Diet Breaks, Cheat Meals and Permacutting (Sometimes the Long Way is Faster)
Diet breaks, cheat meals and permacutting…
You don’t need us to tell you that going on a diet to lose weight is a game fraught with peril or that missteps are common. But what you may find is that taking the long way gets you to your destination faster. Best of all, it will keep you there once you reach it.
Like most people, we got into this whole “dieting” thing because we had a vision to lose weight, get in shape and live a long and healthy life.
We’ve always said we want to build a lifestyle that automatically produces the results we’ve imagined while still allowing us to enjoy life, have great times with family and friends and not worry about ruining the results of our hard work.
Diet breaks and cheat meals might be just the ticket to get us there.
None of us want to keep “finding” the 15 pounds we lost over the last several weeks or months of our latest diet. It leads to yo-yoing and, inevitably, a condition called permacutting. In the end, you give up and quit out of sheer frustration. For that reason, diet breaks and cheat meals are a great way to help you hang on to the losses you’ve worked so hard for so you can continue restricting your calories for whatever amount of time is required to get the job done.
We need to know what they are, how we can use them to our advantage and the best way to stay out of the dreaded permacut.
Being healthy isn’t done over the course of our current workout program. It’s done over the seconds, minutes, hours, day, weeks, months and years of our lives.
So, a healthy life has to last, literally, forever.
Let’s explain how these tools can keep us on the sometimes rocky path to making the changes we’ve visualized.
Make no mistake, calorie deficits, aka “diets” suck.
There’s no other way to put it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned physique athlete who has successfully cut (lost fat) before a show, a fighter trying to make weight or a regular Joe trying to drop a few pounds; no one looks forward to it.
We need to stay in the deficit for however long it takes to accomplish the task. In some cases, it may take months and months to reach our particular weight (fat loss) goals. And dieting automatically comes with stress. It’s a direct attack on our survival so our bodies aren’t going to just sit back and do nothing. Along with all the physiological things it does in response to a cut in calories, it has a whole bag of tricks it uses to get us to eat. Combine all that with feeling hungry and cranky, toss in the messages we’re bombarded with on television, and it becomes almost impossible.
We can’t let ourselves go crazy and quit while we’re still learning how to put all of this together.
We need a solid strategy because – we’ve all seen it first hand – after a period of time in a calorie deficit, the tendency to go buck wild and binge is overwhelming. It’s closely followed by guilt and the mistaken notion that dieting for a longer period of time is needed so we can “make up” for it. It’s no surprise more cheating follows and, before we know it, we’re in a permacut.
We’re always on a “diet” but we never seem to make any progress.
Let’s outline the first two and how they’re used, and then give you an example so you can use them to turn your vision into reality while steering clear of the neverending permacut.
First off, it’s important to understand that calories do count. What you burn versus what you consume is known as energy balance. And there hasn’t been a single study that shows you can lose weight without burning more calories than you eat.
Don’t let any charlatan selling a fad diet try to tell you that if you eat in a certain way or only consume such and such foods that you can lose weight eating more than you burn. It simply can’t happen.
As legendary anchorman Ron Burgundy said, “It’s science.”
This isn’t about whether you should or need to count calories. It’s merely an illustration that when it comes to weight loss, calories are the only thing that matter. At some point, and in some way, they have to be accounted for.
Diet breaks and cheat meals are a huge help in de-stressing the journey to the new you but at the end of the day, when it comes to losing weight, it’s about time on target. If they keep you going and make you consistent during that time then they’re your go-to tool.
But they’re not a free-for-all without boundaries; they’re defined events and your plan needs to include rules for using them.
A diet break is exactly what it says – a break from your diet (calorie deficit).
Lots of practical experience – and it’s confirmed by studies – has shown that those in controlled, calorie restricted situations who periodically take breaks from the restriction lose just as much weight as those who stay with their diet calories the entire time. (In one particular study, the break was done every two weeks with the participants eating their maintenance calories for seven days.)
In other words, two weeks of dieting followed by a week eating an amount calculated to keep their weight steady. We’ve done it with clients for anywhere from a week or two to an entire twelve week training phase, depending on the situation.
In addition to the weight loss, the diet break in the study showed a positive impact on appetite-regulating hormones, resting metabolic rate, satiety and a reduction in the overwhelming urge to go Shaggy and Scooby on the nearest fast food outlet. (Okay, they termed it an “increased drive to eat” but I think it pretty much works out to be the same thing.)
