Are you ready?

Are you ready for me to give you permission to cheat one day per week?

Take one day a week and just be the biggest cheater you can possibly be.

Make it a Saturday or Sunday so you can enjoy cheating all day long.

It’s fine. It’s rewarding. And it’s something you’ll look forward to all week.

Now, if you’re thinking I’m talking about cheating on your relationship, well, you’re partly right.

I’m talking about cheating on your relationship with yourself.

And the relationship you have with food, with taking care of yourself.

That’s what I’m telling you to cheat on.

I’m NOT telling you to cheat on somebody you’re dating.

I’m telling you to cheat on your health one day per week.

Make it a cheat day.

You see, all week long I eat really healthy.

No processed sugars, and not too many carbs.

I do that because, well, my body is something that I respect, and I’ve been able to stay in really good shape my whole life.

I wasn’t always this way, but as I got older, I learned that the better food that I eat, the more consistent I feel great.

I don’t have brain fog.

I feel alive and alert.

I don’t turn my food into fat.

I burn through my food.

My workouts are better.

But, being a human being, it’s okay to indulge one day per week.

It’s important to indulge. It’s healthy to indulge. And it’s fun to indulge.

The other day I went to a kid’s party and decided that was going to be my cheat day.

The pizza was calling me nonstop. It was full of gluten, full of cheese, but I decided to indulge. I decided to go and have the pizza.

I enjoyed the pizza.

It was good. It tasted good. It was all yummy.

And then when I got home that night I had coconut yogurt and granola. I continued my cheat day.

A cheat day is good because it gives you the rewards.

Think about this.

If every night you indulge in a chocolate bar.

Have a bowl of ice cream.

Whatever it might be. You’re not really rewarding yourself at all. You’re basically giving in to sugar cravings. Things that will cause your body issues in the future.

You’ll eventually gain weight.

Your cholesterol level will eventually go up.

And your fasting blood sugars will eventually go up, because when you eat that stuff late at night, or you eat it after dinner, you’re doing nothing but turning that sugar into fat. You’re not burning it off at all.

So imagine if you actually just had a piece of raw chocolate at night.

Or you really had nothing but dinner.

And one day a week, you indulged in all the things that you like. You got to eat the junk. You got to drink the booze.

You got to do the things that you like, and the rest of the week you actually took care of yourself. You developed a more healthy relationship with your body.

I guarantee you: after 30 days, your body’s going to look better.

You’re going to shred up.

You’re going to lose the extra weight.

You’re going to feel better mentally.

You’re not going to have sugar spikes.

And your cravings are definitely going to wane.

You are definitely going to feel better.

My daughter’s school is really set up this way.

During the week, they don’t allow you to watch a TV show.

There’s this “no electronics” rule that they have at the school.

And my daughter’s alright with it. She reads book.

She doesn’t watch anything.

She draws. She’s creative. She’s using her mind.

And then come Friday night, until Sunday night, she’s able to watch movies.

She gets to enjoy it. It gives her something to look forward to.

And I think that’s how we need to have a healthy relationship with our body.

By doing that, we have this incredible healthy relationship. We give ourselves something to look forward to.

Imagine teaching your children this relationship with food from the beginning of time.

At night, they’re snacking on carrot sticks instead of potato chips.

Instead of having ice cream every single night, they’re having a banana.

You teach them and show them these things, because it’s all going to benefit them moving forward.

It’s going to give them a healthy relationship with their mind and their body.

These are things that are so important, as we over-indulge in candy and sweets and things that are bad for us. We don’t think about the future. We don’t ever think about our future body, we don’t think about future addictions.

We think it’s okay just to have a drink every single night, but we don’t think about the addiction that may form as one glass of wine turns into two, which turns into three.

We don’t reward ourselves the way that we should, so we start to become an addicted society, whether it’s alcohol, sugar or TV.

We soothe ourselves with our addictions and we think it’s okay in the beginning, but as time passes by, the addiction becomes more and more powerful.

It’s a coping skill that we use, which can turn into a very destructive habit as we get older. Our body changes, we slow down, we start getting more and more addicted, we get heavier.

So, take a look at your habits that you have and ask yourself, are they worth it?

Do you want to live a long, healthy life? I can sit here and tell you about the negative effects of sugar, alcohol, and television, but you get the point.

You can Google it and you can read what it does to body, mind, and soul.

So, learn to have cheat days and watch the way your life changes.