If I got a dollar every time someone talked to me about “cheat meals,” I would have a great start on my kids college funds.
I’ll be honest – the term cheat meal makes me cringe. As a former repeat dieter, I would never again use that term to describe anything I ate. It reminds me too much of the misery of dieting and the guilt I used to have when I’d have anything “off plan.”
But, all people are not the same. That’s the beauty of having a world full of diverse people with varied experiences.
So what about you? Should you be planning cheat meals to help you stay balanced?
The Behavior and the Mindset are Two Very Different Things
First of all, we need to clarify something. When we talk about lifestyle changes, the behavior (what we physically do, or in this case, what food and drink we put into our bodies) is often confused with the mindset behind the behavior.
The behavior is actually having food that someone might refer to as a “cheat meal.” Large burger with fries and a strawberry shake, anyone?
The mindset is related to how you think about the behavior, and is much more important to long-term success than the single behavior.
Let’s take an example
If you watched me eat for a week, you might think I have “cheat meals.” Most of the time I eat a primarily plant-predominant diet. Meaning I eat mostly fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, and very little meat or dairy. In terms of drinks, it’s primarily water or black coffee 90% of the time.
A few times a month, sometimes more sometimes less, I eat foods I really enjoy like Jet’s deep dish pepperoni pizza, cake with buttercream frosting, and/or a good Michigan brewed craft beer or two.
As I said, I hate the word cheat meal and would never refer to my beloved cake or beer this way. I just call it “eating what I want!” So while my behavior could look like I’m having cheat meals, my mindset would never think of it that way because that just doesn’t fit how I like to think about my eating and what works for me.
Years ago however, though I never used the word cheat meal, I definitely had the mindset that something was “bad” and that when I was eating “bad” I would be planning to start again on a future date. I associated the cheat meal food with weight gain or not losing weight as I wanted to and never really enjoyed this without guilt for years. So essentially, I was by default having a “cheat meal” and feeling really guilty about it the entire time.
So if it isn’t a Cheat Meal, What is it?
I stay away from all language that labels an unhealthy food as “cheating” or “bad” in anyway. I just think of it as eating something I really enjoy. Without judgment, I’ve learned to notice that I feel much better, more energized, more productive, when I don’t eat a ton of pizza, cake, or beer. I therefore can easily choose to have them occasionally and then I want to return to eating my healthier diet so I can return to feeling good.
This unconditional permission to eat helps me to stay relaxed and confident in my relationship with food. It helps keep me far away from the diet mentality that was so unhelpful for me for so many years.
So that’s my personal experience, but does that really mean that saying “cheat meals” is bad for everyone?
What if that Language Works for me?
I heard someone recently describe having 2 planned cheat meals a week. This is someone who was following the Weight Watchers program and was encouraged by their dietitian to label these meals like this. This person said that they feel at peace with food and their body after many years of disordered eating and said that using this term works for them. Using this language to describe the cheat meal was simply a way to help her and her dietitian communicate and help her have accountability to not being so rigidly controlled with her eating.
If this was a client of mine (it wasn’t) I might have challenged them to consider if this language was really helpful or if there were negative consequences that she wasn’t aware of, like maintaining the diet mentality. If the main goal is to help her communicate with her dietitian about times when she was not so rigidly controlled with her eating, maybe she could just say that.
At the same time, you can also argue that the person appears to be making progress so why mess with it. She might truly just use the term to allow herself to enjoy certain foods without guilt.
When is Saying “Cheat Meal” Truly a Problem?
A recent study actually tried to measure this.
The study asked 248 Canadian college students to report how often they engaged in spontaneous or planned “cheat meals” based on the definition below (Murray et al., 2018).
“When one is following a diet regimen, they occasionally will have a meal that allows them to eat things that are not part of the specific eating plan. Cheat meals refer to a dietary practice where you may choose to eat something that is not normally part of the specific diet plan you have created.”
This definition is pretty broad and does not necessarily capture how rigid or controlled they are when they are following their “diet regimen” so let’s keep that in mind as we interpret the results.
They also measured binge eating that occurred over the past 4 weeks (eating an objectively large amount of food and feeling out of control) and overall eating disorder symptoms using questionnaires (Murray et al. 2018).
Interestingly, there were a lot of students engaging in “cheat meals” based on this description. Eighty-nine percent reported that they had ever had a cheat meal and 85% said they had one in the past month. Binge eating was also very high, with 85% of men and 77% of women endorsing a binge eating episode over the past month. Use of behaviors to compensate for calories consumed was also quite high, with 21% of men and 16% of women endorsing use of vomiting or laxatives after a cheat meal.
