A Cheat Meal Is a Meal, Not an Eating Contest

Almost every diet I write has one meal each week that is not on the plan. Most people call it a cheat meal, and I use that name and "free meal" interchangeably. Members ask me what it should be, when it should happen, whether they should skip it after an off-plan weekend, and what I would choose for them if I were picking the food. The answers all come from the same place: why the meal is in the diet at all.

A cheat meal is any meal that is not on the plan. It is one meal, it is optional, and it has a job. When it does that job, it makes the rest of the week easier to follow and makes my adjustments more accurate. When it turns into an eating contest, it stops doing that job.

Why I plan a meal off the plan

For several years I did not plan cheat meals at all. I gave one rarely, as a special allowance when I could see a client was really struggling. What changed my mind was what clients told me after their shows.

I would really quiz a client at the end of a contest: how many times did you break down? And every single one of them, at least late in prep, broke down almost once a week. Some of them would make it two or three weeks, but finally I was just like, they're not robots. I want to know what they're doing. They're not telling me this. They're cheating anyway. So when I make my adjustments, I make my adjustments thinking they ate the prescribed amount of food.