The cheat day.

I don't want to confuse anyone and have people think that I condone eating badly because that is not the case, but something that I have found that works for me is a cheat night.  Not a cheat day or a cheat week but a cheat night.  I only pick a cheat night the night after a weigh in and usually only if I have actually lost weight.  It gives me the entire week to get back on track and helps me to stay focused.  What I have found is that by having one meal where I eat whatever I want takes away that burning desire to eat badly the rest of the week.  Now, I am not talking about mainlining straight butter, okay?  I am talking about just eating whatever it is you may be craving so that you don't end up on the wrong side of a late night chocolate chip cookie dough bender.  I think we have all been there once or twice.  For people like me, the average everyday over-eater, if we restrict our food intake too much we can end up craving something so badly that no matter what happens we seek out this food at all cost and end up feeling guilty because we strayed from the plan or ended up not losing weight because of it.  With a cheat night I find that I am able to satisfy that craving without going crazy.  There is one caveat, a cheat night only works if you have not already done so at another point during the week.  For me for example, the past two weeks I have been spot on with food.  I have eaten within my points all week and even had some of my weekly points left over come Monday night.  Because of this I felt comfortable with a cheat night after the weigh in.  Now the week of Hila's birthday where I ate something like 130 points in one meal, I would be better off skipping the cheat night, because 130 points in one day is probably worse than cheating on one meal.  Usually on a Monday night we will order out and eat Chinese, or something from Spartan's or just eat what we have at the house and have a nice bowl of ice cream (a Bobby to be exact).  If you are one of the unfortunate individuals who has never had a Bobby then let me tell you that you are missing out.  Vanilla ice cream, extra crunchy peanut butter, magic shell and topped with graham crackers crumbs.  Watch out Ben and Jerry, I don't have the patent on it yet but if I see it on your shelves I am coming for you.  This concoction has done wonders for people, its beyond good and to be enjoyed as often as possible, within reason of course.  Ok, back to the topic at hand, sorry peanut butter has a tendency to distract me...

So last night, as I thought was another successful weigh in, down 2.8 lbs. to a total of 213.8.  Since I stared this that is a total weight loss of 6.8 lbs.  It is because of this success and only this success that I feel like a cheat night helps me.  I am able to resist the pizza, cookies, cakes, etc. that are littered around my office each week simply because I know if I resist I can reward myself with exactly what I want and not feel guilty about eating something mediocre just because it is there.  This plan may not work for everyone but I have found that it works for me.  Try it out and let me know what you think.  Best of luck to you.  Dinner last night was some homemade (by Elyanah and Sarit) Israeli food and was beyond delicious.  Also added a glass of wine in there, ok two.