Joel, earlier this year, you released a new program which made a claim that
some people thought was outlandish and had to be hype – you said that if you
cheat on your diet, it will actually help you lose more fat – if you “cheat” in a
certain strategic way, as compared to trying to be 100% strict on a diet and not
cheat at all.
Whenever there are big claims like this for a new diet program, there’s always a
ton of buzz on the internet and I get emails from my subscribers, customers and
readers asking me if this latest diet is a scam.
At the time, I couldn’t tell them, because I hadn’t reviewed your information, I only
knew the general gist of what you were suggesting, so I had to reply to people
and say “I don’t know, I haven’t seen the program.” But, I did tell them that I’m a
believer in including cheat or free meals as I prefer to call them, to help improve
compliance to a program and I also said that I was a supporter of cycling calories
up and down, specifically in the form of carb cycling.
I knew there were some similarities in what we were teaching, but I said I couldn’t
comment any further about your claims unless I had seen your program or asked
you directly.
Well, I finally carved out the time to read your material and I’m happy that you’ve
agreed to answer even the tough questions that will help people sort out whether
this whole “cheat on your diet to get leaner” concept has some merit. So without
further ado…
Tom: First, what’s your quick definition of cheating – I think we have to define it
to be on the same page as we discuss it.
Joel: When used in reference to dieting, the term ―cheating‖ by most everyone
refers to when someone eats foods that are not in accordance with the plan. You
can cheat on a low carb diet by eating carbs, for instance. Doesn’t mean carbs
are bad, just that carbs are not part of the plan you are currently adhering to. In
most instances, the term has a negative connotation, because you are doing
something you are not supposed to do.
What I teach is strategic cheating, which refers to periodically ―going off‖ the diet
and allowing yourself to eat foods that typically are not thought as ―diet‖ or ―diet
friendly‖ foods (pizza, ice cream, fries, etc).
It’s actually not ―cheating‖ per se because it’s part of the plan, but we stick with
that word because people identify it and they ―get it‖ immediately when they hear
something like ―cheat day‖ or ―cheat meal‖ or ―Cheat Your Way Thin‖.
Tom: I have to be honest, I don’t like the word cheating or cheat. I understand
its just semantics, but I think words matter.
You suggest that people should eat the foods they crave without feeling guilty, as
long as it’s a part of a strategic plan, but doesn’t the very word cheating imply
that you’re doing something wrong and that could make someone feel guilty?
I prefer now to call them free meals because I think it’s a more positive or at least
neutral term. What are your thoughts?
Joel: I actually with agree with you as I hinted to above, however, ―free‖ does
not have the impact that cheat does. It does not have nearly the same familiarity
in the diet world, and in a world where we use words to convey strong messages,
cheat is a much more appropriate term for ―getting the point across‖.
Ask 100 people on the street what it means to ―cheat‖ on their diet, and all 100
will have the same answer. Tell 100 people that you have a ―free meal‖ as part
of your diet plan, and you’ll probably get a lot of stares. It’s not as familiar of a
concept and not as effective at conveying the message in an immediate way to
the general public.
On a similar note, I hate the term ―dieting‖ or ―diet‖, but I use it all the time (even
if reference to my program) because people know what it means. It’s familiar,
and they ―get it‖.
One other thing – the term ―cheating‖ actually fits perfectly with my program in
another sense as well, in that you are ―cheating‖ the DIET.
Dieting sucks, as I’m sure we’ll soon discuss, and by having days in which you
more or less say ―screw you‖ to your diet and eat whatever you want, you
actually cheat ―dieting‖ out of the opportunity to destroy your metabolism, plateau
your fat loss, and all the other negative adaptations and consequences that
99.9% of all calorie restrictive nutrition programs pose.
Dieting is a no-win battle, and I’m happy quite happy to cheat the bogus
institution of ―dieting‖ out of robbing more people from the results they deserve
any day.
Tom: Cheating on your diet to lose more weight seems counterintuitive if not
utterly illogical, but depending on how you approach it, I’m in complete
agreement that there’s a strong argument for it from two different angles –
psychological and physiological.
What do you think are the psychological benefits to the dieter allowing cheat
days as opposed to being 100% strict on your diet?
