Cheat meal

Who are you "cheating" by having a cheat meal?
I don't understand the logic behind it and never have.

This is an interesting one. Mainly because I think we all vary, in our bodies and our perspectives, and I can pretty much guarantee that what works for you will be different from what works for me.

I have never been a Cold Turkey kind of person. When I go from higher to lower ANYTHING, I do it progressively, to make the transition easier. coffee. calories. carbs. breaking in a new pair of shoes...

And I really dislike Absolute Thinking.
Works for other people, not me. I see is as just another way to fail at Perfectionism, and beat myself up. Can't be *****.

If someone says to me 'you will never taste chocolate again!' my instinctive reaction is to go out and buy half a ton of the stuff and enjoy every bite.
So I say to myself 'you can have choc every day, if you like. Do you want some today? If so, what are the consequences, and are they worth it?'

So, for your 'Cheat Day' I would prefer to call your food choices 'optional discrepencies', and then I would eat the food, test my blood glucose, assess how I felt after it, consider if those consequences were worth it, and then make a decision on whether to ever do it again. On my schedule.

If any of those food choices triggered food cravings, or a rampant desire to eat them again, immediately, then they would go straight to my Avoid List, and stay there.

I have been Low Carb for approaching five years, but, because I am not diabetic (husband is now "diabetes resolved", due to our LC diet), I very occasionally have high carb meals when we are out. This has been for curiosity, not wanting to make a fuss or perhaps trying to balance out the cost of his steak with a pasta dish for me. It really isn't a pleasure. I couldn't believe how unpleasant fish, chips and mushy peas are, stodgy, sticking to your mouth, tasting of little more than salt and vinegar. A sandwich: why do people lunch on woolly blankets? Sugary lunch, I can't keep awake in the afternoon. High carb dinner and poor tummy keeps me awake half the night. No, I can't see the point of planned "cheats". No point, much more comfortable with by High/Healthy Fat, Low Carb diet.
Sally

On holiday a couple of months ago I had a "cheat" meal. It was a bar snack in a pub that served very highly recommended home made steak pies with rich gravy. I went the whole hog and had chips with it. It was truly delicious. I was wearing a Libre sensor at the time and was horrified at what my blood sugar levels were doing, and I also felt dreadful. So much so that my non-diabetic hubby noticed and told me never to do it again. Believe me, I won't.

lefeilouss said:

Been on LCHF 3 months and counting and its the best HBA1C results ever in my life

Click to expand...

Hi lefeilouss,
My knee-jerk reaction to this is "there is a reason you have the best Hba1c results"

But the real world answer is remember to treat yourself from time to time.
If it's a cheat meal every week that's no longer a treat it's now part of your diet, and numbers will creep back up.
Sorry that's just how it is.

As @bulkbiker says, who are you cheating, really? You’ve got these wonderful HbA1c results due to what you eat now.

I have people in my life that don’t understand why I don’t want to “treat” myself to chips etc every now and then. “Just have the roast potatoes and inject for it!” I’ve tried explaining that I don’t want to, as it makes me feel rotten for hours after, but some consider that a price worth paying to have the carbs. I’ve had similar conversations with meat - I’m allergic to that and have to use a ventolin inhaler to deal with the reaction. Apparently I should just treat myself on special occasions, eat the same as everyone else and medicate for it. I don’t get it.

I use the analogy that you wouldn’t tell a child with a peanut allergy to have a bowl of the things and use an epipen afterwards. As diabetics of whatever type, we’re basically allergic to carbs.*

*yes, I know that as a type one technically I can cover eating whatever I like with insulin, but I’ve never been able to get the timings right to avoid spikes and hypos. And I’ve always felt super sleepy after a carby meal, no matter what the BG levels.

My normal diet is low carb - to such an extent that I have no symptoms of diabetes and I haunt the forum to maintain a mental position of being among the diabetic section of the population.
I'd no more eat a high carb meal that - oh - for instance - deliberately hurt my foot to see how long it took to mend.

My reaction to this question is always 'Who are you cheating?' You can eat carbs if you want to. You probably know how it affects your BG and if it has any effect on how you feel. I personally have decided not to eat the carbs and fruit that raise my BG and I have adopted a low carb life style and only eat food that I really enjoy and nourishes me. I like to think that I am treating myself with every mouthful so why would I want to harm myself. I have good self control over this but because I don't feel deprived I can continue to maintain it.

Agree with those ^^^, you used the word "cheat", so if you are okay with it that's all that really matters. I enjoy my food as I prepare it and it is the best I can do. No need to do carbs.

The word 'cheat' stirs up a whole load of psychological stuff. It's like the 'syn' of Slimmers World (is it?). There are overtones of 'why are you being bad and undoing all your hard work. Naughty naughty'. I like @Brunneria's take on it - optional discrepancies rather than cheat. And it is an option for the person thinking they are 'cheating'. No-one else has your body - if you go all-out and have a meal with carbs, then that's your choice. Only you will know how you react to it, and if you react badly then you'll know that that particular 'optional discrepancy' isn't for you. So the real message should be not a censorious one but a 'rigorous test before and after' one. Some might be fine, others floored.

Luckily most of the things that I used to consider treats in the bad old days of low-fat, low calorie eating are now everyday items on my lovely LCHF diet. Cake is my biggest weakness but I've made some lovely LCHF cakes using ground almonds and stevia. Occasionally I do cheat - usually when there's good fresh bread or chips - but end up feeling incredibly horrible while my blood sugars rocket is a good deterrent. I cheat less and less often these days.

No mini-cheats anymore since I started on keto. But in the year and a half before that, I'd have a tiny bite or two of whatever cake my husband was having. That's about as far as it went, and my bs was okay with that. The one time I had a carb-laden Chinese tomato soup (a tiny one at that, so I grossly miscalculated the sugar content!), my bs rocketed up and oh man, I felt ill! So consider whether you're doing yourself a favour by eating high carb. It will affect your bs and HbA1c, sure... And if you're okay with that, and feel it's worth it, well, fine. But it might also make you feel like curling up in a corner with a bucket until your bs goes down again. Just so you know.

This is the language of the diet business, Slimming World, Weight Watchers et al., and is not healthy. It implies that there is "good" and "bad" food. You know what works for you stick to it, just ensure that what you eat is tasty and you enjoy eating it and the carb. craving will go.

Congrats on the HbA1c values!

I've been doing low carb for two weeks and am not really used to it yet, so I ate carbs yesterday purely because I thought I missed them (turns out I didn't!) and ended up regretting it - it made me feel groggy and the effect on my blood sugars just wasn't worth it.

My opinion on it is that as long as you moderate things and manage your sugars, a little bit of bread/pasta/etc is probably fine now and again - life would be rubbish if we couldn't have a bit of what we wanted on occasion! Just be mindful of how it effects your sugars as too many frequent spikes can lead to serious damage, and you wouldn't want to undo all your progress by doing it too frequently. "Eat to your meter" as they say