Super Bowl Sunday Eating

What’s up everyone! It’s been a hectic past couple days for me at the gym and I have not had much time to write on here. After a fairly busy Saturday morning I was ready to relax the remainder of the evening when I realized the importance of writing this post today. With Super Bowl Sunday tomorrow I felt like today was the perfect time to write about cheat days. Personally I am looking forward to watching two of the NFL’s class acts; Drew Brees and Peyton Manning go at it. As excited as I am, as well as many others, I also realize too many, this is no more then an opportunity to have a social gathering. Over the years Super Bowl Sunday has developed into one of the largest eating days of the year, and I am not talking about salads and vegetables. Many Americans stuff there face with thousands of calories throughout the course of the evening, filling up on carbs, fats and sugars.
Many of my clients were extremely worried about all the snacking they would be doing on Sunday and how far back it would set there progress. My response to each and everyone client was the same. I would ask the client if they would believe me if I told them the snacking on Super Bowl can be used to accelerate there fat loss. Most my clients are already aware of this but the new ones were shocked and didn’t believe me, let me explain.
Leptin is a hormone human’s use in helping regulate the body’s energy use. What this means is Leptin plays a key role in regulation appetite and metabolism. In Joel Marions Cheat Your Way Thin program he explains this phenomenon in much greater detail then I will. Basically the way to use cheat days to accelerate fat loss goes something like this; by following up a cheat day with a low carb day your bodies will use the blood sugar and insulin response from the cheat day to help boost leptin levels and metabolism, thus accelerating fat loss! For many cheat days occur way too often to be effective. The key to utilizing the cheat days to your advantage is by limiting them to only one per week and always following that day with a low carb day. To me a low carb day is taken in 20% or less of your daily kcal from carbs and should consist of mostly vegetables.
To me there are many other reasons to incorporate cheat days into your diet. Obviously raising Leptin/Metabolism is a major perk but to me, keeping my sanity is much more important. By incorporating a weekly cheat day it is much easier to fight cravings during the week. I know for me if I am craving pizza or chicken wings during the week it is much easier to fight the urge knowing I can enjoy them on Saturday. Compared to if you’re following a strict diet and crave the same thing but CAN’T eat it. Sooner rather then later most people will cave into the craving and overeat greatly leading to a downward spiral away from those healthy eating habits and back to the beginning.
Still don’t believe me? I challenge you to try it out; I promise you won’t be disappointed. So tomorrow when you’re watching the big game with all your friends enjoy the game and the food you are eating, but keep in mind how to utilize cheat days to your advantage.