Not a Cheat Meal, Just a Meal
This one goes out to 17 year old me that used to believe that having fitness and eating out did not go hand in hand. Look at me, thriving.
There is no cheating in eating, so stop calling a meal you wouldn’t typically have a “cheat meal”.
Food is fuel, and for nourishment, NOT guilt.
May I stress how your language around food creates your reality. Your perception of a term like this could potentially hurt your relationship with food...& I don’t want anyone to go through that.
I personally went through this for years.
Everyday I work so hard to rewrite my past; to fix the years of how I convinced myself that in order to be considered “healthy” and reach my “fitness goals” meant eliminating anything & everything society deemed “bad”.
But even when I do eat the slice of pizza, cookie, pastry, burger or anything out of my “norm”, what baffles me is when someone never fails to say to ME: “oh, it’s a cheat day huh?”
Or give my body one quick look as I’m eating and say ACTUAL things such as:
“You’re so slim you must not eat like anything”
“LOL you probably don’t eat carbs or fruit”
“Wow you’re so tiny, I’m sure you hardly ever let yourself eat bread or pastas”
“Why aren’t you eating what we’re eating, is it because there’s carbs in this? HA”
“Oh, I noticed you didn’t put (insert food) on your plate, you need to eat more!”
I’m sorry but, not only does that hurt, but makes me sad. Sad because statement like can have the potential to promote disordered eating in general. I’ve seen it happen to others, I’ve seen it happen to myself, and I don’t want it to happen to YOU.
Reminding yourself that LIFE is about moderation and not deprivation could be the saving grace of your mentality surrounding your physique goals, let alone your mentally surrounding food.
So please, trust me in this, it’s important.
Life is meant to be lived, not lived in fear of calories or having a meal out with good company.