Overall, this suggests that the group of students captured have a fairly high rate of disordered eating, even compared to other samples of college students were rates of purging is closer to 1% (Serra et al., 2020), so again we should limit generalizing to the general population based on this one study.
Among men, cheat meals were associated with disordered eating symptoms, although somewhat surprisingly this wasn’t the case among women (Murray et al., 2018).
Taken together with what we know about the diet mentality and how dieting can be associated with weight gain and disordered eating, it appears that cheat meal language and behavior is definitely harmful for some individuals, as it is associated with more disordered eating symptoms, including vomiting or laxative use after the meal (Murray et al., 2018).
How to Know if Saying Cheat Meal is Harmful
Here are some ways to assess how much using the language cheat meal is likely to be problematic for your lifestyle change efforts:
- If it reinforces negative beliefs about yourself. If I cheated on my diet really means “I’ve failed” or “I’m a failure” then this language and beliefs underlying it needs to be addressed. The word cheat is by definition associated with morality or moral failure. So if having a cheat meal reinforces the idea that you are “out of control” or “lazy” or “lack willpower” that it’s very likely impacting your ability to make long-term change in your life, and needs to be changed ASAP.
- If its associated with guilt or shame. This can be obvious or subtle. Sometimes guilt about eating can be so subtle you might not even realize you are thinking that way. But ask yourself, when you are eating your cheat meal and afterwards, are you feeling some guilt about it and feeling external pressure that you “should” be eating something else, or fearful that the meal will lead to weight gain or lack of weight loss. If so, this language might be more harmful that you realize.
- If you are feeling out of control during the meal. If while you are eating the meal, you feel that you cannot stop if you wanted to or you feel that you cannot control the choice, those factors all suggest binge eating which is a form of disordered eating. It’s unlikely that your mindset is not serving you.
5 Tips to Use what we Know about Cheat Meals to Support Long-term Lifestyle Change
- Instead of calling it a cheat meal, maybe just call eating something you like. If you have to call it something, you can call it a treat. But why do you need to call it anything? What if you took comfort in knowing that most of the time you are having high quality unprocessed foods made at home, then maybe 5-20% of the time you are having other types of foods you enjoy. The exact percentage can be tailored to you and your lifestyle and goals and can change over time. If you and a therapist or dietitian need a way to check in on whether or not you are allowing yourself to eat foods you truly enjoy without guilt, maybe just ask that. For example, your dietitian could ask, “in the past week, have you been allowing yourself to eat foods you really enjoy without guilt?” If yes, “walk me through what that looked like and was like for you” to check on how they are feeling emotionally about it.
- Maximize the ways you get pleasure and control from your relationship with food. The appeal of the “cheat meal” for many is about allowing yourself to be human and let go of rigid control. That mindset is absolutely helpful. So plan times when you can have full unconditional permission to eat and fully enjoy without guilt and external limits.
- Nix the “I’ve been good today” or “I’m being naughty” when talking about your eating. Did you steal something? Hurt someone intentionally? If so, by all means label that behavior as naughty. But eating an unhealthy food? Not naughty in my book. Eating a cupcake is not morally wrong, nor does having a nice spinach salad make you a good human. If you have a cupcake, describe how you feel. Maybe you say “I had a cupcake at it was delicious. I really enjoyed it.” or maybe you say “I had a cupcake after dinner and now I’m super stuffed and feeling sluggish.” Describe it, but there isn’t any point in judging.
- Use descriptive versus judgmental language. Sometimes we simply need language to help us describe our food in a way that accurately describes what we know it will do to our bodies. Yes, it’s about the big picture of how much and how often you eat, but also to say all food in moderation are fine just isn’t accurate for everyone. For example, if certain foods make you feel physically ill, just say that. “I don’t feel great when I eat pizza” is very different than “I can’t” or “I shouldn’t have pizza.” Moving from judgment to description lays the foundation for truly figuring out what works for you and how to change it long-term.
I’d love to hear from you!
My goal with this blog is to provide accurate up to date information about your mindset about lifestyle change. What are you biggest struggles in these areas? What do you want to know more about? I’d love to get a message from you!
References
Murray, S. B., Pila, E., Mond, J. M., Mitchison, D., Bashill, A. J. Sabiston, C. M., & Griffith, S. (2018). Cheat meals: A benign or ominous variant of binge eating behavior? Appetite, 130, 274-278.
Serra, R. Kieken, G., Vanderlinden, J. et al. (2020). Binge eating and purging in first‐year college students: Prevalence, psychiatric comorbidity, and academic performance. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 53, 339-348.