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FLEXOFFERS 

Life is about moderation and balance. Perfection is a terrible goal, because you will never hit it. Let me tell it to you straight: “cheat” meals are OK. Skipping a workout is OK.  Personally, I could never have made it through my weight loss had I not given myself some grace.  I knew when I started that I would have to allow myself to “cheat” in order to reach ultimate success…and reach ultimate success I did!

As I’ve told you before, I lost 50 pounds in a little over 5 months. It was hard, and I was terrified to start, to say the least. I thought that I would be starving myself and miserable and miss out on all social events – essentially talking myself out of doing what was best for my health. It all boils down to feeling like I would have “missed out” on good food that I loved, in order to lose weight.

 Oh, how silly that was when I think about it now. 

What I quickly found out was something we’ve all heard forever, “Everything in moderation.” Life is a balance, and if you want to lose or maintain weight, you must moderate what you consume, and how you work it off. 

Related: One Year of Maintenance! How I kept the weight off for 1 year!

I was never very good at moderation, to be perfectly honest. 

Before I started losing weight, I would eat carbs with every meal, pasta 2-3 times a week for dinner, and then have those leftovers for lunch the next day. I would drink beer a few nights a week, and often have popcorn {my favorite food} as a snack while watching TV. I would sleep til the very last second until I had to get up and race around the house getting ready, grab something quick and easy like a half of a Costco muffin (half…because it’s healthier – HA!!!) and run out the door. Now, my morning routine changed when we had a baby, but it was still “sleep til she wakes up then go-go-go” without proper planning, and a whole lotta carbs. Meal planning exhausted me, and even though I tried various ways of doing it to make it fun and easy (like a cute board with lots of printed out meals and clothes pins, or a 20 page word document of recipes I found on Pinterest) I was never consistent.

All of this lack of moderation showed me one thing – a massive weight gain. So when I started 30/10, they really helped me focus on how that moderation, and those big heavy meals, were the problem. While I am SURE that every registered dietitian on the planet would love for everyone to give up bread and pasta, its unrealistic, at least for me. I knew I had to be practically perfect in every way as I started my weight loss to really break those terrible habits, but after about 6 weeks, I let some change happen to my diet. 

I allowed myself cheat meals. 

Now, I don’t mean that I suddenly started eating pasta again, but it did mean I allowed myself to have a beer or a glass of wine now and again, for a specific reason (i.e. Easter). I made things manageable for myself to get through and continue my success. One day, I added a dash of cheese to my taco salad. Another, I had a very small amount of mayonnaise on my lettuce wrapped burger. 

While these weren’t huge cheats, they were still “cheat” meals, and I knew that it was enough to get me through for the next little bit of time, it kept me consistent, and doubled down on how much I wanted success. I could have a taste of “the bad stuff” and it sustained me. Now, I know that doesn’t work for everyone, and in fact, some people have to do away with the fun foods for an extended amount of time, or else they gain that weight right back. Everyone has to manage for themselves, as they are the only ones who know exactly how they feel. Others have the will power of Superman and can just do away with the fun foods forever, and congratulations to them.

This isn’t that blog. I love bread. I hate kale. 

After I finished with my program, I was released into the wild, so to speak. I wasn’t provided with two meals a day and snacks anymore. I had to fend for myself, and not go wild like I was on Rumspringa. (Not from Amish country? Go look it up) It was high time for me to be responsible and use the lessons and habits I had built over the last 5 months to be purposeful with my meals. Not only could I not dive back into the bowls of pasta that I love so much, I had to be conscious of keeping my plate appropriately proportioned. 

Plan your plate.

I needed to be smart if I was going to allow cheese back into my life. While I was able to span out into a broader world of food, I really wanted to stay close to plan, while allowing some cheat meal aspects to sneak in. In order to do that, I planned my plate! I still kept to my 5-7 ounces of protein and two-ish cups of vegetables, but I allowed just a little bit of fun stuff on my plate too. If you don’t like measuring or weighing your food, use your hands to figure out how much you should have, like the below image:

This gave me an opportunity to eat what I wanted while keeping within healthy guidelines. 

OK, but what about REAL “cheat” meals?

The cheat meals that always seem to be the best are the ones where you go a little wild. Where you through caution and plate planning to the wind and say, “I want the pizza!” Great. Fantastic. DO IT. I’m all for it, honestly. 

I live for the days that I let myself splurge a bit with food and drink consumption. Now, I don’t “eat all the things!” but I do participate in social gatherings without bringing my own snacks, go to beer festivals, go wine tasting, eat the occasional club sandwich. 

I just don’t call it a comeback cheat day. 

Didn’t think I was gonna say that, did you??? Yes, what I do is technically cheating on my diet, and I do think you should do it because life is meant to be lived, I don’t think that you should call it cheating. If its a cheat and its forbidden and you feel guilty doing it, then why do it?! Life is meant to be enjoyed – so is food! Yes, it is fuel, but sometimes you must say “damn the torpedoes” and eat the stinking pasta. Why? Because it tastes good, you want to, and if you eat one crappy meal it wont kill you, it wont set you off track, and it certainly wont make you gain 10 pounds. In fact, in my experience, it keeps me on track. 

Let’s do some math. 

But like, easy math, because I have an art degree, I really like history, and my knowledge of celebrity and royal gossip is off the charts. I failed math multiple times, forgive any mistakes. 

1 year=365 days
3 meals/day=1,095 meals
1 “cheat” meal, 2x/month=24 meals
24/1094=.021

If you have two “cheat meals” a month for a year, it is TWO PERCENT of the meals you eat. TWO! If you think that 2% of bad overrides 98% of good, your math is worse than mine, and I don’t know what else to tell you. 

If you are anything like me, then you used to do all the things I listed above regularly. And just by shifting from a few times (or more) a week to a few times a year, you are already ahead of who you were. Moderation and balance is how you are going to maintain your goals. By cutting something out forever, you are almost guaranteeing a slip up and binge session later, or worse, a slip up that turns into a mudslide and landing yourself back where you started.

A small disclaimer:

If you are just starting to lose weight, like, within the first two months, do yourself a favor: don’t break. Stay strong and build good habits so that those habits can help you on days down the road when you can eat the things you haven’t been eating, when you’ve had some success. I don’t want anyone to ever read this blog and think, “well she just ruined my weight loss!” I want to help, I want to inspire, and I want to be real. But you also need to know yourself, and if you don’t have habits in place, please don’t hinder your own progress. No one else may see what you do, but they don’t need to – the fat stays with you, not them.

Tell me about you: do you find the ability to power through via the little smatterings of tasty treats? Do you have to do away with them forever? Do you have crazy willpower and don’t need to give anything up because you never touch the stuff? Tell me below!