Should You Have A Cheat Meal?
Cheat days are something that everyone loves. You get to eat whatever you want and as much as you want without worrying about calories. But are cheat days right for YOU and your goal? In this post I will be explaining who should and shouldn’t have cheat days.
The first thing you have to consider is what your goal is, and how far do you want to take that goal. Let me explain.
For most guys that workout, their goal is to either get stronger, get more muscular, or lose body fat. Let me break down each of these goals and how cheat meals apply to those goals.
People looking to get stronger have essentially decided that body aesthetics aren’t the primary focus right now. They want to increase their bench, squat, deadlift, or some other measurable strength exercise. I believe cheat days should be a consistent part of a strength building training program, the main reason is to maintain a caloric surplus.
To consistently build strength, you need to be in a caloric surplus. A lot of skinny guys and weak people in general have a hard time eating enough food to grow. Allowing a day to eat high calorie foods will help ensure that you are putting on weight to go along with your strength. Extra weight gives you more leverage to use against the barbell to push or pull more weight. There’s a reason the strongest people in the world are also some of the biggest.
BUT, the key here is to not take it too far. This is where most people make a mistake when trying to get stronger. Instead of getting strong, they just get fat. A good cut off point is 15% body fat. If you are below 15% body fat and your goal is purely strength related, have 1 or 2 cheat days per week. As soon as your body fat gets to 15%, start doing 1 cheat day per week. And if your body fat is above 15% body fat, stop doing cheat days until you get under 15%.
MUSCLE BUILDING
Next up we have people that want to get more muscular. This group is more focused on the appearance of looking big, without necessarily wanting to be incredibly strong.
Cheat days have their place for people looking to build muscle as well. Guys building muscle should have a more disciplined diet compared to those looking to just get stronger. Because of this, you need to be in a caloric surplus, but only SLIGHTLY. And on top of that, you likely will be eating similar foods most days of the week.
I suggest those looking to get more muscular have one cheat day per week. Preferably this cheat day will be planned ahead of time and not spur of the moment.
What I mean by that is if you don’t feel like meal prepping so you go out and buy a pizza, that’s not the correct way to do a cheat meal/day, that’s just lazy and undisciplined. You’re going to have a hard time maximizing your muscle building potential and physique like that.
Picking out Sundays as your day to have a free for all and Monday through Saturday you are only eating prepped meals, that’s discipline and that’s the correct way to do a cheat day. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
As with the goal of getting stronger, you don’t want to be in denial about getting fat. Getting fat will not help you look more muscular, only more muscle will. So again use 15% body fat as a cut off. If you are below 15% body fat, continue to have 1 cheat day per week, which can break up the monotony of always meal prepping.
If you are above 15% body fat, you need to eliminate cheat days until you get under 15%. Remember, the goal is more muscle, not more fat.
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FAT LOSS
The last group are those looking to lose body fat. How many cheat days should someone losing fat have each week? Zero is ideal. But at most ONE cheat MEAL should be the target.
That’s right, this may not be a popular opinion, but it’s the truth. If your current goal in the gym is to lose fat, there should be zero full days where you do the complete opposite of that goal.
Spending an entire day eating thousands of calories can literally be enough to derail your progress from 6 days of eating in a calorie deficit. Here’s an example...
Let’s say you eat 2500 calories daily to put you on pace to lose 1 pound every week. That means eating 17,500 weekly calories helps you burn 1 pound of fat. If Monday through Saturday you eat 2,500 calories, that’s 15,000 calories. But let’s also factor in a cheat day on Sunday.
You eat pancakes for breakfast, get some Chinese food for lunch, snack on some chips throughout the day, then go out to dinner and have a big steak, loaded potatoes, and finish it off with a brownie and ice cream for dessert. Sounds like a pretty solid cheat day right?
The only problem with this is that all this food can easily amount to 6,000 calories or more. That now takes your weekly calorie total to at least 21,000.
Now if 17,500 is what you need to lose 1 pound every week, how much weight are you going to consistently lose eating 21,000 calories every week? You see the issue here? It’s a lot of hard work just to be ruined by a day of being undisciplined. So what’s the solution?
For people looking to lose fat, you need to have a cheat MEAL. ONE weekly PLANNED meal where you indulge a little bit into a craving.
In the forefront of your mind should always be your goal. The cheat meal is not a challenge to see how much you can eat, it’s just there to satisfy a sweet tooth or salty craving. While you’re doing this, don’t think about Instagram worthy cheat meals like The Rock or your favorite bodybuilders do, they are at the most advanced level and their metabolism can handle the cheat meal better than yours.
If you stick to ONE cheat meal per week, you will quickly drop fat and improve your physique on a consistent basis. Once you are below 15% body fat, refer to one of the other categories above to decide how often you need cheat days.
The biggest takeaway I want you to have is that cheat days can be a very beneficial part of your nutrition plan. The importance of cheat meals varies for each individual person, so evaluate how close you are to your goal and how soon you want to reach that goal. If you are all-in to reaching it, be strict with your cheat meals/days. If you are more relaxed on the timeline of your goal, have fun with your cheat meal/day and get back to work the next day.
For skinny guys looking to learn how to eat and train properly for their goal, click here to discover the #1 thing you need to know when building muscle: https://b-lewis-
Brandon Lewis is an ACE Certified personal trainer that specializes in muscle and strength development for skinny men.
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