Joel: First, it absolutely increases adherence across the board, there’s no
getting around that. It makes ―dieting‖, a concept which generally (and absurdly)
demands that people forgo their favorite foods for months and months at a time,
actually livable, and more importantly ENJOYABLE.
I was actually just talking about this with another trainer the other day. For most
people, Day 1 of a diet—when they finally buckle down and decide they need to
go on one—is the worst day of their life. It’s depressing. ―No pizza, for like, 3
months while I attempt to lose this 30 lbs.‖ Yeah right. Anyone who thinks that’s
actually going to happen is completely deluded and this is exactly why 99% of
people fail with restrictive dieting.
Two, let’s say you do ―cheat‖ (not strategically) and eat something you’re ―not
supposed to‖ while dieting. Guilt, failure, and a slew of other feelings that you
should NEVER have to feel while on a diet surface and make you feel as though
you ―just don’t have it in you‖ or that you lack willpower or that you don’t have
what it takes to stick with a program and achieve your goals.
That’s terrible.
Flat out, dieting, in the calorie restrictive, self-sacrificing manner we have learned
it, is flat out unrealistic for the vast majority of people.
If you told me I had to give up pizza for 3 months to get lean, I’d be one fat dude.
The trade off isn’t worth it, and neither are the painfully slow results that most
―diets‖ yield.
Tom: On the physiological side, there are a lot of benefits to “cheating” after a
period of restrictive dieting. There’s a lot going on in the body when you do this,
but much of it seems to revolve around one hormone, leptin. Would you explain
in as simple terms as possible for the layperson, what is leptin?
Joel: Leptin is awesome (or at least when you know how to manipulate it, it is).
Get on its ―bad side‖, however, and you’re pretty much doomed to be overweight.
In the simplest terms, leptin is a hormone that communicates your nutritional
status to the rest of your body. From there, your body then makes decisions on
what to do with things like fat burning and metabolism, based on the messages
it’s receiving from our friend leptin.
High leptin levels = heightened fat burning and metabolism
Low leptin levels = decreased fat burning and metabolism
There’s a little more to it than that, but you asked for simple terms.
Leptin has also been deemed the ―anti-starvation‖ hormone, which is essentially
is its major function in the body, to prevent, or at least dramatically slow the
negative adaptations (from a survival standpoint) when food is scarce or when
energy intake drops substantially (i.e. starvation).
Great for our hunter and gather ancestors, terrible for the dieter.
And while dieting certainly isn’t as extreme as starvation, it really is nothing more
than a lesser degree of exactly that, carry slightly lessened, but still very troubling
consequences for the dieter.
Getting into some of the research on leptin, research has shown that after only 7
days of calorie restriction, leptin drops on average 50% -- putting you at roughly
50% of your fat burning potential.
That’s after only ONE week.
And as long as you continue to fail to provide your body with the energy it’s
hoping to receive, adaptations get worse, leptin falls harder, and metabolism
takes an even greater hit.
The good news is, it only takes one day of ―overfeeding‖ or ―cheating‖ to bring
leptin levels back to baseline and restore things like plummeted thyroid
hormones, fat burning enzymes, a manageable (not insatiable) appetite, and
metabolism overall.
The problem with overfeeding, however, is that if you fail to properly set up the
rest of the diet in an extremely strategic manner around a cheat day or overfeed
day, overfeed days can backfire and lead to a one-step-forward one-step-back
phenomenon. This is something we cover heavily in Cheat Your Way Thin—the
ideal way to set up the other 6 days each week, based on a plethora of research,
to ensure that each cheat day accelerates, not detracts, from progress.
Tom: Are you saying that you can significantly manipulate leptin with nutritional
intervention, including cheat days, and that if we can scour the research and
make a punch list of things that keep leptin levels as normal as possible and
prevent leptin from dropping like it would with a linear low calorie or low carb diet,
this is going improve our results?
Joel: Absolutely, no question about it. Keeping metabolism consistently high
and avoiding the negative hormonal adaptations of dieting equates to better,
faster results; there’s no way around that.
That’s in addition to the psychological/adherence benefits, which obviously, if
you’re actually still doing the diet 6 or 8 weeks into the plan, you’re going to
experience infinitely better results than if you quit after 2 weeks every time.
