While cheat days are more popularly known, diet experts and psychologists are now saying that it could actually be detrimental for your diet, while cheat meals effectively help you stay on track to weight loss. This it what Jim White,R.D., owner of Jim White Fitness and Diet Studios is also supporting. "People can do damage with a meal let alone a day," he says.
In a psychological point of view, a cheat day can give people the license to overeat. Making it easier for dieters to fall off their program as most of them commonly consume 5,000 to 6,000 calories per cheat day. This tendency for excessive eating can easily sabotage a week of dieting.
There are a lot of weight loss ideas out there but most people like to adhere to the cheat day plan since it gives them a free pass once a week to indulge in their favorite comfort food. Recently though, dieticians are saying that cheat meals effectively help in staving off pounds since it only means having sugary, salty, and cholesterol-laden food once throughout the whole day.
According to the Stuff, cheat meals have a biological explanation, while cheat days have no proven scientific evidence that it actually works. Our bodies have leptin, a protein from fat tissues, that regulates body weight and impacts general energy level and food appetite. In strict dieting with only cheat days in the plan, leptin is significantly affected by lowering energy levels due to calorie deprivation.
Day to day performance and mood are also affected. On the other hand, cheat meals provide the body with calories throughout the day, and your ability to exercise is enhanced due to the feel-good factor brought about by cheat food, making you lose more weight and feel better, the Cheat Sheet says. For those who find dieting painful, cheat meals effectively make the difference between sticking to the diet plan or completely abandoning it.
