How Often Can One Have A Cheat Meal During The week Without Negatively Affecting Your Personal Result

Hello, good morning friends. I want to welcome you to another presentation with yours truly, Patrick Ocheni, your trusted fitness expert and advisor.

In today’s episode, we’re going to talking about how often can one have a cheat meal during the week without adversely, which means negatively, affecting your personal result?

The answer to this question is, it depends. This is one of those questions that there is no right or wrong answer– there’s shades of gray, if you will. What I’m going to do though is come up with a way in which you can analyze your personal situation and determine the right answer for you because, guess what, no two people are the same.

The first thing I want to share with you guys to help you answer this question is, I’m going to ask you a question back and that is, do you have a formula that you are using to achieve your fitness goal?

What I’m going to do is share with you the formula that I use to help every single one of my clients achieve their personal fitness goal, and that you too can apply to your situation to achieving result.

The formula is this: Circuit Training (CT) plus Intermittent Fasting (IF) plus Interval Training (IT), plus Proper Mindset (PM).

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the formula that I’ve been using for over 15 years to help my clients achieve result.

When they come to me and say, Patrick, can I have a cheat meal during the week? We go through the formula use that to determine if indeed they can have a cheat meal during the week.

When it comes to circuit training, how have you designed your circuit training program, are you working out at the right intensity, what is the frequency of your workouts, how many exercises are you doing within a circuit session, are you lifting heavy weights? That’s just one component of the formula.

Those are things that you have to answer before you can determine whether or not you can have a cheat meal during the week, or how much of a cheat meal that you can have during the week.

I don’t know what your eating program is right now but if you’re using Intermittent Fasting, what protocols are you using?

When it comes to cardiovascular training, are you doing interval training? If so, at what intensity, how often are you doing it? That also plays your role.

And then finally, your mindset. Your mindset ultimately determines your habits. Without the proper habits, you’re just going to be on a rollercoaster ride; you’re going to have a difficult time achieving your result.

Now, what is your ultimate goal? Because, that also determines how often you can have a “cheat meal.”

For example, let’s say that you’re a female and you want to get into a bikini competition how you eat has to be very restricted because you’re getting ready for a competition. But, if your goal like most people is just to feel healthy, to get in decent shape, to fit into our clothing, to have energy, how you eat will be totally different from the person that wants to get on stage for a bikini contest.

Now, where are you right now in your fitness journey, how much time do you have to achieve this goal that you’re trying to achieve? That will also determine and influence how often you can have a cheat meal.

And then, very importantly, how do you define a cheat meal? And, it varies for different people.

If you said to me, my cheat meals is I want to have a box of donuts, that means we have to really, really limit how often you have that cheat meal.

Now, I want to share with you the mindset that you should have surrounding cheat meals.

And that is, to not have a cheat meal.

What does that mean?

When you start thinking about having a cheat meal, it tells me that you are depriving yourself of something.

And what will happen ultimately is, if you deprive yourself long enough, one day you’ll wake up and just eat everything in sight.

So, I do not recommend that approach.

Instead, the approach that I recommend for myself, for my clients, which is why I’m a big fan of intermittent fasting, is to incorporate your favorite treats into your daily meals.

For example, bread is something that I enjoy. Now, it would be unrealistic for me to say, I will only eat bread once a month.

What do I do instead?

I incorporate it as part of my daily meal.

This way, psychologically speaking, I’m not stressed out.

It’s like asking the question, how often can I cheat without adversely affecting my marriage?

Does that even make sense? It doesn’t make sense.

The answer is, you should not cheat, right?

Because if you are thinking about cheating, it means that you feel like there’s something lacking in your relationship.

You’re feeling deprived.

You’re feeling restricted.

Otherwise you should not be thinking like that, right?

Same thing with your eating plan: You should never have to feel like you need to cheat.

Because, if that’s the feeling you’re having, it means that there’s something in your eating plan that needs to be addressed. You need to revise your plan that way you don’t feel like you need to cheat.

Does that make sense?

I recommend that instead of thinking of having a cheat meal here and there, incorporate it as part of your regular eating plan.