Stear Clear of the Sweet Stuff

Everyone loves a good cheat meal, and chances are you plan yours out long before it comes around.  And if you're the type who dreams about Chili's Molten Lava Cake, you may want to think twice about how you are going to utilize your calories for your long awaited cheat chow.

The fact is that simple sugars, such as those found in most baked goods, candy, and other ready-made sweets, can be a real killer to your training or weight loss efforts for a host of reasons including the large amount of stress they put on the body due to the spike in insulin, you may have experienced this before as jitters, headache, or dizziness due to an intake of more simple sugars than your body was prepared to handle.  Other reasons to avoid this dangerous pantry villain include weight gain, diabetes, suppressed immune system function, poor absorption of vitamins and minerals, as well as hyperactivity followed by an energy crash, just to name a few.

But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.  A cheat meal can be a great way to sharpen the saw mentally and become refocused and motivated for another great and nutrition packed week, not to mention the likely benefit of revving up your metabolism after a week of slightly suppressed caloric intake.  Briefly boosting your calories can be a great way to keep your body guessing and your metabolism burning.  Pizza is undoubtedly one of my favorite cheat meals.  It too offers a type of sugar, but not those mentioned above.  The carbohydrates found in pizza dough burns slow, so it feeds the body longer, avoiding the undesired spike in insulin by supplying a steady flow of glucose to the blood.  It will also provide great energy even into the next day without any type of crash to follow.

So in summary, be wise when selecting how you are going to spend your cheat meal.  Be conscious and continue to be strategize what foods will provide you with the best satiation while fueling your body with all of the good stuff it needs to preform at its peak.  If you follow this guideline simple sugars will not make the cut due to their many negative short and long term side-effects.