Tom: Are you claiming that these techniques will actually increase fat loss, or
simply prevent the bad stuff that happens with restrictive dieting, like the adaptive
decrease in metabolism and the increase in appetite which could then lead to
plateaus? I think this is an important distinction.
Joel: Preventing the bad stuff = increasing the good stuff (i.e. fat burning). If
your metabolism slows, that means you are burning fewer calories, right? So for
instance, let’s say your BMR was 2000 cals/day when you first started dieting,
and then through restrictive dieting over a period of a month or two (and the
subsequent decrease in leptin and metabolism), you’re now only burning 1500
cals/per day.
If you had kept leptin ―happy‖ through strategic cheating and metabolism did
NOT drop off, you’d still be burning an extra 500 calories a day. Do you think
that burning an extra 500 calories a day is valuable in terms of faster fat loss?
Without question.
Essentially, by ―preventing‖ the bad things from occurring, you automatically and
absolutely increase fat loss beyond what would be possible without taking
measures to manipulate leptin and keep metabolism at its height, week to week.
Simply put, use strategic cheating in the proper way, and by the end of each
week you’ll have lost more fat than if you simply chose to remain ―strict‖ 7 days a
week. That equates to increased fat loss any way you look at it.
Tom: I’ve been looking at some research that says some folks have plenty of
leptin but they also have leptin resistance. I haven’t seen many people really
address this leptin resistance issue aside from saying it exists. Do you think this
is a common problem and does your program offer any insights into the causes
as well as solutions?
Joel: Okay, the other thing I didn’t mention while trying to give you the ―simple‖
definition earlier was that leptin levels aren’t just mediated by calorie intake
alone—they’re also affected by the amount of body fat you are carrying.
High levels of body fat = high levels of leptin
Low levels of body fat = low levels of leptin
Now, from everything I said earlier, that makes it sound like fat people with high
levels of body fat should actually be the leanest people around if leptin actually
made a difference (and lean people should be gaining weight like nobody’s
business, because of extremely low leptin levels).
This is where leptin resistance and leptin sensitivity come in.
Similar to insulin resistance, if leptin receptors are constantly being bombarded
by high levels of leptin, they start to become less sensitive to the hormone.
This is what happens with insulin in Type II diabetics. People eat crap food and
loads of highly processed carbohydrates for years, flood their bloodstream with
insulin every hour of the day, and gradually over time insulin receptors become
so desensitized to the hormone to the point that insulin no longer ―works‖.
Same with leptin. Overweight people, who have been overweight for years,
become resistant to the hormone because of massive amounts of leptin (caused
by high body fat levels and high calorie intakes) slamming receptors for extended
periods of time.
On the other hand, lean people can get by with lower levels of leptin, relatively
speaking, because their receptors are extremely sensitive to the hormone. It’s
important to note, however, that this is relative to the person and their individual
―baseline‖ levels of leptin when food intake is normal.
For example, let’s say, and I’m just pulling out a totally arbitrary number for
simplicity’s sake, a particular person with a low level of body fat has a baseline
level of leptin is ―10‖ (I’m leaving out the µg/L units of measure left and all that
jazz for simplicity as well). ―10‖ is all this person needs for normal metabolic
functioning to occur because they are highly sensitive to leptin. On the other
hand, ―10‖ wouldn’t be nearly enough to maintain normal metabolism for a much
larger, and subsequently less leptin sensitive individual.
So, you can see what I mean that it’s all relative.
Another important thing to note is that calorie restriction lowers leptin
independent of body fat. So, let’s say this same person from above went on a
diet. And they’re leptin levels went down to ―5‖. Sure, they’re very sensitive to
leptin, but ―5‖ aint going to get the job done even for them.
When leptin levels fall below baseline levels, whatever baseline levels are
relative to the person, negative metabolic adaptations occur.
Getting back to leptin resistance, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The
good news is that it’s totally reversible, but the bad news is that someone who
has been overweight for years (and is thus probably leptin resistant) can’t just
jump right into a full-out strategic cheating and carb-cycling program and have it
be effective—simply put, in this case, the dietary strategies we use to manipulate
leptin wouldn’t really be of use to them because they’re resistant to the hormone
and it’s not going to matter if we’re doing all these different things to manipulate
leptin—they already have plenty of leptin running around.
