Even more flagrant offenders can be found in an analysis of restaurant foods conducted by scientists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.3
The Cheesecake Factory, for instance, makes a bruléed French toast with a side of bacon that weighs in at 2,780 calories, 93 grams of saturated fat, and 24 teaspoons of sugar. It also offers a creamy farfalle pasta with chicken and roasted garlic, which is a bit lighter at just 2,410 calories and 63 grams of saturated fat.
Let’s also not forget that those are just individual entrees, which, for many people, aren’t the entirety of their cheat meals. Add in some bread, an appetizer, and dessert, and the numbers can swell to horrific highs.
It should come as no surprise, then, that research conducted by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign concluded that calorically speaking, there’s not much of a difference between fast food and full-service dining.4
So, my point is this: if you don’t pay attention to your calorie intake when having a cheat meal, you can seriously set yourself back.
3. Indulging in cheat days, not meals
You just saw how easy it is to rack up a few thousand calories in just one trip to your favorite restaurant, so you can only imagine just how deep you can dig in an entire day of off-plan eating.
For example, here are the approximate calorie counts for a number of popular cheat-meal foods:
Deep-dish pizza: 480 calories per slice
Ice cream: 270 calories per half cup
Bacon cheeseburger: 595 calories per burger
Traditional cheesecake: 400 calories per slice
French fries: 498 calories per large serving
Chocolate chip cookies: 220 calories per large cookie
Creamy pasta: 593 calories per cup
Loaded nachos: 1,590 calories per plate
Pecan pie: 541 calories per slice
As you can see, just a few hearty portions of any of those is all it takes to push your calorie intake into the stratosphere.
4. Eating too much fat
Many people think that eating a lot of carbs is the surest way to gain fat, but they’re wrong. And that’s true even when you’re cheating.
What is the surest way to gain fat, though, is eating a large amount of dietary fat.5 To understand why this is, we have to review the physiology of what happens in the body when you eat carbs and fat.
Chemically speaking, glucose is very different from the molecules that compose body fat (lipids). This is why glucose must be heavily processed in the body before it can be stored as fat. This process of carb-to-fat conversion is known as de novo lipogenesis (DNL).
Surprisingly, research shows that DNL rarely occurs under normal dietary conditions.6 Furthermore, research shows that carbohydrate intake has to be absolutely sky high (700 to 900 grams per day for several days) for DNL to result in significant fat gain.7
There are exceptions, such as very large infusions of pure glucose and people with hyperinsulinemia (a condition where the amount of insulin in the blood is higher than normal), but in healthy individuals following a normal diet, carbs are rarely converted into body fat.8
How does this square with energy balance, you’re wondering?
Well, just because it’s hard to gain fat through DNL doesn’t mean that eating carbs can’t contribute to fat gain. We know it can, of course.
Here’s how this works: when you eat carbs, fat oxidation decreases, which means that most of the dietary fat you eat with the carbs will be stored as body fat.9
Now, what about dietary fat? How is it metabolized compared to carbohydrate?
We recall that dietary fat is metabolized very differently and stored very easily as body fat, which explains why research shows that a high-fat meal causes more immediate fat gain than a high-carb meal.10
All this also helps explain why research conducted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health found that calorie for calorie, low-fat dieting is more effective for fat loss than low-carb (at least in the short term), and why studies show that it’s easier to overeat on a high-fat diet, and that obesity rates are higher among high-fat dieters than low-fat.11
Oh, and in case you’re wondering if you can “hack” your metabolism by eating a diet very high in carbs and very, very low in fat, I applaud your creative thinking, but don’t bother.
Not only would doing so be bad for your health, but research shows that when fat intake is too low, DNL ramps up, increasing fat storage.12
5. Drinking alcohol
In chapter 7, you learned that alcohol blunts fat oxidation and triggers DNL, and when you mix this double whammy with overeating—especially the greasy, fatty foods that most people like to eat when drinking—you get maximum fat gain.
