The Truth Behind 'Cheat Meals'

We often see deception meals online, some people say that this is a secret to fat loss, and it can help them successfully pass through the fat loss platform.

But many people would rather treat cheating day as an excuse, and if every day is a cheating day, wouldn't it be fine to indulge in everything every day? This certainly isn't the purpose of deception meals. Your body is smart, and this can only deceive yourself.

What are deception meals?

Before making a judgment, let's first take a look at what deception meals are.

After a period of relatively low calorie and low fat and low carbohydrate diet, select a fixed time to have a high calorie and high carbohydrate diet. By using the principle of cyclic control of diet, to adapt the body to a lower calorie diet, and will not because of too low calorie hinder fat loss, the purpose of deception day is to achieve.

Support viewpoints of deception meals

Since we want to objectively discuss whether deception meals have a necessary existence, let's first talk about the viewpoints of deception meal supporters.

Supporters believe that cheating meals are very beneficial for people who are losing weight, because after the body has experienced many days of low calorie, it will change the body to adapt to this 'environment'. A day of 'cheat' is enough to deceive the body, so it won't worry about food, reduce consumption—muscle, store energy—fat.

They advocate for following the fat loss diet most of the time,

Only use a small part of the time to 'cheat'.

1. Increase lean mass

Lean mass is a hormone that makes you eat less (secreted by your own fat tissue). People generally believe that when it enters the bloodstream, it participates in the regulation of sugar, fat and energy metabolism, promotes the body to reduce intake, increase energy release, inhibit the synthesis of fat cells, and thus lose weight.

Long-term low calorie and low fat and low carbohydrate diet will lead to a decrease in body fat rate, which will cause the secretion level of lean mass to decline, which may increase the desire to eat and may lead to increased intake of excess calories.

Therefore, the purpose of adding deception meals is to stabilize lean mass levels, deceive the body.

2. Maintain stable metabolism

We all know that after people who are overweight or obese experience dieting or a period of weight loss, because of insufficient calorie intake, the basic metabolism decreases, and if no muscle mass is added, the result will not change.

This is what is called the plateau phenomenon, and this is also why so many people fail to lose weight after dieting. So when we use deception meals, we increase calorie intake to make the body believe that there is no shortage of calorie intake to maintain the basic metabolic rate.

3. Appetite regulation

Fat loss must be a battle with your appetite. Many people find it the greatest torture to lose weight—because you can't eat the things you want to eat, and think that if you continue like this, there will eventually be an explosion (don't you feel it?).

So when you lose weight, you add deception meals to ensure that your appetite is within a controllable range, and occasionally satisfy your desires.

Are deception meals useful?

After all, these are also the guesses of people about deception meals, we always have to return to reality, so let's take a look at the reality.

First, we must admit that short-term fat loss, deception meals have a negative effect on fat loss, not only can't lose fat, but also push you towards gaining weight. So long-term fat loss, how do lean mass and basic metabolism change?

1. Lean mass

The main factors affecting the basic metabolism of overweight and obese people are lean mass and body surface area. After a period of weight loss and fat loss, the body surface area will decrease. If there is no increase in lean mass, this will happen. That is, even if the deception meal has effect, it is very small, so using deception meal to maintain stable metabolism is not an effective way, you must believe that the body is very smart.

3. Appetite regulation

This is easy to understand. In fact, the role of deception meals is just a way for people to cope when they can't control their appetite. But this is only effective if you can control your diet well and set up a deception meal regularly. This has no help for fat loss, it's just a psychological decompression.

If you can't control your diet well, setting up a deception meal will send a wrong feedback to the nervous system, which will make you overeat and cause psychological problems.

Our goal is to develop a healthy lifestyle, not to use deception meals as a reward mechanism.

In fact, it's better to let yourself relax, such as listening to music, walking or playing for a while. Choose healthy ways to release pressure every day, don't let it accumulate and then explode. And in daily life, try to stay away from high-calorie foods, so you can better control your appetite.

Professor Susan Roberts of Tufts University Nutrition said: 'When you think of food, you naturally want to eat it.' So, to control yourself, you must make high-calorie food disappear from your sight.

If you really want to have a deception meal, what should you do?

In fact, even if deception meals don't work, if you've been regularly following a diet and exercise and can well control your appetite, having one isn't a problem.

After all, everyone has a pursuit of delicious food, and from some angles, this diet can also help you adjust your mood and encourage you to continue the next fat loss cycle.

How to coordinate appetite and fat loss?

We can use carbon water cycling to lose fat. On days when training intensity is high, we can increase the intake of carbohydrates appropriately; and on days when training intensity is slightly lower, we can choose low-carbohydrate diets. In the reasonable calculation of the weekly required calories and distribution, this is a very good way of losing fat.

Of course, our carbohydrates should mainly be high-fiber carbohydrates, and we should avoid free sugars, even if we have a low-carbohydrate day, we need to meet the basic metabolic needs

As we said before, the main factors affecting the basic metabolism of overweight and obese people are lean mass and body surface area. When we lose weight, we can add strength training to increase lean mass and accelerate fat loss. In addition, we can use deception meals to stabilize appetite.

In fact, as long as you can well control your appetite, you don't need to blame yourself for one indulgence, this will bring you more psychological pressure, and you will easily delay the effect of fat loss and cause overeating.

Finally, I wish everyone can lose weight smoothly and happily, and enjoy a healthy life, getting closer to their goals.

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