For this person, the focus would then be on reversing the leptin resistance and
restoring leptin sensitivity, and that is done one way: clean eating + exercise,
and yes, with a moderate calorie restriction. Pretty much all the same dietary
measures one would take to increase insulin sensitivity (clean eating, low-carbs,
low-glycemic carbs, etc).
Carbohydrate intake also affects leptin levels, so someone is this position would
certainly want to avoid highly processed carbs or anything that is going to give
leptin a significant spike.
I generally recommend 2-3 weeks of lower-carb dieting (with strategic cheating
interspersed) before beginning with the full blown program, and that’s actually the
purpose of the ―priming phase‖ of the Cheat Your Way Thin program. For the
Cheat Your Way Thin Holiday Edition, we also included some other leptin
resistance reversing strategies as well (still allowing for plenty of holiday
cheating).
Another question people might have is ―I am doomed to experience poor results
and limited weight loss during the first 2-3 weeks because of leptin resistance?‖
And the answer is no.
For people who are significantly overweight, there are other factors that come
into play that allow for weight loss to occur with a sound diet and exercise
program, in spite of the leptin issue. If you’ve got a lot to lose, those first 5 – 10
lbs are going to come off quickly simply with corrected habits and exercise,
regardless.
Tom: I’ve found a lot of evidence to suggest that an overweight person and an
already lean person have some significant physiological differences that can
influence how they respond to a particular diet.
Do you suggest a different approach for the overweight person and the already
lean dieter who is trying to get even leaner (for example a bodybuilder or figure
competitor)?
Joel: In addition to what I’ve mentioned above, I’ll say this. The leaner you get,
the more leptin becomes a limiting factor and the more you have to do to
manipulate it. Because of this, we often increase the frequency of cheat days to
once every 5 days for very lean individuals, or even every 4 days in some
extreme instances like with bodybuilders or figure competitors prepping for a
show. Some advanced diet and exercise strategies are also needed to make
that type of frequent approach work.
Similarly, for the very overweight person, when we first transition them to using
strategic cheat days, we may start with a cheat day once every 9 or 10 days, as
opposed to once a week.
For the vast majority falling in between these two extremes, however, the once
per week approach works best (and is great for consistency as cheat days
always fall on the same day each week allowing people to plan their cheat day
around whatever day is generally their most social day of the week).
Tom: I’m a firm believer in cycling calories up and down and doing that by
manipulating carb intake which I call carb cycling, for many of the same reasons
that you have a cheat day. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of different ways to
carb cycle, like 5 days keto and 2 days of high carb, the rotation of high, low and
medium days, and various mixtures of high and low carb days.
What is your basic methodology for introducing the higher calorie cheat days and
why do you prefer your method over some of the other ways that people do carb
cycling?
Joel: As for methodology, it’s based on the research I shared earlier that leptin
falls off by about 50% after only one week, while only taking one day of
―overfeeding‖ or ―cheating‖ to ramp levels back up to baseline. So this is the
basis of the weekly cheat day.
That said, we actually do use carb cycling in addition to Cheat Days to make the
program even more effective, but carb cycling alone, unless you are doing very
high calorie ―refeed‖ days, while somewhat effective, not as effective as
combining both or using all-out cheat days.
I’ll explain the reason and necessity for the weekly carb cycling in a bit.
Tom: Your method seems complicated with high glycemic index/glycemic load
days, low carb days and cheat days and all kinds of phases. If your goal is to
increase adherence by allowing cheat meals, then wouldn’t creating a complex
system of high, low, cheat, and various GI level days just create the opposite
effect and lower adherence?
Joel: People have reported, a thousand times over, that it’s actually the easiest
diet they’ve ever done, and not only because of the cheat days, but because of
the wide variety of foods that you’re allowed to eat even on ―diet days‖.
We go low-carb after a cheat day and then pretty much every day we add foods
to the ―allowed‖ list. This isn’t hard to do, there is no calorie counting, and with
every day you just get to eat more than you did yesterday. That’s a pretty easy
diet to stick to. And oh yeah, once a week you get to eat whatever you want. I
don’t think it gets easier.
