rest of the day and get back on track tomorrow.
5. Choose Your Cheat Meal Wisely
Just because you’ve allowed yourself a cheat meal, doesn’t mean you get a hall pass to clear out the buffet and gorge on drinks all night. There are meals that are a “treat” but still provide benefits, like protein, vitamins and minerals. Consider a juicy steak, a burger topped with guacamole, thin-crust pizza loaded with chicken and veggies, zucchini noddles spaghetti (aka “zoodles”) and meatballs, etc.
6. Remain Positive
Don’t fall victim to the guilt of binging—that feeling when you realize you’ve let yourself down after all that hard work. One cheat meal—or even a cheat day—isn’t a reason to let yourself completely fall off the healthy eating wagon. Just make sure you respect your body and get back to your routine.
Again, a cheat meal can actually be a good thing in your event-prep regime, as long as you’re still following a strict regime the rest of the time. For optimal results, manyfitness competition regimeswill consist of eating 5-6 meals per day while controlling the amounts of calories and fats you’re consuming, increasing your protein intake, and maintaining a training regime of cardio and strength.
You can also try incorporating amino-acid supplements like BodyHealth’sPerfectAmino™to help boost your results when combined with effective diet and training.*
PerfectAmino contains the eight essential amino acids that help support and maintain your body’s muscular system when combined with healthy diet and exercise.*
PerfectAmino is an all-naturalamino-acid supplementthat provides the exact balance of amino acids your body needs to perform at a maximum level. With up to 99% of it available to help your body grow, build, repair, and heal, PerfectAmino is a valiant partner in health whether you indulge in cheat days or not.*
*These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
*This website, including products, articles, and educational content are not intended to diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease. The statements on this website have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration. This website does not provide medical advice. The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only.
Dr. David Minkoff
Dr. David Minkoff graduated from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1974 and was elected to the “Phi Beta Kappa” of medical schools, the prestigious Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Medical Fraternity for very high academic achievement. He then completed both a Pediatric Residency and Fellowship in Infectious Disease at the University of California at San Diego.
He worked at the University of California and Children’s Hospitals in San Diego as an attending physician in infectious disease while conducting original research on Ribaviron, a broad spectrum anti-viral agent to fight disease. He also co-directed a neo-natal intensive care unit and worked in emergency medicine.
In 1992, Dr Minkoff’s wife Sue, a Registered Nurse, became interested in nutrition and health and began to go to lectures from some of the experts in the field. At the time, Dr Minkoff was pretty fixed in his view of traditional medicine and it took a lot of convincing to get him to come to one of these lectures. After hearing Dr Jeffrey Bland speak, Dr Minkoff had a eureka moment and began pursuing the alternative field with a vengeance. Based on this new knowledge Dr Minkoff and his wife set up a small clinic in 1997 to help some friends with their medical problems. What began as an experiment blossomed into Lifeworks Wellness Center, one of the most successful clinics for complementary medicine in the United States. In the process, he gained expertise in Biological medicine, integrative oncology, heavy metal detoxification, anti-aging medicine, hormone replacement therapy, functional medicine, energy medicine, neural and prolotherapy, homeopathy and optimum nutrition. He studied under the masters in each of these disciplines until he became an expert in his own right. Dr Minkoff is one of the most in demand speakers in the field and wrote an Amazon best selling book called The Search For The Perfect Protein.
The demand for the products and protocols he discovered became a catalyst for founding BodyHealth.Com, a nutrition company that now manufactures and distributes cutting-edge nutritional solutions for the many health problems of today. Dr. Minkoff writes two free online newsletters, “The Optimum Health Report” and ”The BodyHealth Fitness Newsletter”, to help others learn about optimum health and fitness.
Dr. Minkoff is an avid athlete himself and has completed 44 Ironman Triathlons. To keep his fitness maximal, he lives the lifestyle he teachers to others and tries to set an example for others, so they can enjoy a life free of pain and full of energy.
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Millions of people throughout the US and the world struggle with their weight and find it difficult to maintain a fitness regimen. And while everyone has a unique story, there are a few factors that I have found to be consistent amongst those who find maintaining their health a challenge...
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The fundamental premise of a probiotic supplement is that the live, beneficial bacteria make it to your large intestine to colonize and become integrated into the gut microbiota. The trouble is that this critical ecosystem resides primarily in your large intestine – the last stop on the digestive tract.
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We’re seeing fat loss with muscle gain, faster muscle gain while continuing to lose fat, lower resting heart rate and blood pressure increased energy, lowered inflammation, bettered mood, significantly decreased cravings, and much more.
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