5 Things You Must Know About Treat Days

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5 Things You Must Know About Treat Days

By Vince Del Monte

In continuation with the Holiday Themed articles, I want to introduce my personal insights about cheat days or treat days as I prefer to call them.  Not only is it Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter coming up but it’s also my 31st Birthday on November 26th and I know that will include a few nights out. Incorporating treat days over the holidays can be your secret weapon to burning fat and staying jacked up!

1. Have Treat Days, Not Cheat Days.

What’s the difference?  None, except the way each word influences your brain and actions.  If I tell you to not thing about the big purple elephant in the room, what do you do?  Think about the big purple elephant in the room, even though I told you not to!  In my logic, thinking about cheat days will lead you to cheat more than scheduled.  I prefer the word treat days because your brain appreciates the award system and understands thetreat meals or treat day must be earned and awarded.

2. Rely On Treat Meals, Not Treat Days

I use treat meals all year round and they serve me well. I don’t use treat days unless I’m doing Joel Marion’s Extreme Fat Loss Diet or some sort of 3-4 day severe depletion diet, which is very rare.  If you were to use treat days all year round (you’re probably already doing that if you’re body does not look the way you want), I would be very surprised if you were ripped and muscular.

3. Don’t Worry About The Quality Of Your Treat Meal.  Seriously.

The goal of your nutrition plan should be to eat five or six times a day (basic knowledge), which is 35 meals per week.  If at least 30 of them (90% compliancy) are perfect, then one (or even two) treat meals aren’t going to hurt.  In fact they will reignite your metabolism, will power, motivation and leptin levels to continue burn fat and build muscle.

4. Don’t Feel Guilty About Your Treat Meal

That’s another reason I use the word, treat meal instead of cheat meal.  It removes the guilt.  As long as you’re eating “clean,” healthy foods the majority of the time, it will probably do you more good than harm. Feel guilty about messing up the 90%, not the 10%.  If you’re saving your treat meals for special occasions, for a “job well done” or strategically like my good friend Joel Marion teaches in his Cheat Your Way Thing program, enjoy them to your maximum pleasure.

5. Plan a Huge Muscle Building Workout Before Your Treat Meals

I love the anticipation of a rewarding myself to a huge treat meal after a huge muscle building workout.  It makes the day pass faster and motivates me to push the life out of my muscles.  I can fantasize about the pizza I’m going to have for an appetizer; the 24 oz steak, sauces and french fries for a main course and chocolate brownie and ice cream I’ll have for dessert.  Remember, I’m eating like that only 1 or 2 times out of 35 times a week so don’t freak out.

By training extremely hard before my treat meal, I’m priming my muscles for maximum muscle growth and flipping on the anabolic switch, in turn shutting off the catabolic switch that results in muscle loss.

When you increase your calories and add foods that you’ve been cutting out for an extended period of time (fats and carbs specifically), your metabolism will get a kick start, your muscles will look fuller by replenishing your glycogen levels and your mind will get the single, “Awesome, we’re not starving anymore so I’m going to burn some more fat.”  I always look my biggest and firmest after a big treat meal, I love it!

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Which insight was most helpful to you?  If you have one you would like to share, do so below.

Vince Del Monte