In the manual, I list it out in the easiest way to understand possible, and after a
week or two on the diet the entire system become second nature in which people
don’t have to even think about it whatsoever.
On low carb days you eat steak, fish, eggs, and plenty of veggies, on low GI days
you fill up on things fruit and legumes, and for higher GI days you’re allowed to
have pasta, bread, potatoes, rice, etc. Of course there are a lot more options
than just those foods, but that’s the gist of it…you just climb the GI scale
throughout the week.
It’s not complicated at all once people read through the program, and even less
complicated when they actually start doing it.
Tom: I’ve been following the research on glycemic index/glycemic load and
weight loss with great interest. It seems, at least if you go by what the peer-
reviewed research says, that GI is a useful tool for blood sugar management,
which is what it was originally intended for, but when calories are matched
evenly, there’s little or no impact of GI on weight loss. Are you familiar with these
studies, and if so then why do you emphasize GI and GL so much in your
program?
Joel: Yes, I’m familiar, but here are a couple things to consider. One, these
weight loss studies are performed with people adhering to the same typical
calorie restrictive, 7-days a week of dieting approach that I adamantly preach
against, because it’s ineffective. There is no calorie cycling, carb cycling, or
strategic cheating involved. Needless to say, simply manipulating GI in this
instance isn’t going to make a big difference.
Beyond that, let’s say that GI really didn’t matter even when adding a weekly
cheat day. That would be valid data if you were consuming the same basic diet
the other 6 days of the week, but that’s not what we do with Cheat Your Way
Thin.
Allow me to make an analogy. Let’s say my employer pays me one of two ways
– my pay for a full week once a week on Friday, or my pay for one day, every
day. At the end of the week I make the same amount of money with either
approach. But is there a difference in the impact of each payment method?
Absolutely.
With the once a week approach, my pay day is a much bigger event, I have
enough money to make a larger purchase, or go out for a higher-end dinner.
With the every day approach, not so much. I make the same amount of money
each week, but it never quite ―feels‖ like a have a lot of money in my hands.
Well, we treat our use of the GI system the same way. If I just prescribed the
same diet every day, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference, but that’s
not how I use GI and GL.
Instead, we line up carb intake strategically to create little ―paydays‖—spikes and
jumps and high points in insulin throughout the week, and that strategic use
makes an impact.
Now, you’re probably thinking, ―Why would we want to spike insulin throughout
the week?‖, and that’s a good question.
The reason is, I’ve read through quite a few VERY intriguing papers that show
the number one influencer of leptin is insulin, and the supercedes the actual
calorie content being consumed. There was actually one study, and you’re eyes
are really going to be opened with this one, that monitored leptin levels of fasting
individuals. Naturally, leptin crashed pretty hard, but then they did something
else. They gave each subject an IV drip of insulin to maintain normal blood
insulin levels, and even though they were consuming ZERO calories, leptin levels
were maintained.
That’s the power of insulin in this scenario, and exactly why we cycle
carbohydrates in the fashion we do. We start off the week low-carb when leptin
is high after the cheat day along with strategically time exercise to accelerate
progress. Then, mid-week, when leptin starts to fall off from the low cals and
carbs, we reintroduce low GI carbs for an insulin boost. Then, later in the week,
as leptin begins to fall again, we add starchier, higher GI carbs for an even
greater boost.
Every single day is set up in a strategic way to manipulate leptin and maximize
the benefits of the Cheat Day.
Tom: Is there any reason that the cheat day has to be “junk” food? Call me
crazy, but I don’t like eating a lot of junk. Give me two cheat meals a month and
I’m completely satisfied, I swear, I just want the option to eat what I want
occasionally. In fact, I usually feel like crap after I have a huge junk meal, let
alone an entire junk food day. Would a guy like me get the same effect, from a
physiological point of view by carbing up / refeeding on potatoes, yams, rice, oats
and maybe some pasta? Is there any reason eating more clean food won’t have
the same effect as junk food?
Joel: A clean ―carb refeed‖ does not have the same benefits and is not as
effective; we actually tried it many, many times with clients, comparing results
with the ―all-out‖ approach, and strictly from fat loss standpoint the all-out
approach produces better results every time.
