happy hour in Coral Gables

If you want to achieve your fitness goals, no matter if you want to lose weight or gain muscle, paying attention to what you eat is crucial. As you’ve probably heard- “Abs are made in the kitchen”, so it’s crucial to eat cleanly and fill your plate with nutritional meals. Therefore, one must stay away from pasta, pizza, burgers and all the other junk food we all love so much. But do you have to stick to your diet 100% of the time or can you enjoy an occasional cheat meal? What is that beloved cheat meal and does it have an appropriate name? Should we rebrand cheat meals into treat meals?

Cheat meal awakens guilt

Cheat meals are weekly meals that allow people to stray from their diet path and indulge in whatever they want to eat. Cheat meals are used once a week for most people who are dieting, and they can sometimes turn into entire cheat days. It’s usually the favorite part of dieting for most people on a diet. However, the words “cheat meal” can have such a negative connotation that they can make a person feel guilty for enjoying something they like. Instead of enjoying food, cheating on your diet can awaken disappointment in yourself. And who are you cheating with your “cheat meal” exactly? To your body? To your own dieting rules?

Treat sounds much more positive

Having a little treat has never made anyone feel guilty. Treating yourself is healthy and important for mental health and motivation, so why not have treat meals instead of cheat meals? Having treat meals is important for many reasons, the most obvious one being the fact that abstaining from certain things can achieve an opposite effect. If you love sweets yet never have sweets, there’s a risk of snapping and eating an entire cake. Going from one chocolate bar that won’t hurt your progress to an entire cake that can set you back is a serious problem. So treat yourself every week. If you’re ready to eat a lot and indulge, choose spots that serve happy hour in Coral Gables so you can enjoy cheaper sushi, seafood and cocktails.

Use treat meals properly

The best way to use your treat meal is to do something productive with it and make it sound even more positive. For instance, you can have a fun day with your family and go to a nice restaurant. Later, you can hit the park with your kids, run around and end the day on the right note. It’s quality time for your family and some great food for you. This will give you a rounded treat after which you will feel gratitude and pride in what you’ve achieved and how strong you’ve been during your diet.

Follow the science

If you’re not big on the emotional effect of words, you can follow the empirical science that also states that you should avoid the word “cheat”. Historically, the word always marked something bad. If you cheat, you might feel bad, and feeling bad boosts the production of stress. Besides being bad for your mental health, stress is also bad for your body. When you’re under a lot of stress, your body will produce more adrenaline, the well-known stress hormone that can also motivate the storage of fat. When you’re trying to boost the fat-burning process, you definitely don’t need to encourage your body to store it for later!

Still stick to moderation

According to experts, what you do 80% of the time is much more important than what you do 20% of the time. This means that if you stick to eating cleanly and healthily most of the time, you can treat yourself the rest of the time and still achieve amazing fitness results. One salad a week won’t make you healthy, so with that logic, one burger and fries or one pizza a week won’t make you unhealthy. However, if you don’t stick to your diet the rest of the time, you won’t have any reason to treat yourself. A treat is a reward for hard work and discipline which doesn’t work if you haven’t been dedicated.

By changing “cheat” into “treat” you’ll change your entire outlook on dieting and healthy eating. It will develop a much healthier relationship with food even when you’re trying to restrict your calories or give up certain foods. If you struggle with cheat meals, start calling them treat meals and you’ll have a much more positive and guilt-free meal.

Randolph Spencer is a professional writer and blogger with 10 years of experience. He likes traveling around the globe and writing about various topics that he finds interesting for his readers.

By Anurag Rathod

Anurag Rathod is an Editor of Appclonescript.com, who is passionate for app-based startup solutions and on-demand business ideas. He believes in spreading tech trends. He is an avid reader and loves thinking out of the box to promote new technologies.