JJ Virgin argues cheat days expand into cheat weeks or months. Instead, enjoy small portions of non-trigger treats like a slice of birthday cake, then return to healthy eating. Avoid trigger foods entirely, like crunchy salted almond butter or movie popcorn, which can spiral into loss of control.
Cheat meals turn into a cheat day, which turns into a cheat week, which all of a sudden turns into a cheat month, which means this is now your new reality. I am anti-cheat days as a concept. I do believe that you can incorporate some of these foods in if you want to eat them, but don't think of it as cheating or being bad. Just think of it as, I'm gonna have a little bit of this and it's okay. Here's the caveat. If it's a trigger food for you and you know what those are, I certainly know what they are for me. Crunchy salted almond butter, movie popcorn. I lose my mind and I'm going to have my face down in the bucket. If you've got something that's a trigger food, avoid that. But these other things, yes, you can have a little piece of birthday cake on your birthday, big deal, but then get back on the horse.