Now, that is not to say that you need to eat ―junk‖ food, but rather that you just
need to understand why ―junk‖ food works so well for our purposes, and then
replicate those reasons with cleaner items.
French fries, pizza, ice cream, pastries, etc, all combine two things very well—
very high glycemic carbohydrates and fats. That is the winning combo.
Carbohydate + fat produce a synergistic insulin response beyond what is
possible when just using carbs.
And you need to go HIGH GI—yams and oats are OK as part of the day’s menu,
but you really need to go higher GI than this. Throw in some bread, the rice and
pasta are good, maybe some crackers, Gatorade, etc.
Bottom line, high GI carbs + fat wins out. Whether you want that to be pizza or
whole wheat toast with all natural peanut butter is up to you. I’d certainly take the
pizza on a ―cheat‖ day, but hey, to each his own ;)
Tom: To what degree is your varied carb approach simply a way to manipulate
calories?
With so much focus on carbs and glycemic index, do you see a danger that
people are going to start to fear carbs or consider carbs fattening, when its really
just a caloric deficit we’re trying to achieve, isn’t it?
Joel: The calorie stuff is actually just a side-effect, after-effect, or added ―bonus‖
of what we do with carbs, not the main or intended effect we are trying to
achieve, which again are the insulin spikes throughout the week.
Yes, the calorie cycling does help a bit indirectly, but I even mention in the
manual that this is not the main reason for the staggered carb set up.
Tom: I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but I have to ask. Do you see any
potential downside of allowing an entire “eat whatever you want” cheat day, as
opposed to doling out individual cheat meals? In particular aren’t you concerned
about people overeating, losing track of calories and setting themselves
backwards?
If you give permission to your clients to go wild and eat whatever they want on
cheat day, I know some dudes that would make an all you can eat buffet go out
of business.
Joel: Yup, and I’m one of those dudes. Fact is, it works the way it is. I haven’t
met anyone who can really ―overeat‖ the cheat day to the point that it sets back
progress if they strategically follow the way I set up the rest of the program. It
just doesn’t happen. And this is coming from a guy who orders a 48 oz steak
when I go out to a steak house, along with appetizers, salad, soup, ―family‖ size
sides, and dessert.
The only ―stipulation‖ I put on the cheat day is that you do not eat to the point of
discomfort. Eat until you are full, but that’s it. Then wait until you are hungry
again until you eat. If you are leaving the table saying ―I ate too much‖ or if
you’re feeling sick, or if you have to lay down because you over-did it, that’s
where you know you’ve gone overboard, and that’s really the only way people
are going to overdo the calories.
As for the recommendation of doling things out to individual cheat meals, that
does NOT work to bring about the physiological changes (increasing leptin, etc),
which is the number one reason we use cheat days. The psychological stuff is a
nice added benefit, but it’s a side-effect of the physiological benefits we are
aiming to gain from each cheat day.
Cheat meals are great as a psychological vent, but that’s about it. Research has
very clearly shown that prolonged overfeeding over the course of a day (and not
a single meal) is necessary to restore leptin levels to baseline.
Tom: On a related note, would you agree that there are some people that
shouldn’t use the cheating method at all, like people who have a history of binge
eating?
Joel: Yes, if you have a history binge eating, eating disorders, etc, this program
is not for you. But, that’s the vast minority of people. 99% of people who use the
program are ready and motivated to hit the diet hard after a cheat day, and I give
some super easy strategies to implement to make sure the cheating ―stops‖ on
the cheat day and doesn’t trickle into the diet week.
Tom: Thanks, Joel. This has been on extremely informative interview. I know a
lot of people are going to be chomping at the bit (no pun intedended ;) for the
release of the Cheat Your Way Holiday Edition next week. Heck, it works better
with pizza! [laughs]
Joel: Yeah, it’s pretty cool, and losing weight during the holidays while still
enjoying all your favorite foods and without having to give up a single holiday
meal, party, or dessert is going to make the holidays a lot more fun for people
this year!
Stay tuned for the release of the Cheat Your Way Thin Holiday Edition this
upcoming Tuesday November 16th!