09-01-2012... Cheating and Resting

Last night was my cheat night... I had a few beers with good friends, and some snacks that don't normally fall into my clean eating diet. That is ok though. If you've read my previous 60 something other blog entries, then you know I strongly support cheat days or meals. "Cheating" is important because when you completely deny yourself any of the foods you enjoy or crave, then you are far more likely to give up on your clean eating lifestyle all together. It's a huge burden to place on yourself to be perfect all the time. I do try to mitigate the damage though. I try to make sure I pair up a cheat day with a workout day to make sure my metabolism is going strong when I'm cheating. I usually do my cheating later in the day, several hours after I have given my body clean food to optimize my workout.

Usually my day after a cheat day is a day off from the gym. So, you guessed it, today I am resting my body. Rest days are very important for overall health. There is such a thing as over training. Over training leads to injury and fatigue that can mimic flu like symptoms, among other things. The best results always come with plenty of rest. I chose my rest day after a cheat day because I know that when I eat poorly, my body is not at it's best the next day. While the inclination may seem to get up and work off the "cheat", I find that my chances for injury increase when I try to push my body with out the right fuel in my tank.

Now over cheating and over resting are problematic to a healthy lifestyle, so find a good balance. I try really hard not to cheat more than once a week and I rest one to two days a week. If I rest twice in a week, they are seldom back to back days. My ideal schedule is workout three days, rest one day, repeat.

So, any thoughts on cheating and resting? I always love to hear how others do it. No one has all the right answers, but collectively we sure do have a lot of them!

Stay healthy!