Just one or two large alcohol-infused cheat meals per week can be enough to wipe out all fat loss and stick you in a rut.
How to Cheat Without Ruining Your Diet
Now that you know what you’re not supposed to do, let’s look at how to cheat correctly.
Cheat once per week.
When cutting, try not to exceed your average TDEE for the day.
When lean bulking, try not to exceed 130 percent of your average TDEE for the day.
Try to keep your fat intake under 100 grams for the day.
Drink alcohol intelligently.
Let’s review each of these points separately.
1. Cheat once per week.
Whether you’re cutting, lean bulking, or maintaining, cheat just once per week, whether in a single meal or spread throughout an entire day, and you’ll be able to loosen up and enjoy yourself without anything to worry about.
2. When cutting, try not to exceed your average TDEE for the day.
This gives you plenty of room to eat foods you normally wouldn’t eat when cutting, especially if you’re putting all those extra calories into just one or two meals.
You can also “save up” calories if you want to eat a lot in one meal by eating more or less nothing but protein leading up to (and after) it. This tip is great for people like me who like to eat one large cheat meal.
For example, my cheat meals are almost always dinners, so throughout the day, I’ll eat a serving of protein every few hours but skip the carbs and fats that I would normally eat. This way, when I get to dinner, I have a large buffer of carbs and fat (and thus calories) before I even come close to my average TDEE for the day.
When I cheat at breakfast, the strategy is the same: I eat most of my carbs and fat for the day in that one meal and then have mostly protein from there on out.
In case you’re wondering, here are some of my favorite cheat meals in no particular order:
Margarita pizza from a local restaurant that imports ingredients from Italy
Homemade pancakes covered in syrup (I love Kodiak Cakes’ Whole Wheat Oat & Honey mix)
Jeni’s Brambleberry Crisp ice cream
Fleming’s steak and chocolate lava cake
Delicious bread rolls and pastries from a local baker
Plain ol’ Five Guys cheeseburger with fries
And great, now I’m drooling. Time to practice some of those inner-game techniques we learned earlier . . .
3. When lean bulking, try not to exceed 130 percent of your average TDEE for the day.
When you’re in a calorie surplus, your body is primed for both muscle and fat gain.
This is why cheating can catch up with you very quickly when lean bulking. Give yourself too much dietary latitude, and you’ll watch your waistline expand rather rapidly.
Thus, when cheating on a lean bulk phase, you can bump your calorie intake up a bit, but don’t go to town.
Truth be told, when I’m lean bulking, I try not to exceed my normal daily calorie intake by using the “saving up” tip I just shared.
4. Try to keep your dietary fat intake under 100 grams for the day.
This not only helps you keep your calories under control (remember that a gram of fat contains about 9 calories), but it also helps you minimize fat gain.
So instead of doubling down on your favorite fatty foods when you cheat, go high carb instead. This will result in less immediate fat storage, and it also has other benefits when you’re cutting.
One of the downsides of keeping your body in a calorie deficit is that it reduces the levels of a hormone called leptin, which is produced by body fat.13
In simple terms, leptin tells your brain that there’s plenty of energy available, and that your body can expend energy freely, eat normal amounts of food, and engage in normal amounts of physical activity.
When you restrict your calories to lose fat, however, the drop in leptin tells your body that it’s in an energy-deficient state and must expend less energy and consume more.
It accomplishes this through several mechanisms, including lowering the basal metabolic rate, reducing general activity levels, and stimulating the appetite.14
Raising leptin levels reverses these effects, which is one of the reasons you feel better when you stop restricting your calories and return to normal eating.
To fully reverse the dip in leptin that comes with cutting, you have to come out of a calorie deficit. You can temporarily boost leptin production, however, by acutely increasing your calorie intake for a day or two, giving your metabolism a shot in the arm.15
Research shows that eating a large amount of carbohydrate (two grams or more per pound of body weight per day) is particularly effective for this.16
This is known as “refeeding,” and it’s a win-win. It lets you load up on your favorite carbs and enjoy a physical and psychological boost.
