Fat Burning Tips – Cheat Meals

“What we do as a society is seek simple answers.” — Dean Koontz

The general philosophy of cheat meals is easy to understand. Anybody who is following a fat burning plan to get leaner has had to make some pretty substantial changes to their overall diet. This is especially true for those who have made the most drastic changes and complete failure is always lurking just around the corner.

One of the proven ways to combat this failure is to incorporate strategically placed cheat meals into your regular meal plan. This serves a couple of key purposes – first it is part of the carrot and stick mindset. When you are strictly following a diet plan temptation may want you to fall (or even leap) off the wagon and that is when binge eating happens which is then quickly followed by guilt and a negative attitude toward yourself.

Instead by planning a cheat meal you give yourself something to look forward to and when you have the cheat meal you are not beating yourself up for having it. This can also help when you are in a social setting (I always think of beer and pizza with co-workers or close friends). This way you can relax. have a good time and not feel guilty.

The other advantage of a cheat meal is that it can actually help you lose weight. This is all part of continuously adjusting your caloric intake so that your body isn’t able to quickly adapt to new set calorie patterns.

Now with that being said that doesn’t just give you cart blanche from paying close attention to your fuel intake.  A cheat meal also isn’t an excuse to consume more than 1,000 calories at a sitting. Go ahead — eat extra, eat fat foods, drink some of your calories. But I have found that if you still try to stay relatively clean (i.e no fried foods, no more than one beer, etc) just more calories at a sitting, the more successful the overall plan is and the quicker you will reach your goals.

So now you might be thinking this is great I can cheat on my fat burning program. That’s true but how much… that is the real question. I have seen some programs that recommended doing this once a week and others advocating that you can do this for up to 10% of meals in a given week. So if you eat three main meals per day you are looking at 21 meals per week x 10% would give you two cheat meals per week.

Well as with anything important while it is simple it is not quite so easy. I find it highly advantageous for you to understand your body type a bit more when making this decision and also to consider where you are at in your goals.

An ectomorph is thinner by nature and can “afford” to go with two cheat meals per week. While the endomorph body type describes most people who are working hard to lose weight but they practically gain a pound or two just by looking at a donut. For these individuals it is best to keep your cheat meals to once a week.

For the endomorph it is also more important that you are stricter in your calories as with your unforgiving metabolism your genetics are such that you store fat easier than ectomorphs. For this body type stay strict with just one cheat meal.

Now I am not going to go into the complexities of body types here because nobody is exclusively any single body type. We all have varying degrees of the ectomorph, endomorph and the mesomorph. Any body type can burn fat and get leaner you just have to understand what to triggers to pay the most attention.

So have that piece of pizza or chicken wings and enjoy the beer – just be smart and guilt free.