We all have to have those cheat days. Its okay, we’re all human. We need to enjoy ourselves once in awhile. Life gets really busy and we all get caught up in the moment, that its so easy to fall of the wagon of our daily routines. This includes diet. If you’re doing a good job, cooking on point all week, you’ll find that you’ll slowly get mentally exhausted. It’s normal. We all burn out eventually, so the point is to get to the point prior to burning out. (This takes time and is only learned through experience).
I was listening to one of Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s podcast episodes on the Joe Rogan experience, and one of the things that stuck to me (not all that jargon about enzymes and studies and what not) is that its really impractical to eliminate all the bad, but its okay to have the bad as long as you have the good. If you look at the picture above, I try to do a good job in doing so.
I eat a lot of spinach and kale. Sound gross, I know, but the benefits are insane. I wake up feeling so refreshed, my mind is clearer, brain fog is gone, don’t feel sore or achy as I normally would. If you can figure out a good & bad, yin & yang type of meal, do it. It offsets the negative effects of cheating by so much.
The above meal is one of my easy cheat meals when I’m feeling sick of healthy food. Sick of healthy food? What is that? You’ll know when you’ve been on a healthy binge for a few days or weeks. Your body craves at the thought of sugar or unhealthy fatty foods like cookies n cream ice cream or a double double from in-n-out. One of my go to meals to cheat with that gets rid of this craving and doesn’t add too much harm is a Pizza Hut thin crust meat lover’s pizza with spinach, kale, and carrots (my usual salad). I get the good and the bad by getting my fix of cheesy goodness along with my leafy greens that all the fitness gurus advocate.
Bottom line – cheat meals are necessary. Try to think about this article and reduce the damage! There are so many options out there that will get you your fix and your dopamine release on food and still be on track with your diet.