5. Drink alcohol intelligently.
As you learned in the last chapter, the smart way to drink alcohol is to:
Not drink more than one day per week.
Lower your carb and fat intakes that day. (Eat more protein than you normally would.)
Try not to eat while drinking and stay away from carb-laden drinks like beer and fruity stuff. (Stick to dry wines and spirits.)
In other words, don’t drink too often and don’t combine it with cheat meals.
•••
Cheating incorrectly is one of the major reasons why so many people “mysteriously” can’t lose weight “no matter what they do,” and why so many people have “mysterious” health problems despite “eating pretty healthily.”
They don’t realize that you can borderline starve yourself all week and, in one weekend, regain all the fat you lost, and that a smattering of fruits and vegetables here and there can’t make up for general nutritional negligence.
Cheat correctly, though, and you can have the best of all worlds.
You can enjoy the satisfaction of indulging regularly without the penalties of excessive fat gain and impaired health, as well as the pleasure that comes from having a strong, vital body that looks and feels exceptional.
Key Takeaways
When done correctly, cheating can make it easier to stick to your diet and see results. When done incorrectly, however, it can cause considerable trouble.
Cheating consists of eating a lot more calories or a lot less nutritious food than you normally would eat.
Eat too many calories too frequently, and you’ll fail to lose weight as desired (or will gain weight too quickly), and disregard nutrition too frequently, and you’ll increase the risk of developing nutritional deficiencies.
If you don’t pay attention to your calorie intake when having a cheat meal, you can seriously set yourself back.
The surest way to gain fat is eating a large amount of dietary fat.
When you eat carbs, fat oxidation decreases, which means that most of the dietary fat you eat with the carbs will be stored as body fat.
Dietary fat is chemically similar to the lipids in body fat and thus can be converted and stored very easily as body fat. This explains why a high-fat meal causes more immediate fat gain than a high-carb meal.
Alcohol blunts fat oxidation and triggers DNL, and when you mix this double whammy with overeating—especially the greasy, fatty foods that most people like to eat when drinking—you get maximum fat gain.
Just one or two large alcohol-infused cheat meals per week can be enough to wipe out all fat loss and stick you in a rut.
Whether you’re cutting, lean bulking, or maintaining, cheat just once per week, whether in a single meal or spread throughout an entire day.
When cutting, try not to exceed your average TDEE for the day.
You can “save up” calories if you want to eat a lot in one meal by eating more or less nothing but protein leading up to (and after) it.
When lean bulking, try not to exceed 130 percent of your average TDEE for the day.
When I’m lean bulking, I try not to exceed my normal daily calorie intake by using the “saving up” tip.
Try to keep your dietary fat intake under 100 grams for the day.
One of the downsides of keeping your body in a calorie deficit is that it reduces the levels of a hormone called leptin, which tells your brain that there’s plenty of energy available, and that your body can expend energy freely, eat normal amounts of food, and engage in normal amounts of physical activity.
You can temporarily boost leptin production by acutely increasing your calorie intake for a day or two, giving your metabolism a shot in the arm.
Eating a large amount of carbohydrate (two grams or more per pound of body weight per day) is particularly effective for this.
Don’t drink too often and don’t combine it with cheat meals.
DiNicolantonio JJ, O’Keefe JH, Wilson W. Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis. Open Hear. 2018;5(1):e000668. doi:10.1136/openhrt-2017-000668; Kulie T, Groff A, Redmer J, Hounshell J, Schrager S. Vitamin D: an evidence-based review. J Am Board Fam Med. 2009;22(6):698-706. doi:10.3122/jabfm.2009.06.090037; Miller JL. Iron deficiency anemia: a common and curable disease. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2013;3(7). doi:10.1101/cshperspect.a011866.
