Cheat Day

We all have our favorite foods… you know what I’m talking about, the package of cookies or chips. You know you should not have it and you’re not even proud you have it, maybe even embarrassed, so you hide it so no one will know you have it.

Now, it is okay to have a cheat day, on this day you can eat what you want, but there are a few rules to the cheat day. First the way to pick a cheat day is to choose a day that you will be ACTIVE. If you know you will be doing a lot of sitting on one particular day, then that is not a good day to cheat. If you know you will be working out and running some errands and trying to get an afternoon golf game in, then that would be a good day to cheat.

Next you don’t want to blow it all in one day. Think of all the hard work you have done all week. Don’t give it all up for one day of un-nutritional food. Calculate the hours you will be awake. Then cut that in half and that is the number of hours you can eat what you want. We can use my Saturday as an example. I got up at 9am went for an 8 mile run. Went to the grocery store and mailed off some letters. Rented a few movies, went out to dinner with friends, came home and went to sleep about 11pm. Overall I was up for 14 hours. So for 7 hours I would have been allowed to eat what I wanted.

Now I’m not saying that during this 7 hour period I was stuffing my face. What I am saying is that we should eat about every three hours…right? With this rule still in place that meant that I could have a cheat meal at 4:30 and another at 7:30. Two meals! I got a yummy treat without undoing all I had done. That is a win in my book.