Food Freedom Friday Edition 351 - Cheating On Your Carnivore Diet

The carnivore-type diet can seem like a very restrictive diet to you and having cheat days when you can eat whatever you want looks like a tempting strategy

This begs the question if cheat days on a carnivore-type diet are a good idea?

Personally, I think, cheat days are not a good strategy because cheat foods are unhealthy and highly addictive. There is a risk that one cheat day may quickly turn into many and that you might need to start all over again, especially for those who have not been on the program for long.

Hopefully you won’t have to have a debate with yourself about having cheat days, cheat meals or cheat foods on the carnivore diet. Many people find that their cravings for processed/sugary food disappears after starting a carnivore or very low carb diet, finally finding freedom from the control that food had.  

It is liberating when you are able to look at pizzas, muffins, donuts, cakes and the like as if they are table decorations or pieces of furniture.

There are, however, instances where cheat days or cheat meals may be okay if the overall net effect is supporting you maintaining your carnivore eating plan long term. It’s definitely better to stay on an imperfect good diet than to fall back to a really bad diet.

Why Cheat Days Are Not Ideal

The idea of cheat days is often justified by the thought that due to sticking to the eating plan for x number of days, you deserve to eat whatever you want for one day or one meal.

The food people usually go for as these cheats are non-carnivore, processed foods like burgers, pizzas, pasta, pancake, ice-cream, chocolate, and cake.

If they usually drink only water on the carnivore diet, they may have a smoothie, a beer, or a glass of wine on these occasions.

It is important to remember that:

Cheat Foods Are Unhealthy

The non-carnivore ‘cheat foods’ people often go for are unhealthy and would be more of a punishment to your body than a reward.

Pizzas, burgers, cake, chocolate, and ice cream are mostly empty calories that come with refined sugar, gluten, lectins, phytates, oxalates, vegetable oils, and chemical additives.

While these foods may bring you pleasure and happiness for a short time, your body will pay the price later.

This comes in the form of headaches, bloating, skin breakout, restless sleep, other digestive issues, and, potentially flare-ups of health problems you’ve previously been able to resolve.

You will also need to fight the return of hunger and cravings. Carb-rich meals increase blood sugar and may make you feel good temporarily but insulin is secreted to bring down blood sugar levels and this subsequently makes you feel sluggish, sleepy, irritable, and hungry. These mood swings are common on high carb diets whereas, on a carnivore diet, your energy level would be very stable because you’d be in ketosis.

Depending on how much carbohydrate you eat, will determine how long it will take to regain your ketogenic state.

If you have cheat days regularly, there will be an unpleasant diet roller coaster of fat-burning and sugar-burning leading to you having to deal with adaptation symptoms over and over again.

Cheat Foods Are Addictive

Carbohydrate-rich foods, especially processed foods, can also be addictive to some people.

This is when you find yourself unable to control your food intake when eating a certain food.  If you’re one of those people and have been able to break your food addiction with a carnivore-type diet, it’s best to abstain from those foods, always.

Many highly processed foods have been scientifically created with the right doses of fat, salt, sugar, artificial flavors, and other additives to appeal to our taste buds and have addictive qualities by design.

In fact, pizza has been ranked as the food most associated with symptoms of addiction followed by chocolate, chips, cookie, ice cream, French fries, cheeseburgers, soda, and cake.

Sugar has been found to trigger the reward center in the brain similar to the way addictive drugs do. Alarmingly, animal studies, have found that sugar and sweet reward can not only substitute to addictive drugs, like cocaine, but can even be more rewarding and attractive.

A cocaine addict is not counselled to have it in moderation like once a week or once a fortnight. If you think you have a food addiction, it’s best to stay away from your trigger foods because it is near impossible to eat these foods in moderation.

Cheat Foods Trigger Overeating

Because you can only eat cheat foods on cheat days or cheat meals and you’d have to get back to eating meat only afterward, you may as well want to make the best of it and eat as much as you can. You are likely to overeat cheat foods due to the scarcity mindset.

Cheat meals have been found to be associated with eating disorder symptoms and binge episodes.

