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Health & Fitness

The Effects of a Cheat Meal (or two)

The Effects of a “Cheat day” (or two)

 

            Let me set the stage for you.  I NEVER check my weight on the scale until I’m about 2 weeks out from a lifting competition where I have to make weight.  I lift in the 105 KG weight class (upper limit of the weight class is 231 lbs) and I typically walk around at 102 KG (225 LBS).  When I get closer to competitions, I try to get closer to 231 pounds simply so I’m not giving up a lot of weight to the other lifters in my class.  There is somewhat of an advantage to being heavier in a competition without being heavy for the sake of being heavy. 

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            Two weeks out from competition I begin to check the scale just to make sure I’m not too close to being overweight the week of competition.  I really don’t like to cut weight immediately before competition (I did that enough in high school wrestling).       

     Now, on to my story.  Two weeks out from this past Saturday’s competition I was weighing in each morning at my typical weight around 102 KG.  I stayed roughly the same for the entire week.  The Saturday before my competition I went to the gym for my final heavy training day before tapering for a week.  My goal was to hit my openers in both lifts and do some light squats.  Long story short, I had an awesome day.  No misses.  Hit every weight as if it were easy, and even power snatched my snatch opener.  Awesome day.  Perfect confidence builder to head into my taper week.  Best news of all: my weight was within check so I didn’t have to toy around with cutting weight!  After I cooled off from a great training session, I went home and took a shower in prep for date night with my wife.  That night we went to our favorite barbeque place in Frankfort Smokey Barque.  What the hell, I thought to myself, I earned a cheat day.  That night I ate everything in sight, had a few beers (not crazy, just a few), and had dessert.  I didn’t check the scale the next morning (Sunday) and continued to eat.  On Sunday, I ate the right foods, vegetables, meats, no carbohydrates after twelve, but again, I ate A LOT! 

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            Monday morning rolls around.  I wake up, hydrate, and jump on the scale.  230 (104.3 KG).  Ouch.  Looks like the week of competition was going to be a lot closer than I had anticipated.  Leading into any form of competition, I am very strict about the foods I eat and as long as my weight is good I typically don’t worry about the amount that I eat.  I guess this week had to be different!  I had to really limit myself so that I would stay close and not have to starve the day before and the day of competing (I coached the morning sessions and my weigh in was at 1 in the afternoon so I was going to have to wait all day to step on the scale.  It would have been an awful day if I had to go hungry until that time!).  To make a long story short again, I made weight no problem, but there was more concern than was necessary.

            Why the long article about my body weight?  I would like to address the concept of cheat days and cheat meals.  My wife and I are VERY disciplined about the manner in which we eat.  We have incredible self control 90% of the time, and 10% of the time (usually on Saturday) we throw caution to the wind and eat whatever we want (usually pizza).  This works for us.  I may not have the strength of someone in the Olympics or the body fat percentage of a world class body builder, but I think I do ok.  However, I use the story of my competition week to illustrate the effects 1-2 cheat days can have.  Many members of CrossFit Mokena will hit a plateau when it comes to achieving the ultimate results they want to hit.  Whether that goal is the “ideal weight,” perfect body fat percentage, best Fran time, or huge strength gains.  Often times, we find that when it comes to enjoying a cheat day people tend to get somewhat lax and do what we do and throw caution to the wind.  Many times a cheat meal turns into a cheat day, or a cheat day turns into a cheat weekend.  I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that.  What I am saying is take a close look at your cheat days.  If they are holding you back from accomplishing what you set out to accomplish you may need to re-evaluate the impact and duration of your cheat meals!  Take my example, I gained close to 5 pounds in one weekend of essentially binge eating! 

            I’m writing this article on Tuesday January 21.  Yesterday on Monday, I decided I am going to drop down a weight class to 94 Kg, which comes out to almost 15 pound weight loss for me by april 19.  The goal is to continually get stronger while cutting weight (any strength athlete will attest to how difficult this can be).  To make this change I am fully aware of the amount of discipline which will be required to pull this off.  One of my major areas that will change will be the frequency of my cheat days.  Instead of one cheat day per week like I have been doing, I will now cheat only one time per month.  (Which works well since I will be traveling to New York City the second week of February and Las Vegas the second week of March).

            To conclude, I’m not saying abandon your cheat days.  I hope this article made you examine the impact cheat days can still have.  If you are still falling short of your ultimate goals, view your meals under a microscope.  Or if you are anything like me, turn your cheat DAY into a single cheat MEAL! 

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