
Ben Banbury
Why Cheat Meals Are The Key To Staying On-track
Do you have a weekly cheat meal? Here's why you should be and why having a cheat meal can sky-rocket your motivation and consistency

What Is A Cheat Meal?
A cheat meal is one-two meals a week where you can eat whatever you like
It's a meal where you forget about your nutrition plan and you just eat foods you love.
Completely guilt free
How Can A Cheat Meal Help You Stay On-track?
A cheat meal is a valuable tool to staying consistent to your diet and remaining motivated all year round
It helps keep you on track with your diet and allows you to still eat foods you love that don't fit into a healthy routine
What I'd recommend doing is picking 1-2 cheat meal slots a week (depending how strict you want to be on yourself) and writing them in your diary or Google calendar
A common layout would be Wednesday and Saturday night, as this breaks up the week nicely
But do what you like, I used to have a client who played Bridge and ate cake with her friends on a Friday morning, so that was her slot
It's completely up to you and your schedule
Why This Works So Well
Okay, so imagine you've planned your cheat meal on a Wednesday night and you and your partner are going out for a nice meal
It's Tuesday after work and you've popped into see a friend. You're both chatting away, drinking tea and she slips off to the kitchen to grab the biscuit barrel
Biscuits are the best right. You want a biscuit
But you've only got 2 cheat meals a week
So what are you options? 1. You can eat the biscuits and forfeit your cheat meal with your partner or 2. You politely decline the choccy biccys and enjoy your meal out guilt free
Either of those outcomes are fine, because you still stuck to the rules
By setting cheat meals you're far more likely to stay consistent to your diet, plus you're teaching yourself to be disciplined
Which is a life lesson that goes a lot further than your diet
I also want to teach you a really quick hack that will help with this
When someones offers you biscuits, chocolate, wine or whatever it may be
Don't say "no, I can't have that"
Instead say "no I don't want that"
When you say you can't have something you're referring to your healthy diet negatively
When you say you don't want something you're mentally toughening yourself up
Every single time you turn down crappy food you're becoming more disciplined and mentally stronger
Don't believe me? Try it. I promise you'll experience a wave of accomplishment and pride
The Rules
So I'm afraid there are a couple rules
Unfortunately this cheat meal isn't an excuse to eat everything in site
A family sized pizza and a Ben & Jerry's would set you back weeks
Rule 1: Your cheat meal must equal 500-700 calories
I can almost hear you reading this going "owww" but the problem is if you've been eating really well for a week and you completely pig-out you won't get anywhere
You'll swiftly undo all that hard work in one meal. Then when you hop on the scales next you'll be pissed that the diet plan "isn't working"