Fighting Zero Tolerance:
Rules for your “cheat meal”
By Charles Poliquin

December 14, 2006

We all eat unhealthy food sometimes. It’s a fact. In this article, Charles provides some valuable suggestions for perfecting the art of the "cheat meal."

One thing that I learned over the years is that people in the “Diet Nazi” industry (my terminology) fail miserably in their nutrition counseling by asking people to follow “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to eating “bad” food. They set their clients up for failure with diets that are too restrictive to follow for more than short periods of time. Inevitably, clients never last more than twelve weeks on such extreme regimens and fatten up like pigs going to the slaughterhouse within weeks of escaping their personal Diet Nazi.

Cheating within reason
I think people lose fat faster if they are allowed a “cheat meal” once every four to six days. The cheat day increases the metabolism so it makes you lose body fat faster.

There are rules you should follow so that you can cheat in moderation. Remember it is a cheat meal, not a cheat evening. Remember these points when sitting down to cheat:

Eat your protein first. Remember, in Greek, protein means “of first importance.” Sit at a table (at home or a restaurant), not in front of the TV. Set limits. Decide with what you will cheat before eating and don’t deviate from your decision by adding extra foods. When your butt leaves the chair, stop eating. Resolve to make better cheat choices. Oatmeal and gluten-free products are better than wheat cookies. Organic chocolate almonds are better than jelly beans. If eating wheat means your joints don¹t bend the next day, try rice pudding as a cheat meal. Do the math. To determine if you¹ve eaten an optimal amount of carbs on your cheat meal day, do the following: calculate body fat on a Monday, giving you or your client four days of low carb eating. On Friday night, eat the cheat meal, recording the quantity of carbs eaten. On Saturday morning, measure their body fat again. If the body fat has decreased and lean mass increased, the correct quantity of carbs was chosen. If however everyone is fatter on that Saturday morning, decrease the carbs by 20% for the next cheat meal and see if the body handles it correctly by dropping body fat the next morning. If, however, there is weight loss the morning following a cheat meal, try increasing carbs by 20% and see how the body handles if. If weight is not lost by the next cycle, drop back again. Adapt to change. As you get leaner, you can eat more carbs. People with low body fat can have “cheat days” instead of just meals. They can do it on a non-training day, too. Know the ratios. The relationship between low carb meals and cheat meals is always 20:1 or 30:1 (never less or more). If you can get someone lean on 4:1, they are a “carb person” and should be eating them every day. The 20:1 or 30:1 ratio should apply for people whose goal is maintenance as well as weight loss because 75% of the population perform better (e.g. work, etc) on low carbs. Look for symptoms. When eating low carb diets, some people may complain of headaches, bad breath, sleep disorders, and crankiness. Follow a sleep restoration protocol and take supplementary fiber to address the given above issues.

It may have been said once that “cheaters never prosper,” but, in this case, they may perform better.

This article is an excerpt from his Biosignature notes. To hear all of Charles findings and opinions on Biosignature, sign up for a seminar today!

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