How to Cheat (and Get Away With It)

It’s time to talk about something that all you guys are interested in: how to get away with cheating.

Whoa, buddy. Hold up, there. You can take your philandering ways over to another site if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m talking about how to occasionally eat your favorite junk food without worrying about getting out of shape as a result.

Cheating Defined

I remember being younger and following all those bodybuilding nutrition guidelines (which was all that was available for guys looking to get into shape) that preached eating a terrible diet of unsalted chicken breasts, unsweetened oatmeal, egg white omelettes, and protein shakes. Yuck!

These plans gave me one cheat day per week, which basically meant a day where I could eat only ONE meal that didn’t taste like cardboard, and even then I had some restrictions on what couldn’t make its way into my belly. Jeez, that was rough. What works for the pros is rarely what works for average guys like you and me.

In most diets, it’s all about the quantity of food consumed. So either calories are strictly counted, or a massive energy deficit is forcefully imposed (both of which are bad ideas). But here, it’s all about the quality of food eaten. So microwave dinners, soda, and “low fat” foods are out, unprocessed meat and vegetables are in.

Here at LMVM, we do things a little differently than everywhere else, and as a result, we have a different definition of “cheating.” Instead of defining cheating as eating high-calorie meals (which is how most people do it), I describe it as eating “bad” food: highly-processed stuff made in factories, loaded up with sugar, flour, vegetable oil, and lots of corn and soy products. The kind of food that has caused us as a society to become overweight and sick.

No diet can succeed if the dieter feels deprived, and it’s important to cut loose on occasion. It’s all well and fine to impose a strict diet on people, but I do live in the real world, and everywhere that I turn, there’s tasty “guilty pleasure” food that is cheap and requires no preparation. I love burgers, pizza, ice cream, cookies, and deep-fried Snickers as much as the next guy, and want to have a way to keep eating them without worrying about it giving me a beer gut.

The good news is that this is possible, but it’s important to know how to do this strategically so that you don’t derail your plans.

The 90-75 Principle

‘Round these parts, we have a saying: 90% is perfect, 75% is good enough. Meaning, the costs of trying to maintain a very strict diet and exercise regimen are far greater than the benefits you’d get if you just dialed it back a bit. There’s just no point in burning all of your most precious resource–willpower–in a Sisyphean task to be the fittest man in the world.

There may or may not be health benefits to occasionally pigging out on Big Macs. But the main point of cheating is to eat just enough junk food that you can still enjoy your life without being a slave to a strict diet, and to enjoy all of your favorite foods, no matter what they may be.

Don’t be the fussy guy who never goes out to eat with his friends because he’s on a strict diet. It’s important to find a way to have the best of both worlds.

How Much Cheating?

So how much cheating can you get away with? I know it sounds like a cop-out, but it really depends. As a general rule, the better shape you are in, the more you can get away with. Of course, the better your eating habits are, the more you outgrow your taste for junk food, and the easier it gets.

So it’s a pretty circular situation, with the biggest hurdle being the first step, but as soon as you can make strategic cheating a habit you’re good for life.

As a general rule, I say one day of cheating per week is optimal. Make it a little less if you are looking for faster results, and a little more (perhaps up to 2 full days) if you are in great shape and are happy to stay where you’re at.

The Three Cheating Strategies

Here’s the good news: there are many ways to cheat, and there’s certainly one that suits you and your lifestyle. The bad news is that you’re going to need to figure out what works best for you by rolling up your sleeves and experimenting with all of them. Here’s a look at the three strategies.

1. Do all of your cheating in one day. Call it the “all-or-nothing” strategy: six days a week, you eat mostly unprocessed meat and vegetables, with some fruit, nuts, seeds, and eggs as needed. On the seventh day, you let it all hang out. From sunup to sundown, anything goes. Strategy one will work best for those of you with big junk food cravings who are positive that one day of bingeing won’t lead to two… and three… and seven… Depending on your style, this might be the best one to try at first. Just make sure you get enough of a “fix” that you won’t feel deprived by cutting the junk out completely for stretches of six days.
2. Or, you could spread your “cheat meals” throughout the week. Perhaps one Friday night, one Saturday night, and one during the week sometime. Whatever works best for you! Strategy two is what I follow, and what I would suggest for most people. I think this strategy is the one that you will naturally “grow into” over time as your taste buds get used to enjoying hearty and savory food instead of sweet and lightweight. Your desire to binge is smaller at this point, and you are flexible to go out to dinner with friends and family without being a pain in the ass.
3. The third way would be to never have a real cheat meal, but to be a little more lenient with the strictness of your diet. I’m not too big on strategy three, but make sure to give it a shot if the other two didn’t work out. The thing I don’t like is that it’s difficult to measure your cheating this way. With strategies one and two, you can easily keep track of your cheating and see how it measures up to your goal of cheating one day per week (3 meals). With the third strategy, things are a bit more difficult to quantify. This is the strategy for the person who’s committed to eating well all the time, but who wants to still drink a couple of cans of soda every day, or drown their salads in sugary dressing, or put ketchup on their steaks (the horror!). Only fall back on this one if you’ve tried the other two and failed.

Different people require different strategies to effectively cheat on their diets without the physical consequences. As the ancient Greeks said: know thyself.

Tagged as: cheating