If you start the carnivore-type diet to lose weight, it’s not a good idea to have cheat days. A better (but clearly not ideal) alternative to cheat days or cheat meals is to have a small amount of non-carnivore food at the end of the day, for example, one cookie, one serving of ice cream, or one small slice of cake.

This avoids the scarcity mindset. You can have a small treat today and tomorrow and the day after if you want it. But this will only work if you don’t have a food addiction and these foods are not your trigger foods. The same applies to alcohol. If a glass of wine leads to a bottle or more later, you know that consuming alcohol in moderation is not an option for you.

Risk Sabotaging Your Goals

There is a risk that one cheat day a week will turn into a few too many cheat days and you’ll eventually have to start all over again.

If your cheat foods are highly processed foods, they can be highly addictive, moderation is difficult to exercise, and the risk of abandoning your dietary goals would be greater.

If you are following a carnivore-type diet for the first time and haven’t been on the diet for long, it is best to avoid both cheat days and cheat foods. It helps to get rid of all unhealthy and tempting food in your house. If possible, starting your carnivore diet with someone can help keep each other accountable and stay on track too. The longer you follow a carnivore diet, the less cravings you will have and the less likely you want to cheat. You will also find you don’t even want to cheat when you know how bad these foods make you feel.

Choose Better Rewards

Regular rewards can keep you motivated and they don’t necessarily have to be in the form of food. You can reward yourself with good food or non-food things.

For example, you can reward yourself by:

·       Go to a nice steak house and order the best steak you can afford

·       Get a lot of carnivore food that you really enjoy but are pricey or feel indulgent and cook a feast for yourself

·       Cook some special carnivore foods such as carnivore pizza, carnivore ice-cream, carnivore cake, etc. There are a lot of recipes for carnivore versions of common treats around.

If you must have non-carnivore foods, try whole food and avoid highly processed food altogether.

You can also have non-food rewards that don’t involve buying stuff.

Make a list of things that you enjoy doing, print it out, and hang it up. Next time you have a craving for junk food, either eat some steak or beef jerky or pick out one thing from the list as a reward.

Below are some examples of things you can do that don’t involve food or accumulating stuff:

·       Get a massage

·       Go to a movie

·       Take a long hot bath

·       Have a free lazy afternoon

·       Stay in a fancy hotel or a cottage in the middle of nowhere for a weekend

·       Go for a long drive and watch the sunrise or sunset

·       Read your favorite book

·       Watch or re-watch your favorite movie

·       Head for the beach

·       Go outside and enjoy the sunlight

·       Have a manicure or facial

·       Do some exercises

·       Go for a nature hike

·       Spend time on your hobbies

·       Enrol in an art class.

When To Choose A Cheat Day

If you are fully adapted to a carnivore-type diet, are healthy and have done occasional cheat meals before without falling off the wagon, you are one of the lucky few.

If you are generally healthy, having a bit of plant food now and then can even be beneficial because it helps you maintain metabolic flexibility. This was how ancient man ate: mostly meat but including a few plant foods in leaner times to survive.

If you have a family and haven’t been able to convince the rest of the family to go carnivore yet, you may want to join them once a week, eat like everybody else and enjoy some quality time with them. Mental health is just as important as physical health. Carnivore food can fully meet your physiological needs but may not meet your sociological needs.

On those meals, choose the least unhealthy foods (e.g. fresh, whole, and low carb food). Set some rules for yourself when you are eating those cheat foods 9what food, how frequent and how many servings) and stick to those rules.

If you find that you can’t stick to those rules, it’s time to re-think the idea of cheat meals.

If you happen to eat some high-carb food on a cheat day, try to exercise to burn off the sugar quickly and your next day’s menu should be meat, meat and then some meat.

If you give in to temptation and cheat unexpectedly, forgive yourself, remove the guilt and don’t beat yourself up. Move forward by getting back on track the next day.

Who Should Always Avoid Cheat Days

·       The following people should avoid cheat days on the carnivore diet:

·       People who are new to the carnivore diet

·       People who have unresolved health issues and are trying to fix them with the carnivore diet

·       People with food sensitivity issues

·       People with previous junk food addiction

·       People who are trying to lose weight with the carnivore diet.

Please note that the information in this post is for reference purposes only and not intended to constitute or replace professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified medical professional before making any changes to your diet or lifestyle.