To Cheat Day or Not to Cheat Day?

Image Credit: Dee Jae

I take my food as seriously as I would a major life decision. Rectifying my eating habits has seen this fact become increasingly true. I’ve been struggling lately to fit in a good ol’ shovelling down of chocolate cake now that I’ve banned myself from takeout, rice, and bread. So, I went for the classic decision: one cheat day a week where I can divulge myself on all things oily, sugary, salty, and carb-loaded. As I sit up in my bed with an aching Buda belly filled to the brink with hot chocolate and sushi (as well as, shamefully enough, half of my friend's cake), I suddenly regret having a cheat day.

 Three months ago I could inhale five cheeseburgers in one sitting, now I’m considering an ambulance van for a simple one-night-stand with junk food. I should see this as a good sign that I feel full way quicker now, but, maybe, because of how rarely I get to chow down on something carby, my weekly tummy ache should tell me I need to handle this differently. 

Image Credit: Dee Jae

Thanks to the way-too-many fitness pages I now follow on Instagram, I have been made aware of an interesting part of the healthy life known as ‘counting your macros’. In this, your daily calorie intake is divided into three categories: carbs, protein, and fat. Depending on what your fitness goals are, the amount of carbs, protein, and fat you should be consuming daily can differ. For example, my goal is to drop down a dress size. For that to happen, I should be consuming no more than 1,500 calories per day, and, macro-wise, this should be broken up as 50% carbs, 30% fat, and 20% protein. As you can see from the images encompassing this post, this might be hard to do if I’m treating each cheat day as an apocalyptic event (i.e. a kind of leave-no-carbs-uneaten type of set-up).

Image Credit: Madalin Giorgetta

 



What the macro life suggests — and while it might sound slightly more unforgiving than the option of a cheat day — leaves you more open to consume what you want when you want. For instance, if your macros are open enough that day, you might be able to squeeze in a slice of pizza. This comes from whether you’ve given yourself enough leeway to consume a bit of junk. For example, something with a high fat content might be manageable if your fat count is low enough to squeeze it in. It’s just all about knowing where your grams are at on the day.

I'm not mentally calculating all this. Right now, I'm working off 'My Fitness Pal', which is a free app I downloaded onto my phone. Here, I am able to scan my food in advance to know whether or not I'm getting enough protein in my diet, as well as whether or not I should grab another serving of peanut butter and celery. Frequently now, I am glaring at the app as I withdraw my hand slowly from the milo tin at the back of my cupboard. I'll admit, however, that it's an absolute blessing knowing I usually have a bunch of calories left to spend at the end of the day for carbs or fat or protein. Now that I know about macros, I can figure out what my body is craving and how to satiate those cravings without reaching for the wrong foods.

Image Credit: Dee Jae