Thread: Kinda wanna cheat.

You mean one of DPw8's meal plans........

Don't Cheat....and I'm not gonna tell you it's OK...go read Nikegurl's new Journal about what can happen! Or ASS..yes ASS w8 (not that she knows first hand, BUTT has seen it in others) what can happen....ASS HAPPENS!

Best trick however, when you get a craving...drink a liter of water! Next best trick for sugar cravings (besides avoiding spicy food)....use glutamine! YES, glutamine helps with sugar cravings!

DP

Ahhhhhhh, yes of course I meant DPw8!

Fair enough, I'll fight the craving, and thanks for the tip, I'll try the glutamine if it gets too bad. Thanks a lot.

Cravings are just falling leptin fucking with your head.

In all reality, you don't actually want carbs, but your body is scared shitless that there's a famine and it's gonna starve to death.

DON'T! It's so much harder. I'm back on track now but hungry and having carb cravings all over again. (those do go away after a few days)

It's a big mental defeat too (for me at least). If you're doing the diet perfectly you have so much invested you don't want to mess up. But if you cheat once it's so much easier to say - well, what's twice? or three cheats?

In my experience it's much better to stick with it and not stray. You find your groove.

Be better than I was! Don't! Besides no matter what you eat, when it's gone you know you'll figure it wasn't worth it. Think long term gratification instead.

FUCKIN PIECE OF CRAP!

I just cheated...i had a piece of a rice cake...first cheat in 1.5 months, i feel like shit!

Originally posted by Yanick
FUCKIN PIECE OF CRAP!

I just cheated...i had a piece of a rice cake...first cheat in 1.5 months, i feel like shit!

BLECH what a lousy cheat!

Originally posted by Leslie2196

BLECH what a lousy cheat!

lmao...I agree lol

Originally posted by Dr. Pain
....use glutamine! YES, glutamine helps with sugar cravings!
DP

Not me!! I take at least 20 g glutamine a day and I still eat PB and vanilla wafers every night!!

not eating sugar also helps with sugar cravings. lol

Thanks for the support everyone, yeah I think I'm fine now, just really wanted some pizza or something last night, but I'm not gonna cheat. Also, the only carbs I eat at all are the small amounts in almonds and veggies right now, so I'm getting little or no sugar, except of course for my carb ups. Thanks.

glad you're better today. one thing - if you do slip. don't make it a carb cheat. better not to cheat at all but if you do - don't have carbs. when i first started the program i'd maybe have an "unscheduled" Tbs of natural peanut butter and that wasn't such a big deal on occassion. but when i started eating bread.....it got ugly. Good job!

Originally posted by nikegurl
glad you're better today. one thing - if you do slip. don't make it a carb cheat. better not to cheat at all but if you do - don't have carbs. when i first started the program i'd maybe have an "unscheduled" Tbs of natural peanut butter and that wasn't such a big deal on occassion. but when i started eating bread.....it got ugly. Good job!

That's true...if you're going to cheat, then cheat on fat/pro, not carbs and sugar!

I'd rather cheat with carbs, little/no fat.

Not only do you get some glycogen supercompensation, which prolly won't result in any spillover and even if it did, it'd prolly just boost leptin levels a bit; but you also get the potential anbolism from insulin, potential leptin upregulation via the insulin, potential thyroid upregulation and a lil' boost for your next training workout.

If you're only gonna cheat a little, then do it near bedtime, so you can go to sleep and forget about any cravings and eating even more.

The seritonnin increases may also aid you getting a good night's sleep.

How about this, instead of calling it cheating, make it a planned "refeed". Most bodybuilders get into the stupid notion that going for so long w/no cheating will result in better gains and is hardcore. Its actually counterproductive, especially in terms of drops in leptin, as well as psychologically draining.

I was the same way for a long time. I started incorporation high carb, low fat days into my diet much more frequently and my bodyfat is dropping MUCH faster than when I was eating almost no carbs for long periods of time. My energy, mental well being, sex drive, etc. are much better now as well.

Plan it into your schedule and it won't be cheating, I assure you that it will provide better results than being strict all the time. Start once a week and dedicate a day of high carb, high sugar (but try to keep fat low), and enjoy the benefits it will give you. If its planned, its not cheating, and realize that it may provide a boost to leptin which is one of the KEYs to fat loss, and is responsible for many of the negative effects of dieting, including greater muscle loss, lower metabolic rate, etc etc.

Even Charles Poliquin uses a cheat day every 5 days for his athletes, and they report greater fat loss b/c of it. Most likely due to leptin, as well as better adherance during the stricter days, KNOWING you will soon get a break.

you might want to check this out:

(great article on cheat meals originally posted by dr. pain)

Cheat Meals!

I'm aware of the article, its from T-mag, I read the site frequently. Its written by John Berardi. He has some good ideas and some have no basis. As Lyle likes to point out, he uses voodoo nutrition, like not combining carbs and fats, which has no scientific support for hypocaloric diets and fat loss. He also prescribes incredibly high calorie levels for most individuals. Anyway, he is smart, but doesnt have all the answers. No one does.