Urban LE, Weber JL, Heyman MB, et al. Energy Contents of Frequently Ordered Restaurant Meals and Comparison with Human Energy Requirements and US Department of Agriculture Database Information: A Multisite Randomized Study. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2016;116(4):590-598.e6. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2015.11.009.
Center for Science in the Public Interest. Xtreme Eating 2014. Center for Science in the Public Interest Website. https://cspinet.org/eating-healthy/foods-avoid/xtreme2014. Accessed August 22, 2018.
An R. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption and daily energy and nutrient intakes in US adults. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2016;70(1):97-103. doi:10.1038/ejcn.2015.104.
Horton TJ, Drougas H, Brachey A, Reed GW, Peters JC, Hill JO. Fat and carbohydrate overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage. Am J Clin Nutr. 1995;62(1):19-29. doi:10.1093/ajcn/62.1.19.
Hellerstein MK. No common energy currency: de novo lipogenesis as the road less traveled. Am J Clin Nutr. 2001;74(6):707-708. doi:10.1093/ajcn/74.6.707.
Acheson KJ, Schutz Y, Bessard T, Anantharaman K, Flatt JP, Jéquier E. Glycogen storage capacity and de novo lipogenesis during massive carbohydrate overfeeding in man. Am J Clin Nutr. 1988;48(2):240-247. doi:10.1093/ajcn/48.2.240.
Aarsland A, Chinkes D, Wolfe RR. Contributions of de novo synthesis of fatty acids to total VLDL-triglyceride secretion during prolonged hyperglycemia/hyperinsulinemia in normal man. J Clin Invest. 1996;98(9):2008-2017. doi:10.1172/JCI119005.
Acheson KJ, Flatt JP, Jéquier E. Glycogen synthesis versus lipogenesi
s after a 500 gram carbohydrate meal in man. Metabolism. 1982;31(12):1234-1240.
Horton TJ, Drougas H, Brachey A, Reed GW, Peters JC, Hill JO. Fat and carbohydrate overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage. Am J Clin Nutr. 1995;62(1):19-29. doi:10.1093/ajcn/62.1.19.
Hall KD, Bemis T, Brychta R, et al. Calorie for Calorie, Dietary Fat Restriction Results in More Body Fat Loss than Carbohydrate Restriction in People with Obesity. Cell Metab. 2015;22(3):427-436. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2015.07.021; Rolls BJ. Carbohydrates, fats, and satiety. Am J Clin Nutr. 1995;61(4):960S-967S. doi:10.1093/ajcn/61.4.960S; Bludell JE, Lawton CL, Cotton JR, Macdiarmid JI. Control of Human Appetite: Implications for The Intake of Dietary Fat. Annu Rev Nutr. 1996;16(1):285-319. doi:10.1146/annurev.nu.16.070196.001441.
Schwarz J-M, Linfoot P, Dare D, Aghajanian K. Hepatic de novo lipogenesis in normoinsulinemic and hyperinsulinemic subjects consuming high-fat, low-carbohydrate and low-fat, high-carbohydrate isoenergetic diets. Am J Clin Nutr. 2003;77(1):43-50. doi:10.1093/ajcn/77.1.43.
Jéquier E. Leptin signaling, adiposity, and energy balance. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2002;967:379-388.
Park H-K, Ahima RS. Physiology of leptin: energy homeostasis, neuroendocrine function and metabolism. Metabolism. 2015;64(1):24-34. doi:10.1016/j.metabol.2014.08.004.
Olson BR, Cartledge T, Sebring N, Defensor R, Nieman L. Short-term fasting affects luteinizing hormone secretory dynamics but not reproductive function in normal-weight sedentary women. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1995;80(4):1187-1193. doi:10.1210/jcem.80.4.7714088.
Dirlewanger M, di Vetta V, Guenat E, et al. Effects of short-term carbohydrate or fat overfeeding on energy expenditure and plasma leptin concentrations in healthy female subjects. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2000;24(11):1413-1418.
Part 5
The Last Exercise Advice You’ll Ever Need
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Bigger Leaner Stronger Page 28