As you can imagine, that makes it a huge relief to the stressful nature of being in a calorie deficit. It might take a little longer but we’re playing a long game and anything that gets us to our goal without quitting and restarting over and over again is worth it.
Similarly, the structured cheat meal is another method for giving you a psychological break from the rigors of dieting. It’s usually done once a week. The objective is to give you a treat to look forward to as a reward for sticking to your plan and as some relief from the stress of dieting. Once you’ve gotten it, it’s a reason to continue the hard work for another week. Think carrot on a stick. We’re doing everything we can to stay in the calorie restriction.
Essentially, it’s a single instance of the diet break and, similarly, requires a plan and some limits on what you’re allowed to do.
Unlike the diet break listed above, there’s no evidence from clinical trials that shows a weekly cheat meal has a lasting effect on things like hormones or metabolism. However, most coaches have seen plenty of anecdotal evidence showing it can be effective as long as you avoid the usual pitfalls.
However, both of them require some care.
If you think you’re going to take a little break from your diet and eat whatever you want, for however long you feel like doing it, you’ll definitely “find” the weight you’ve already lost and you’ll soon realize those pounds have a nasty habit of bringing along some friends.
Similarly, danger looms when the cheat meal turns into an entire day. We hesitate to call it a “cheat day” because it’s pretty easy to eat your entire week’s calorie deficit in a single day. Nothing ruins a diet faster than starting your “cheat day” with a breakfast beer and then continuing the festivities until they pour you into the Uber at B-Dubs after the game.
When either or those scenarios – or something similar – happen, your weight loss leaves town, frustration shows up like Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation and staying on-target takes a back seat to making sure you don’t up and quit.
Here’s a typical example showing how we use cheat meals and diet breaks with our clients.
Everything starts with a proper diet. It should consist mostly of whole foods you enjoy – and some that are not so whole but just plain fun – with the amounts limited and the macronutrients arranged in order to accomplish your goals. You’re also going to spend this time learning what you’re actually eating and how to handle everyday situations like restaurants, take-out and other scenarios.
Cutting out foods, extreme calorie restrictions and removing the cultural joy of eating is unsustainable and leads to stress that almost guarantees failure. While things have to change, your day’s meals have to be made up from foods you enjoy eating while contributing to your weight loss, health and physique goals.
You’re always encouraged to work on making reasonable choices. It’s the foundation of a healthy diet and a huge part of the learning process. Usually, once a client sees the weight coming off and they start feeling energized by a healthy diet and working out, staying with the plan for a while is fairly easy. Especially when people tell them how good they look!
Our standard blueprint looks like this: a daily calorie deficit with a reasonable cheat meal once a week for the entire 12-week training phase we use in our programs. (A diet break, when needed or circumstances dictate, comes later.)
For the cheat meal, we normally advise clients to try to stay within 150% of their dieting calories on the day they do it. This usually allows for a night out at a restaurant with a nice meal and drink or two, as long as you’re reasonable. You can also stretch it out over the day if you’re adept at tracking what you’re actually eating.
In other words, if your daily dieting calories are 2,000 then you can have around 3,000 calories for the cheat meal. In this case, it works out to an extra 1,000 calories on the day of your cheat meal. We use it differently depending on the circumstance; this is a simple illustration.
Our first decision point usually comes after the first 12-week training phase. For many, the job isn’t done and a little more dieting is needed. Most of the time, their success has them so energized and inspired that continuing to cut isn’t a problem. If that’s the case, they take a mini-diet break (there’s a whole new term for you) where they eat a couple hundred more calories a day during the scaled down workout week we use between each phase.
Once the new training phase starts, it’s on like Donkey Kong.
We’re clear with our clients that any time they feel like the diet is becoming too much or cheating starts to get out of hand, then it’s time to go to maintenance calories for a bit so their body can reset. If they feel like they need a break from the deficit, then we’ll usually choose a timeframe of 2-4 weeks and assign maintenance calories during that time.
We use this pattern until they reach their physique (weight/fat loss) goal.
To sum it all up: diet with a weekly cheat meal, take a one week mini-break after each 12-week training phase then rinse and repeat until reaching the goal. When the calorie deficit has gone on for a while, or any time it becomes really difficult to maintain, then ease up, take a diet break and allow the body to reset before continuing.
It’s a great plan and works well but life in the urban jungle rarely goes the way we predict. There’s always something going on and it’s a guarantee something will pop up to make your carefully planned diet routine veer off the road into the ditch.
The key to making sure you stay on course is learning to be flexible and to avoid situations that lead to trouble. Everything is about preserving the weight loss you’ve worked so hard for and making sure you keep going, even if you need to take a little break.
