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I’ve noticed that lately, “cheat meals” have become super common.
As more and more people are choosing healthy diets and lifestyle choices like alkaline and keto, every now and then, they have a cheat meal or cheat day where they don’t stick to their diet.
This might surprise you, but I don’t think a cheat meal is a bad thing. It makes the way you eat more sustainable, so you don’t feel like you’re being deprived. Deprivation never works and when it comes to diets, depriving yourself is a ticket to the weight roller coaster that you never get off.
That said, if you have the occasional cheat meal or cheat day, you need to know there are 2 very different ways of “cheating.”
Today, I’m going to share why it’s okay to try either kind of cheat meal, but ultimately, one is a much better way to go for your health and for how you’ll feel.
Let’s get started by talking about the cheat meal most people eat.
The Typical Cheat Meal
For most people who are on a diet or otherwise try to eat gluten free, sugar free, or dairy free, a cheat meal looks like this…
Anything and everything and the worse a food is for you, the better!
The thinking here is that you stick to healthy foods almost all of the time, so when you cheat, you go whole hog with extra bacon on top.
Now I’m going to shock some of you when I say this, but I don’t actually have any problem with people trying this kind of cheat meal!
Here’s why… When you eat garbage on a cheat day, you’re going to feel like garbage pretty soon afterward.
I’ve seen this time and time again with patients who say, “I’m so glad I cheated because now I realize how GOOD the alkaline diet is making me feel when I don’t cheat. I felt TERRIBLE when I ate gluten/dairy/meat/sugar, so I’m going to stay off of it because I don’t want to feel like that again.”
And if you DON’T feel like CRAP when you eat a meal like that, then there’s a much bigger problem at hand.
Ultimately, a cheat day can reinforce your good habits.
But I will say this… Remember with these cheat meals what you’re cheating on. You’re not cheating on your diet, as most people believe.
You’re cheating on your body. And it’s the only one you have.
You don’t cheat on your partner, so why would you feel like it’s okay to cheat on your body? I’m going to be quite honest and blunt, and you ,may not like me for saying this, but here goes – When you put garbage in your body, you’re ultimately telling yourself, that you don’t truly respect yourself.
That’s why I want to point out that there is another way.
The 80/20 Lifestyle Cheat Meal
You probably already know about the 80/20 alkaline lifestyle, where you eat 80% alkaline and only 20% acidic.
But what you may not know is that you can eat 80/20 on each plate OR over the course of a whole day or even a whole week.
So in other words, the 80/20 alkaline lifestyle has cheat meals built right in.
Here’s how to put this into practice…
You can split up every plate, so that 80% of the food on the plate is HEALTHY (alkaline), and no more than 20% is unhealthy (acidic). That is all about balance.
Now, if you want to look at this more on a weekly basis of full alkaline meals versus full cheat (acidic) meals, this is how it would look like.
During a typical week, you eat 21 meals and maybe 7 snacks (though I’d like to move to you the place where you are eating so on point, that you don’t need the snacks, because the only thing snacks do, is pump INSULIN into your blood, which is your AGING hormone). If you eat 7 alkaline snacks and 7 alkaline breakfasts, among the remaining 14 meals, you can have 4-5 cheat meals while eating 100% alkaline the other 9-10 meals.
So what do those 4-5 cheat meals look like? Not anything and everything and certainly not garbage!
Let’s use my NEVER / BETTER / BEST philosophy…
There are some foods, you NEVER want to eat, like WHITE BREAD, PEANUT BUTTER, and ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS…so what can I use in their place?
For example, with the white bread above – what can I eat that is similar, but a little better? Well, 7-grain bread would be better, and a sprouted Ezekiel bread would most likely be best.
What about peanut butter? Well, dry roasted almond butter would be better, but a RAW almond butter would be best (and better yet, a sprouted raw almond, or coconut, or cacao butter).
Use this chart below to make some better choices, and for any foods outside this box, use this way of thinking – how can I make this food that is really BAD, better.
For the rest of your meals, you’re going to stick with alkaline foods:
- Dark, leafy greens
- Raw nuts and nut butters
- Seeds like chia
- Extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, and macadamia oil
- Avocados
- Lemons, limes, and grapefruit
- Veggies like asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, beets, carrots, cucumbers, onions, garlic, and zucchini
- Beans, chickpeas, and hummus
- Wild-caught salmon, anchovies, sardines, and trout
- Quinoa
Progress, Not Perfection
No one eats perfectly – not me, not you, not anyone. So don’t expect perfection or feel guilty if you fall short of your goals.
Part of the beauty of the Alkamind system is that we have built-in support even when you cheat or fall short of the 80/20 goal.
That’s why starting your day with Alkamind Daily Greens is a great way to get 5 whole servings of organic, green super foods in just 30 seconds.
Did you know that the #1 ingredient in our Greens is organic wheatgrass? It’s actually over half wheatgrass. We’ve combined that with cabbage, collard greens, parsley, romaine, dandelion, beets, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, and celery.
So by taking your Alkamind Daily Greens first thing every morning, you’re starting off your day with an energy-boosting dose of the most powerful, alkaline foods on the planet!
GET OFF YOUR ACID!
Dr. Daryl
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