The Cheat Day

If you’re on any kind of strict diet program you’ve probably experienced downfalls, setback or even quick. There are several very simple solutions to help with.

The first one I was exposed to was from Bill Phillips when I was competing in his first two EAS physic transformation contest, oh yea…I finished in the top 1% both times….anyway I digress. Bill had a basic technique, if you followed your workout for the day you would make a slash on your calendar for that specific day like this /. Then if you followed you nutrition program exactly, you would make slash in the opposite direction like this \. Then at the end of the month if you had a bunch of “X” you know you did well and were continuing with the progress.

The issue with this technique is it didn’t allow for slippage, you either did it (succeeded) or you didn’t (failed). You had to be extremely disciplined, focused and motivated to keep this up.

My idea was to allow a cheat day. For me, my two favorite types of meals were Saturday night and Sunday morning. So to squeeze these perceived two days into one I defined a day as 24 hours. My cheat day is from Saturday lunch to Sunday lunch. This gave me enough flexibility to have a sinfully delicious Saturday date night dinner and then be able to have a gargantuan Sunday brunch. This plan worked very well for me, until…

…until I met John Berardi. John’s an amazing trainer and nutritionist. John’s philosophy is the 90% rule. That is, if you maintain your nutrition program for 90% of the time, the other 10% won’t make the big of difference. John’s program works great! He has trained winners in all sports and figure competition. John’s routine and his Precision Nutrition recommendation are suited for any person, regardless of their physical activity, or lack of.

If you’re not incorporating some kind of a cheat or reward day, you’re potential setting yourself up for big failure. Take a look again at rewarding yourself for your hard work on a regular basis…you’re body and mind will thank!

To Your Perfect Health!
Gregg Swanson
Warrior Fitness Training
Extreme Fitness for Lifetime Fitness
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