The thing is, if fat is kept low, you can seriously overeat carbs and will gain little or no fat. It depends on several factors, including levels of muscle and liver glycogen, but a recent study overfed 500-700g carbs to individuals in a given meal and fat gain was almost nothing. The body can temporarily remain burning fat and upregulate carb burning and storage to accomidate huge feedings. It takes several days of extreme overeating of carbs to cause fat gain, which isn't what I'm suggesting.

Now if the day is high calories, high carbs, and HIGH FAT, then you will get fat, this is the standard american diet (SAD).

Again, the benefits outweigh the potential negative effects when planning a day like this. Berardi might just be writing to appear hardcore for the T-mag audience. Either way he doesn't make reference to replenishing Leptin which is one of the main causes of EVERYTHING that drops when dieting. This alone would make it worth refeeding, to potentially replenish leptin.

He goes on talking about eating pizza, and how hard it is to get back on course once you cheat. 1st of all, pizza is high in fat and carbs, not a good food for this. Second, if its planned, less guilt, and its easier to get back to dieting. Personally I have no trouble having my needed refeed period and going back to strict dieting, knowing that the benefits far outweight the negative effects.

Pete, you are clearly a MFW/avantlabs reading kinda guy.

Amen.

Damn good post pete

W8, thank you.

Chicken_Daddy, you got it. And the soap opera that is MFW provides me w/ a great deal of additional information when I need a break trying to drudge through all the facts.

But i'm also very familiar w/ much of what is talked about here, it seems that the Beverly International approach is pretty common here, and its a great approach. Problem is, even w/ the super-high protein intake, small meals, and carb-up meals, many of them still lose quite a bit of muscle. I was discussing it w/ someone who had access to some of the body-comp changes their competetors undergo and they still lose a lot of muscle. I'm sure your familiar w/ this line "Your Body Hates You"

meant additional amusement, not information. oops

So, does the carb up meal in DPw8's program serve as the Refeed, or is a Refeed needed in addition to the carb up?

And if the Refeed is needed in addition, what foods would be optimal to use?

Originally posted by LrdViperScrpion
So, does the carb up meal in DPw8's program serve as the Refeed, or is a Refeed needed in addition to the carb up?

And if the Refeed is needed in addition, what foods would be optimal to use?

Yes, the carb up meal would be the "refeed" pete is talking about in our programs.

DPw8

I think the moral of this thread is dont cheat on your diet because in the end you are only cheating yourself.

I had 2 burgers, veg pizza 2x and drank 2x in three months
drinking was the worse thing a little takes days a lot take almost a wk to recover from. Fat burgers taste so good b/c of fat but when you eat so clean it hits you like lead. calling it a cheat meal makes you feel better you deserve it but don't over do it. they are costly I know the sweet thing can be the worse yet. i found a fruit bar 1g of fat only 12 g surgar but better than candy, chips dognuts etc. count the cost before you cheat. your wt goes up your M goes down it really set you back alot.

these comments prove my point that people equate dieting harder always means better results, w/out understanding the underlying physiology taking place that could actually allow BETTER results by cheating with the right foods on a diet.

Its wrong that cheating will set you back, as long as the cheat day is within reason (high carbs, lower fat), I have free-for alls following these guidelines and lose more fat then when strict for weeks on end, as have many others.

Its funny b/c people see me thinking i'm crazy eating fruity pebbles, sweet tarts, etc. every few days and I'm losing fat while others are saying they're hardcore and say cheating is bad, a sign of weakness, etc. w/out ever learning what goes on in the body during dieting and that cheat time might actually serve to benefit by tricking the body into thinking its not actually starving, which is essentially what your body thinks when you are dieting. Instead of bashing high carb days maybe some of us should learn what really happens in the body and will then have a better understanding of why they are mostly positive for a natural bodybuilder.

Pete, you bring up good points an I agree for the most part. But sometimes people "cheat" on the wrong things....high fat & high carb for example, McDonalds or whatever...I wouldn't call that a planned refeed...that's too close to an excuse to eat like shit. If truly planned, and the right things are eaten, yes, it will only further your progress! The carb-up meal in the DPw8 plans are meant to do just that.

And much of the time, we don't even use Carb-ups, they are just another tool.

Simplistically, we like to use certain carbs cyclically to help clients avoid "acclimation" and down regulation of thyroid (metabolic) function. "D


DP

W8, I totally agree w/ u, that's why every thread I posted placed emphasis on keeping fat low.

Pain, I agree with what you are doing and that's what I do w/ myself and my clients. Cyclical (mainly, carb cycling diets) are superior in many ways to most traditional diets and one of the potential benefits is increasing thyroid function. I definitely agree it prevents the body from completely adapting therefore allowing greater progress than eating the same way continuously.

As an interesting side note, the downregulation in throid that is seen on a true ketogenic diet doesn't appear to slow down fat loss. It seems to be a mechanism that serves to protect muscle mass during the diet. Thyroid drugs on such a diet can actually cause more muscle loss than not using them on such a diet.