Source: bakersroyale.com via Lauren on Pinterest
If you have ever lived in the world of athletes, you may be familiar with a term, the"cheat day". A cheat day is a day set aside each week to eat the foods that are not on your diet…it is included in a lot of strict regimens with the philosophy that if you let yourself have those foods one day a week, it will be easier to follow the strict regime the rest of the week.The cheat day is extremely counterproductive for PCOS, and here just a few of the reasons why.
1. It creates the mentality that there are good foods, and bad foods. Of course, there are foods that are more supportive of lessening insulin resistance than others. But subscribing"good" and"bad" designations to foods can be counterproductive. I have found that the minute a food becomes something you limit to just one day a week…it can cause you to crave and obsess about the very food you are supposed to be limiting.
2. And that brings me to my next point. Binge eating is extremely strongly correlated with PCOS, and what happens on some of those cheat days…can be mind boggling. Women with PCOS are extremely sensitive to small changes in diet, and a binge episode can include salty foods that promote fluid retention. If your physician is monitoring your insulin function with a test called a hemoglobin A1c, it is a reading of your average blood glucose over the past weeks. Major binges that take you a few days to get over can throw that average off.
3. I have seen cases where overdoing the cheat day has been a major barrier to overcoming insulin resistance. It can be the thing that provokes your physician to increase your medication dose…a dose which may be too high on days when you are eating well. The very best way to reduce your dependence on medication, is to refrain from starving/bingeing cycles that make it hard for your physician to create a medication regimen that helps you.
4. Cheat days can interfere with weight loss. Let's say you are losing about a pound a week. Your calorie deficit is about 500 per day. All it takes is one fast food dinner, in addition to a normal breakfast and lunch, to offset your progress you have made the rest of the week.
5. A lot of foods people"cheat" on are processed and high in sodium. It can take a few days to flush the water this sodium is retaining. My experience is, if you are working with the mentality of cheating and not cheating, even if you give yourself permission to do so, there is guilt involved after the cheat. And that can drive you to weigh in the next day, look at the higher weight, assume it is fat you have gained…encouraging overexercising and over restricting food. Both of those choices impose stress on your insulin and cortisol systems and interfere with blood sugar control.
Our goal at inCYST is to create a lifestyle where the healthier foods are the ones you gravitate toward, not because they are good for you, but because you genuinely enjoy them. My experience is that when you are in a hormone-friendly groove, you actually LIKE to eat greens, fruits, and lean proteins. I know, for me, when I am taking care of myself, I can barely handle walking through a food court in the mall or airport without feeling nauseated from the smell. I don't really need cheat days because I don't have an appetite for the kind of foods cheat days are designed to allow.
When you are craving"bad" foods, it is a major sign that you are out of balance. Cheat days have a way of keeping you stuck In that imbalance, not helping you out of it.
Let us help you learn what life is like living life in balance, rather than constantly counteracting some kind of extreme with another extreme. That is what we excel at.