Cheat days are ruining your relationship with food.

And cheating days are killing your marriage, but that's a different article.

Wednesday
Rest day. Went for a walk, did some foam rolling.
Breakfast: Overnight oats with protein powder and almond butter.
Lunch: Big salad with grilled shrimp, avocado, and balsamic.
Dinner: Egg roll in a bowl, yesssss, fave. Sleepy girl mocktail after dinner 😴
Skipped dessert even though I wanted some dark chocolate. Willpower = strong.

Thursday
Leg day! Shaky but love that feeling.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, sweet potato hash, sautéed kale. OK, kale for breakfast—not my fave, but feeling smug.
Lunch: Turkey+ on low carb egg wrap, hummus and carrots.
Dinner: Bison burger w/lettuce bun, Brussels in the air fryer, baked sweet potato with some brown Swerve.
Drank so much water I might bob away if I get in the pool.

Friday
6 a.m. Soulcycle. Pretty sure this is clubbing in your late 30s.
Breakfast: Protein smoothie w/banana, spinach, dates, almond milk.
Lunch: Tuna salad in a bell pepper. Surprisingly really good.
Dinner: Roasted salmon, asparagus, lemon cauli rice from Whole Foods.
Had tea instead of wine, who am I?! Love finishing the week strong.

Saturday
Rest day!
Breakfast: Waffles with real maple syrup, bacon, white chocolate mocha, mimosa (or two?).
Lunch: Nachos. I miss queso alllllll the time.
Dinner: Poutine, pizza, a couuuuple cocktails (A couple…ish?) wine, then we stopped by Crumbl, lol.
So good for you to just let loose sometimes so not even mad about it.

Sunday
Wooooof. Sloughed to hot yoga and pretty sure they’ll need to fumigate the studio now, after everything I sweat out.
Breakfast: Meh, intermittent fasting today. Sooo bloated.
Lunch: Giant detox salad with everything I could find.
Dinner: Skipped — still full and guilty from yesterday.
Drank tea. Googled “sugar detox meal plan.” Excited to get back on track tomorrow.

Sound familiar? The cycle of strict adherence to fitness and nutrition plans, followed by a “cheat day,” where all bets are off, and you indulge because you deserve it, dammit.

As a long-time food blogger who spent over a decade in the “wellness space,” I’ve seen this narrative shared and encouraged pervasively.

“Stick to your diet,” they say, “but allow yourself some cheat days, or you’ll never be able to keep it up.” And you know what?

That’s true. But cheat days are ruining your relationship with food.

Why do we cheat?

No matter your health or nutrition goal—whether it be reducing carbs, eating only “whole foods,” or hitting certain macros—it’s almost impossible to maintain a restricted diet forever. So dangling a “day off” in front of your face, like a proverbial carrot, can help you push through with sheer will and determination, awaiting the donut at the end of the week, or the Taco Bell, or the pint of ice cream, or whatever.

This is what we call “white-knuckling.”

And where did I first hear that term? Alcohol recovery. Recovering alcoholic friends often talked about pregnancy as an active alcoholic. The ones I knew? They quit drinking when they found out they were pregnant. But they didn’t consider themselves sober; they were just “white knuckling” sobriety through sheer force and will. Struggling each day to just not drink, rather than choosing to be sober each day. That, for them, came later.

Honestly, though, this looks like a blast.

So when I hear of someone motivating themselves through a week of on-plan eating with the promise of a “day off,” I can’t help but liken them to the struggling alcoholic, just trying to force their way through another day.

Not that I’m suggesting a 12-step program to cut out cheat days. In fact, I don’t think you need to earn eating what you love at all.

Because the real problem with “earning” your time off-plan?

Moralizing food.

When we assign morality to food, we begin to tie our actions to our own worth and value. Shame creeps in, whether directed at ourselves (“Why can’t I just stick to the plan?”) or at others (“Are they just lazy? All you have to do is eat healthy.”), and our personal relationship with food begins to break down.

It’s simple when you look at it. We say things like,

“I eat well.”

“I was good today.”

“Soda is bad for you.”

“I only eat clean.”

Each of these words imputes a moral quality and carries with it the sense that our self-worth is also somehow attached.

• If you’re good for eating a salad, then what are you when you eat cake? Are you bad?

• If you’re eating “clean,” then what are the people eating differently? Dirty?

Wrapping up our food choices in these morally charged words produces a cycle of perfectionism, shame, and guilt. When it’s going well? Perfectionism. When something doesn’t go according to plan? In comes shame and guilt, followed by rebound efforts to correct the problem.

The problem here is that…

Food is not moral; it isn’t good or bad.

Food is not an act of morality*; it’s just food. It’s just eating.

Certain foods, when eaten often, are off plan. They might not support your long-term goals when given regular priority.

Other foods, when incorporated frequently, help bolster your goals.

But that’s it. They are not good or bad. There is no failure surrounding a slice of birthday cake. There is no award for skipping the cake and sautéing up broccolini instead when you get home.

In fact, I’d probably argue that it’s healthier to enjoy a slice of cake at a celebration with friends than to skip it in favor of a rigid diet, but that’s yet another topic for yet another article.

