I’m in a mood lately.

I spent all day at city hall yesterday REFUSING to leave the city planning and zoning office until I spoke to someone who could sign off on our on plans to start building our bar. Just picture me setting up shop with my laptop, asking for the wifi password, with a poke bowl in my lap.

Just eating raw tuna and telling the administrative assistant that I’m happy to set up a tent right there in their office.

Obnoxious.

(They put me through to the right person, obviously, bc I don’t think they were real happy about my kale chips and raw tuna moment)

So, in light of my angsty vibe, I thought this would be a good opportunity to bring up something that’s been bothering me lately. A little phrase I hear ALL THE TIME.

“Cheat meals”

What exactly are you cheating on? Your diet? I mean, you probably shouldn’t be on one in the first place.

Can’t we just call it………….having pizza for dinner? Whoa, what a concept.

Eating pizza isn’t “being bad”, it’s eating something that you love that sounds really good right now. That’s it. There’s no drama. There’s no story. There’s no “well since I ate pizza I might as well eat 42 breadsticks and get ice cream because f*ck it”. It’s LITERALLY JUST PIZZA.

What I hate about the cheat meal is that it labels the meal as something naughty, like something you shouldn’t be doing, and THAT creates the idea in our head that food choices are all or nothing.

You COULD have the pizza, and have a huge spinach salad with avocado, walnuts, and olive oil on the side. But if you have a “cheat meal” mentality, you’ll probably skip the salad and load up on more food that is just going to make you feel like garbage later.

This is why I preach eating PHFF so obnoxiously and probably mention it in every single post. It’s so important, but it’s also SO DOABLE. If you’re always including a protein source, a healthy fat or two, and you squeeze some fiber into every meal, you are doing something positive for your body.

No cheating. Just eating.

And when you have this mentality, it’s impossible to view your plate of nachos as ‘cheating’.

Can you add some chicken or beef to the nachos? Are they loaded up with veggies, or could you add a side salad to eat before the nachos come out?

Think about the last time you gave yourself a full “cheat meal” – was it tough to turn it around the next meal? Did your cheat meal turn into a cheat day? Because if it did, it’s not your fault.

Really.

You probably ate a lot more carbs and processed foods that you normally do at your “cheat meal”. So your blood sugar had a pretty extreme response. It probably spiked, then dropped, and you probably had insulin floating around in your blood for a long time after it.

Because of this, once your blood sugar started rapidly dropping, you probably started craving….more carbs and more junk. It’s literally just your brain recognizing the sharp drop in blood sugar and saying “hello!! we need more sugar!!!”

So, it’s tough to recover from a “cheat meal” and you can blame that on human biology – not yourself!

But, here are a few tips you can put into place if you decide you want the fried chicken tacos/gooey lasagna/deep dish.

BEFORE

Have a #BabeBowl or a #PHFFSmoothie in the meal before and make sure you’ve got lots of healthy fat and at least 8 grams of fiber in that meal. You’ll coast into your next meal with solid blood sugar levels and you shouldn’t be ravenously hungry.

DURING

Keep PHFF in mind. Where can you add a good protein source? How can you squeeze some fiber in (usually w veggies!)?

AFTER

KNOW and ACKNOWLEDGE that you are gonna crave shitty food in the next few hours. You may even wake up not feeling your best and craving food you normally don’t. Understand that, understand why, and plan to have another meal very similar to your ‘before meal’. Something super PHFF balanced with lots of veggies.

I personally usually plan on a smoothie with lots of protein, healthy fat like MCT oil and almond butter, and chia seeds. Sometimes I’ll even assemble it and put it in the fridge so it’s ready to go.

I love to do this before I go out for drinks so it’s staring me in the face in the morning and I have to make it.

Is anyone with me on this?

What do you think? Are you into the ‘cheat meal’ mentality or do you think it has to go? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Happy Sunday!

xxMeganxx

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