The one thing myself and Alexis are is realists. In the real world people go on diets, start exercise programs (all with the best of intentions), and then bomb out big styley. Not good. Or we miss a workout session, drink too many beers, or indulge in foods that we know we should not be eating, as part of our new improved eating plan.
The bottom line is that this is the real world.
Although I am certainly as guilty as the rest of humanity when it comes to being far from perfect (I know, shock right?), there are a few things we can do if end up pigging out on food, when we should be all Saintly and follow a new eating plan to the letter.
This Is Real Life
In the real world none of us can eat perfectly every day, it is why we don’t even suggest that you try in our diet plan. In fact we don’t even like the term insofar as the way it is now used. Much better to begin a new way of living that involves a change to what you eat, rather than call it a “diet”, in the sense that it is something temporary, and just designed to help you lose weight over the short term.
That way lies failure over the long term.
Eating habits need to be changed to reflect a permanent way of life that you can continue forever. It is why I wrote the article about not going on a diet. Fad diets are never going to hold up over the long term, people revert back to bad ways of eating and pile the pounds back on.
Our Eating Plan
At its most basic our way of eating has evolved over time since we began to try to lose weight. We have experimented and discovered what works best for us, and what works very well for the majority of people too. It may mean skipping breakfast, try it, you will be surprised. But it certainly means ditching all foods that have a negative impact on cravings, making us hungry soon after eating, and cutting right down on foods that are full of empty calories.
Call it a mix of low carb living and what we feel is the best of the Paleo diet, but for realists.
- We don’t recommend supplements
- We don’t suggest cutting out all fast acting carbs permanently
- and we don’t believe for one second people will ever stick to a perfect way of eating. Whatever that really means anyway.
What we do recommend is a tried and tested way of eating, to either lose weight or maintain bodyweight, without it seeming like any kind of a chore. But even then, and with the best will in the world, people fall off the wagon.
This is real life.
What To Do After You Blow Your Diet Plan?
There are some people reading this that may use it as an excuse to not stick to any kind of cohesive dietary plan. And that is a shame. If your goal is weight loss then the simple fact is that you need to eat less than you are now, and you need to control your hunger and cravings.
A combination of low carb eating, and eating in a much more Paleo type way, without have to be a zealot, is going to give you the results that you want.
But still, there will be days when you munch down a big bag of chips, attack the biscuits, or wolf down one of those huge Subway sandwiches.
And then the guilt hits.
Oh, my diet, my diet.
Get over it Dude. This is not the end of the world, and tomorrow is another day.
If you have lost some self control, and eaten foods that you know are going to make you gain weight again, or will spike your sugar levels, only to then crash you back down with a craving for a bowl of cheerios, then you need to pick yourself up, dust the belly down, and start again.
Doing your level best to stick to a better way of eating, that will produce weight loss relatively quickly, is always going to mean some people fall off the wagon at some point, it is inevitable. Although this is certainly not recommended, optimal results are always achieved by sticking completely to a program, it can and will happen for a lot of people.
Here are a number of ways to combat overeating, breaking your new nutrition program, or simply indulging in foods that have a negative impact on your body.
Skip A Number Of Meals
If you ate one huge meal that was well over the calories you should be consuming for the day then take it as an opportunity to go on an intermittent fast. This is the perfect approach for anyone that will never miss out on festive meals, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the like. Weddings, celebrations and Birthdays too. You may find that losing weight with intermittent fasting is the perfect answer for you.
If you know in advance that an evening coming up that you want to have a mini blowout on then skip the days meals up to the event. This can even mean beginning the evening before, with just a very small portion that leaves you in a real deficit for that day. Then on the day of the event skip eating until the main event.
It will mean you may not even go over the days maintenance calorie limit, so no harm done.
Fast After The Event
The other simple fasting option is to then not eat for the remainder of the day and eat minimally the next day too.
People seem to think that this kind of thing is a pure no-no. But why? No harm is going to come to you if you simply skip a few meals now and then. As long as you are healthy individual, with no medical conditions, and are sure you won’t be getting the shakes part way through the day. Act sensibly and cut down the calories around special events to make way for the feast that you will be partaking of.
Not only do these two tips apply to when you know you are going to eat a lot, but they apply in exactly the same fashion if you had any kind of blowout at any time. Do what you can to then limit your overall calories for the day, or the day after, to at least maintenance.
Just do your level best to not let it happen again.
The worst thing you can do is to take this advice and twist it. So that you are no longer following a good way of eating, and simply indulge in eating rubbish, but still stay at relatively low calories overall. Good food is always the cornerstone of losing weight and feeling happy about yourself.
Eat Lots Of Protein Before The Event
The other option is to eat a meal that is really rather heavy relatively close to the meal you are so looking forward to. If you eat high protein and high fat meals close to the event then you will feel full, and much less inclined to go on a major binge.
It may take a little more willpower, but if you eat high fat and high protein meals you stay feeling full for a long time afterwards. It is why we recommend this way of eating, especially for lunch time. For those whose digestion is suited to such meals, I might add.
High Intensity Workout
We recommend having a cheat day so you are less prone to fall off the proverbial food wagon, and we also recommend that this day is a workout day. For numerous reasons that I won’t get too involved in here. But if you know in advance that you are going to overeat on any given day then do your damnedest to ensure that you have a high intensity workout on this day, before you eat.
The days that you will be eating the most carbs on are the days you exercise briefly but intensely. And this is to minimize gaining fat. It is almost impossible to overeat and gain fat on a day that you train hard. If you eat the bulk of the food during a window a few hours after training. Glycogen levels are replenished in the muscles, and not used to store body fat. So if you know you are going to be binging, get that workout in as close to food time as you possibly can.
Even eating to the extreme well after the time you workout (but on the same day) is not going to result in the type of weight gain that you would have to deal with if you had no workout at all. So cut the risks and do yourself some good too.
Factor In The Cheating
This is the best way to do it if you know that your willpower is sorely limited. We factor in cheat days in our book, and this is the best way by far that we have found to combat food cravings and to maintain a good diet for the remaining days of the week.
As I workout with weights once every five days I have a cheat day on those days. I eat over maintenance, and higher carb after my exercise, to provide all I need to make maximum use of the right fuels for heavy training, and have a little treat on the side too.
It keeps you sane and it keeps you from looking at the new way of eating as some kind of punishment.
But what I have found, and Alexis too, is that the longer you eat in a low carb fashion, and sticking to basic good quality foods, the less inclined you are to partake of unhealthy foods, even when allocated a day to do so.
They lose the appeal.
You taste the artificialness of the foods you used to love, and you simply do not crave foods the fast release sugars that give you that weird high and low.
So, rather than having a major blow out, factor in a cheat day every week, and always eat slightly higher carb on exercise days too. And if there is some kind of occasion when you know you would like to partake of plenty of eating, then work around it by limiting the amount you eat either before, after or both sides of the event. Or fill up on healthy stuff so you simply don’t feel like eating heavily when you are offered a giant platter of food you know is far from stellar.
No guilt, lots of pleasure, and you will still be on track for that “lookin’ good naked” body you are striving to achieve!
