Published on September 7, 2024
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I address the issue of “cheating” vs “indulging on purpose” at my first meeting with every client and reinforce it many times during their tenure with me. I know that whether they have 20 pounds to lose or 120 pounds to lose, they are NOT going from overweight or obese to slim in a perfectly straight line.
When you cheat, it means you did something on the fly. You didn’t think it through. Didn’t weigh the pros, the cons. Didn’t consider how you’d respond to the ramifications of your actions. And most often, the aftermath of a “cheat” results in a person getting “caught” — paying a price of some kind.
When you cheat, you often set yourself back emotionally and physically not only because you feel so badly having cheated, but also because you may have to spend another 1-3 weeks digging yourself out of a 2-pound (or more) weight gain hole to get back to where you were pre-cheat.
When you plan to indulge on purpose, you’ve planned for what you’ll do, you work towards that event, probably lose a few pounds leading up to it, and you don’t care at all what the scale says the following morning. You feel good because it worked out as planned; or, if it didn’t work out exactly as planned, you learned from it. You’re ready to make some adjustments for the next time you plan to indulge, and then you get back on track.
There 𝑎𝑟𝑒 restrictions when making a diet/lifestyle change. Anyone or any outside “product” that tells you otherwise is full of crap. You can’t eat what you want, when you want, as much or as little as you want. Those are habits that got you over-fat in the first place. However, you don’t have to go without an indulgence for months or years while working on getting to a healthy goal weight either.
So, whether you’re in the weight loss or weight maintenance modes, you do have a choice between cheating and a planned indulgence. When you plan, you know when to apply the brakes. When you don’t, you’re bound to go off the tracks.