At some point, you’ll have a business trip that comes up or a family vacation planned and that’s not the time to try and diet. Doing so ultimately leads to frustration and you’ll either give up and quit, or you’ll shoot yourself in the foot… and then quit.
A situation like that is the perfect time to take a diet break. Go to your maintenance calories and don’t worry about trying to lose weight. It’s an even better time to work on making good choices. At the least, you’ll limit any damage.
Once the vacation or trip is over, the overarching goal and commitment to a life of health and wellness takes you right back to the plan and you continue moving forward. Use the diet break to turn a frustrating situation that can easily lead to quitting into a positive so you can carry on the work of turning your vision into reality.
You can apply the same principle to your weekly cheat meal. You might have a big event you’re attending. Maybe you’ve been looking forward to an enjoyable night out with friends or you hit that delicious pizza place with the kids after soccer. Simply move your cheat meal to that day and get right back on it the next. Once again, you turn a normally frustrating scenario into something the vision and plan you have for your health and wellness handles automatically.
Always see yourself as someone who is healthy and fit and makes good decisions about what you eat and drink. Your mind will direct you along that path. Healthy people splurge, too, but they limit it to an enjoyable and rewarding treat, instead of the majority of their eating.
Sometimes, you have to feed the soul and good food and drink is a wonderful way to do it.
Always make sure whatever you eat is worth it to you. If you’re okay paying the price for something, then enjoy it and don’t worry about it. That’s what life is all about. Don’t waste your family holiday trying to balance on the tightrope of your calorie restriction. You’ll ruin the vacation and, as mentioned, it’s easier to give up. Always use your goal of living a healthy life to inform your choices and drive your decisions.
You’ll see that you can have a free-for-all but you’ll find your bigger vision keeps you on track and in check while you enjoy it. If your free-for-all happens to be the result of a mistake or you fell off the wagon then learn from it, hop back on and keep rolling down the road.
When you do it that way you become consistent and your results skyrocket. Much of the stress of dieting is removed and you give yourself time to work on building your very own healthy lifestyle.
Nothing is more important than having a plan you can apply to the craziness of everyday life. When you do that, a lifetime of healthy habits is the result and you end up spending the rest of your life healthy.
As the old saying goes, “Plan your work and work your plan.” It’s there to keep you on track to the goals you’ve set. Use it to your advantage and you’ll find things become easier as you go along.
You should already know from our articles that we believe in going to restaurants and enjoying time out with friends. We love to travel. Holidays and special occasions should be celebrated and not a single day is to be wasted. Life is too short not to enjoy celebrating it with good food.
Right now, you’re learning how to put all of it together so it fits within your vision of being healthy, lean and fit for the rest of your life. There are going to be missteps along the way. You’ll make mistakes and fall off the wagon. Vacations and work trips will pop up and you’ll get caught out somewhere when you haven’t eaten for hours. I can tell you from experience, there’s nothing more lethal to your diet than walking into a pizza parlor and being hit with that incredible smell when you’re dying to death of starvation.
It happens and it’s nothing more than an opportunity to learn and bounce back even stronger. Make the lesson part of the forever, leave the mistake in the past and move on into the future. Don’t ever let anything get in the way of achieving what you’ve set out to do and never give up on it.
As foreman Rip Wheeler of the Yellowstone said, “You’re either winning or your learning.”
If you decide to use diet breaks or cheat meals as part of your plan they need to keep you on track towards the vision you laid out when you started all of this. Both of them should be defined events and they have to move you closer and closer to realizing your goal. They have to help you lose weight, construct a body you love (no one else’s opinion matters), become healthy and keep the results once you’ve gotten them.
So, pick up the phone, dial 911 and we’ll give you the 411 on changing your life in a way you never thought possible.
Regards,
Henry
Our programs deliver white glove treatment with an unforgettable coaching experience.You’ll be guided through a total body transformation.We’ll help you develop a program that works for you based on your individual lifestyle, eating habits and goals.We’ll show you how to do it and you’ll realize the new way is far better than anything you’ve tried before.
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Siedler MR, Lewis MH, Trexler ET, Lamadrid P, Waddell BJ, Bishop SF, SanFilippo G, Callahan K, Mathas D, Mastrofini GF, Henselmans M, Vårvik FT, Campbell BI The Effects of Intermittent Diet Breaks during 25% Energy Restriction on Body Composition and Resting Metabolic Rate in Resistance-Trained Females: A Randomized Controlled Trial.J Hum Kinet.(2023-Mar)
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