Guys here’s a confession. I binged one day this week and I felt like shit, not happy. It wasn’t a big binge but a binge nevertheless. It threw me out of my macro, made me lethargic, bloated and felt like I lost the results I had achieved over the past 8 weeks.
This is what I binged on.
- 1/2 bowl of chicken pasta (semolina) when I got extremely hungry and didn’t stop there.
- Prawns stir fry (which was my regular healthy meal)… later in the night,
- Topped it with 3 pcs of McDonalds nuggets and
- Later into the night 1/2 bottle of zero sugar vodka cruiser (35 cals)
On top of that, I didn’t workout that day. Total disaster day but not the end of the world. ‘I’ll survive this’. ‘I’ll get over it’… I said to myself. No surprise to see a 500 gms gain in weight next morning. 🙁
But…
But this can happen to anyone at any time. You can’t sit on it and sulk. You don’t want to make one failed day into a failed week.
One word of advice is to plan your cheat meal. Usually one day a week is a good idea to give in to your favorite food. But dont overdo it. Ideally a cheat meal should be just more of the healthy food. Not loaded with sugar or refined carbs. Thats gonna take a while to burn. Probably 2 weeks, give or take.
But for any unplanned cheat meal, heres how I recover from it.
I researched how to overcome a cheat meal/day and found great tips, mostly by Dr. Berg in his video: THE BEST WAY TO RECOVER FROM A CHEAT DAY Here’s what I learnt and it worked so well for me.
- Fasting is the fastest way to reset the body. Wait for a longer period of time till you feel strong hunger pangs before you eat again. It takes 2-3 days for body to reset if we quickly go back to routine.
- Have ACV (Apple Cider Vinegar) right after the cheat meal and first thing in the following morning. I like to add a generous amount of this liquid gold to my water and sip on it all day long.
- Exercise will help burn up the excess storage sugar, glycogen. Sweat it out.
I followed Dr. Berg’s tips and so so happy to say that it worked. Don’t care about the number on the scale right now but I felt good about myself again. I had gotten up from a fall, I worked damn hard at my workout, kept my calories to a minimum, drank a lot of water, slept 8 hours and voila… weight next morning was back to where it was pre-binge. Yay to that!
Take responsibility of your actions. If you’re honest, the reasons you’ll find will most likely be within yourself. Do you know why the eff-up happened in the first place?
1. I wasn’t prepared for my meals of the day. ‘Just winged it’ as they say. Random nibbles here and there.
2. I had run out of salads & fruits.
3. I slept in till late and missed my workout window in the morning. Routine was completely turned upside down.
Lets summarise:
- Don’t make it a habit of breaking a routine. No more than a day or two at max unless you’re sick and recovering from an illness. It takes a long time to build a habit but takes seconds to break out of it. Your body will always want to get back into its comfort zone as soon as you give it the slightest chance to be idle.Instead of beating yourself hard, find out why it happened and what you won’t do next time. Learn from your lessons.
- Don’t miss the weekly meal planning routine. Plan your meals in advance, make sure you have all the necessary grocery items . Have healthy alternatives lying around just in case.
- Get right back into routine and allow 2-3 days for the body to reset and get back to where it was before you slipped.
If it gives any consolation at all this happens to the healthiest fitness guru out there. It happens to everyone if they are human just like you. So brush it off, plan how you’re gonna overcome it and just do it.
Forgive yourself. Know it’s not a big deal. Thank your body in advance for getting back into routine.
Let me know in your comments below how you found this post and if these pointers helped you.
Stay fit & fine.
Love,
XOXO
Shom
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