The day after a cheat day can feel awful. After enjoying forbidding foods, you’re probably left feeling bloated and maybe a little guilty. You might be left thinking it’s a good idea to fast after that cheat day. But is it a good idea?
This post covers fasting after a cheat day and ways to build a better relationship with food.
Is it good to fast after a cheat day?
After a cheat day, it can be tempting to over-correct by fasting and being super strict with your eating the next day. But no matter how much food you ate on the cheat day, your body still needs nourishment today.
Yes, you might notice you’re a little less physically hungry the day after a cheat day. The body doesn’t exactly operate off of a 24 hour schedule for hunger needs.
Do you ever notice some days you barely feel hungry and other days it feels like your hunger is a bottomless pit, while other days are somewhere in the middle?
The best thing to do after a cheat day, or a day where you feel like you had more than you really need, is just to listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues.
The problem with cheat days
Back when I was dieting, I used to look forward to my cheat days and cheat meals.
Really, I spent most of the days I was supposed to be good dreaming about the foods I’d be able to have on my cheat day.
I anticipated the cheat foods and felt intense cravings for them. Then the cheat day would come around and I would eat way more of those foods than I truly wanted. I ended up feeling stuffed and bloated every time.
Because that’s really the problem with cheat days and cheat meals. They basically teach binge eating instead of a healthy relationship with food.
It creates this sense of scarcity around the cheat day foods. Research shows that perceived scarcity changes an individual’s behaviors with sharing resources, seeking more immediate gratification, and decreases feelings of self-worth.
Dieting creates that feeling of mental scarcity with food because it forces rules on when you can eat and what foods are allowed. This leads to a bad relationship with food while impacting self-esteem and self-trust.
How to create a healthier relationship with food
If you want to end the dieting rollercoaster of trying to perfectly follow a diet plan followed by cheat days, then you want to create a better relationship with food with a foundation of self-trust.
In my opinion, the best way to do this is by creating food freedom by becoming an intuitive eater. Learn more about the principles of intuitive eating with this post. And learn how I went from chronic dieter to intuitive eater in my intuitive eating before and after story.