CHEAT MEALS / DAYS?

Cheat Meals offer only a temporarily satisfaction,as long as they are in the stomach. This is quickly over.
What about the advantages?
Niente. No metabolic adaptation, nor do they affect hunger hormones.

An interesting anecdote by Dr. Mike Israetel:
When the CIA tortures someone mentally, they don’t constantly beat him, nor do they cut him off from sleep. They also don’t let him starve all the time. When everything is gone, people will be getting very resistant. Along the lines of "Fuck it, let's die for my country".
Instead, there are terrible withdrawal phases, followed by cigarettes, a warm bed, and a fantastic meal. They just ask them questions. They should just tell them what they want to hear. If they say nothing, again a terrible phase of torture is ahead of them. People become crazy when they are exposed to this cycle. Sounds a bit like low-carb stone age diets and the yo-yo effect.

Just as with drug withdrawal, a cheat meal stimulates all the senses. Getting a junkie back to cocaine after a week's withdrawal is not a good idea. Just as it is not a good idea to play around with the second most desire of the Homo sapiens, namely food intake (drinking is the greatest).

Cheat Meal Scenario:
We look forward to it all week. Then it's finally Sunday. During the meal we begin to hate our self, because we think we are actually doing something bad. We eat something that is not healthy. Every bite brings us closer to an empty plate. As soon as this happens, one is actually more dissatisfied than before.
In the middle of the week we feel dirty again, the munchies kick in and so on. Sick doom loop, right?

Cheat days are just as counterproductive. Due to the immense amount of calories consumed on such days, you can destroy the entire deficit, you worked hard for during the week. We used to eat a lot on Cheat Days (when we were even more clueless than we are today, and celebrated such days once a week) and consumed easily over 10,000 calories.

A fucking kilo of body fat equals 7,000 calories. A daily deficit of 1,000 calories on 6 days a week, would be destroyed. And no, the amount of non-absorbable calories lies beyond over 10,000. The whole thing made us think our metabolisms were bad. There is no bad metabolism, only bad eating habits.
So-called "refeeds", where you consume more calories, make sense. But these should be controlled.

We don’t want to discuss whether healthy & clean eating or whether IIFYM is better. The middle way is the only true, long-term solution. This consists of becoming an "educated eater" as one of our Coaches Alberto Nunez likes to call it.

Micronutrient-rich food (vitamins, fiber, trace elements, etc.) is, of course, always better than some junk food. But to eat exclusively from the ten same "clean" foods (to this day no one could ever define this concept) is idiotic. Making it harder through an unnecessarily hard diet? Without having any advantage? Stupid. To realize that’s not wisely, one doesn’t require a dietology degree.

We have to stop to think in extremes. We must learn to integrate nutrition into our daily lives as sustainably as possible. Only long-term & smart work leads us to the goal.

Eat wisely.