Earning your cheat days.

You know what you don’t have to do in life? You don’t have to earn eating a food that you love. You don’t have to be "good” Monday through Friday to deserve a little freedom on the weekends, or whenever it is you plan your “cheating.”

And why is that?

Because food is not moral; it isn’t good or bad.

Food simply is, and you don’t have to do anything to be worthy of consuming it.

…And cheat days don’t work, either.

I get the allure of cheat days; I do! And I’ve fallen into this trap in the past, too, especially when I was wrapped up in a specific, restrictive diet. Stay on track all week, give yourself a little freedom on a specified day to keep it sustainable.

Except that’s not freedom at all. It’s a binge/restrict loop.

I’m reminded of the first time I tried a keto diet as research for my site. About a week in, I was doing great, with my net carbs down in the teens, consuming loads of healthy fats, staying hydrated, and eating as many veggies and berries as I could without tipping the pee-stick into carby territory.

And then I found myself standing in front of the open fridge, freely fantasizing about eating a giant plate of roasted broccoli.

The next morning I palmed a carefree handful of strawberries on my kids’ breakfast plates. I stood there near-drooling at the freedom they had to eat whatever food it was they wanted (Even though they almost certainly decided immediately after requesting strawberries that they actually hate strawberries).

What was happening? My restriction distorted my own thinking so badly that I was absolutely consumed by the foods I couldn’t have. A couple hours later, I sat at my computer, attempting to write a recipe post but with zero success. All I could do was think about food and dream about the ones I couldn’t have.

That’s when I knew I had to bring back a balanced diet and give up the carb counting and obsessing for my own mental health.

While this severe restriction is an extreme example, the underlying principles remain the same: Restriction triggers in our brains obsession with food and likelier subsequent binging.

Just take the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, a foundational study from the 40s. In the study, men were subjected to strict calorie restriction, near semi-starvation. These men became intensely obsessed with food, had wild mood changes, and their cognitive function even declined. They began dreaming about food constantly! But the effects didn’t go away when the restrictions began to be lifted—no, the participants experienced these side-effects well into the refeeding phase.

“But I’m not starving myself like this!” you say. And you’d probably be wrong. You know how many calories the participants were given during the semi-starvation period? Around 1600 calories per day! And while there are some benefits to calorie restriction (especially with longevity in mind), the focus here is shifting the mindset away from food being morally good or bad and opening up truly sustainable eating.

You really want something? Eat it. I don’t care if it’s a Tuesday morning or a Saturday evening. Hell, it could a Wednesday afternoon. I literally do not care. If you really want it, eat it.

The bummer when this happens, though? You sort of stop caring so much. In fact, since I shed all dietary restrictions and chose to eat in a way that mostly supports my goals, with a little smattering of “whatever the hell I want” in there, I actually lost 90% of my cravings. And as much as I hated feeling like I was at the end of my cravings’ leash, I really loved the feeling of eating whatever it is that sounded just so damn good to me all day. These days? I’m almost never held hostage by a food, whether it be a plate of roasted broccoli, a handful of strawberries, or an entire pizza. I feel no need to binge or overeat, because I won’t “get to” eat similar foods again for a long time. There’s no cramming, because I’m free to do and eat what I want, whenever I want. That is freedom.

“But then I’d be as big as a house/whale/Pluto.”

I’m certainly not here to say that scrapping cheat days from your life can be easy. Especially if you’ve structured your life this way for many years, stripping the binary mindset to food (Good vs. bad) can feel like free fall.

But here’s the important thing to remember: You do have goals. And you want to eat in a way that supports them most the time. That’s what you focus on; that’s the priority.

And well, the reality is that “cheat days” and restricted, “off-limits” foods can lead to higher calorie ingestion, poetically called the “what the hell” effect (or counterregulatory eating, if you’re like, not fun). In the well-known 1984 study by Herman & Polivy, it was found that dieters who indulged in a “forbidden” milkshake ended up consuming more ice cream afterward compared to those who weren’t on a diet. The dieters were like “Screw this, I’ve already failed, might as well get another scoop.” Sound familiar?

In essence, cheat days can lead to rebound binging and overeating, as well as a “what the hell” effect, since you feel like you “fell off the wagon.”

But you know what? You’re not on a wagon!

You’re not playing a game! You’re not married to a diet! There is no cheating.

There are simply foods and food choices, and the knowledge that restriction often leads to binging, clouded in shame and guilt.

And if you really want something? Eat it. The magic of being able to eat whatever you really want, when you really want it? You take away off-limits allure of that donut; you erase the taboo nature of the cheese dip. You stop cheating.

And when you delete that word from your dietary vocabulary, you can begin to heal your relationship with food.

Is it always easy? No. Especially for those who appreciate the binary, black-and-white nature of a strict diet (This is paleo; this is not.), it can take adjustment and practice, maybe even constant reminders to yourself that what you eat has nothing to do with the love you deserve, the space you get to take up, or your worth, strength, or fortitude.

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*I acknowledge that there are many ethical concerns with food and its production that can and should be thoughtfully addressed by each individual. However, this context is focused purely on the morality related to how ingesting a certain food impacts your body or nutrition goals.