Fitness Motivation: Break the Cheat Day Cycle

We all fall, but the key to success is not how often you fall, it’s how long you let yourself stay down.

The problem with relaxing or cheating is it can suck the life right out of you. Poor food can make you feel bad, and laziness can make you even lazier. So, your innocent cheat day could turn into a cheat week, cheat month and cheat year if you don’t break the cycle fast.

If you want to enjoy a healthy balance of splurging, or relaxing, a little here and there, you have to have a bounce-back plan. You have to set some ground rules to help get you right back into your routine, as well as help erase any added calories.

5 Tips to Breaking the Cheating Cycle

1. Have limitations. Whether you limit your cheat meals, your calories,  the number of cheat days you will allow yourself or days you will allow yourself to take off from the gym, you MUST have set limits. Having no limits can set you up for big-time failure.

2. Plan your bounce-back day. Draw a line in the sand that defines the END of your “fitness or diet vacation”.

3. Get rid of temptations. Don’t expect to do great on your diet if you still have beer and pizza in the refrigerator. This means you need to be careful when you originally purchase any foods off your diet (so you don’t buy too much), as well as you need to get rid of it all by the time you plan to go back to clean eating and healthy living.

4. Have a attack plan in place. Know what you plan to do when you get back to work. Pick out a new workout program, set diet goals, map out your eating schedule – fail to plan, plan to fail!

5. Set short-term goals. Whether you set a goal to do a set amount of workouts, or limit your calories, or you just want to lose the 5lbs you gained over your “fitness vacation” – having a clear goal will help you stay focused.

If you spent your holidays eating and relaxing, be prepared to put up a fight – because your body may not be as ready to workout as you want it to be. So, if yesterday was a BUST, make your workout and diet today a MUST – no matter how you feel!

It’s not about falling down, you just have to make sure you don’t STAY down.