5 Simple Secrets to Help You Stop Cheating on Your Diet!

If you’re a consistent reader of my blog, you know that I am not a huge fan of specific diets. I like my readers and clients to live a balanced and healthy lifestyle. I offer my clients nutritional guidelines that will keep them fit and healthy but allow them to enjoy life.

The key to success is to consistently stick to your nutritional guidelines and allow yourself to enjoy certain “unhealthy” foods on occasion. The problem that often occurs is that people consistently enjoy their “unhealthy” foods and stick to the nutritional guidelines on occasion.

One of the biggest obstacles to losing weight is “cheating” too much on your plan, resulting in the over-consumption of foods like cakes, cookies, pastries, pizza, fries, etc.  If you can learn to control these cravings and limit these foods, you will start losing tons of fat in no time!

Here are 5 simple secrets to help you stop cheating on your diet!

Plan Your Week

Set aside some time on Sunday before you watch Game of Thrones to plan out the upcoming week. Plan what you should eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day. You can also try and plan what snack foods you’ll need to have available if you find yourself hungry in between meals.

Planning your week in this way allows you to know exactly what you need to be doing to keep your fat loss goals on track. When you have your meals and snacks planned, you won’t find yourself making quick and drastic decisions when you are starving and don’t know what you should eat.

One of the most important factors in any nutritional plan (whether it is building muscle or losing fat) is your planning! Create a plan and stick to it and you will reach your goals much faster!

Prepare Your Food in Advance

This ties directly into secret number 1. On Sunday, after your week is planned out, you should take the time to prepare your food for the week in advance. This includes planning your meals, doing your grocery shopping, and preparing your food. The first two secrets may seem like a lot of work on a Sunday, but it actually shouldn't take up too much of your time and will save you SO much time during the week.

Take the extra hour or two on a Sunday to prepare your meals in advance and you’ll find that you save countless hours during the week because you won’t be thinking about what meals you should make and then taking the time to cook them. Preparing your meals in advance keeps the food readily available for you so that you don’t find yourself running to a fast food restaurant or hitting up the snack machine when you are starving.

Try and Keep Your Shopping to a Minimum

If you can keep your shopping to one day a week (Sunday or whenever works best for you) you will be less likely to buy something you shouldn’t. The more trips you make to the grocery store, the more opportunities you have to buy these “cheat” foods that are hindering your fat loss goals.

With your week already planned out on Sunday, you’ll have a grocery list and you will know exactly what you need to buy.

Try and Identify Situations Where You Are Prone to Cheating

If you find that there are certain times or scenarios where you “cheat” on your diet, it can be a big help to identify them in advance.

Doing this will make you aware of the situations and can help you plan for them. For example, if you think about it, you may realize that you are in too much of a rush on certain mornings of the week and find that you routinely have to stop at a fast food restaurant to eat. A way to remedy this issue would be to plan your meals in advance and have a quick smoothie in the morning or have overnight oats already prepared.

Figure Out a Way to Stay Accountable

It is very tough to stick to your fat loss program on your own. You need a way to stay accountable so you don’t give up. One of the best ways to stay accountable is to start a program with a friend or family member. You and your fat loss program partner can remind each other the importance of sticking to the program and not giving up. It can be fun to see each other’s progress and you will have a mutual admiration for each other when you reach your goals. You will also find that you don’t want to give up as easily when you know that your partner is counting on you to keep them on track.

Another great way to stay accountable is to hire a coach. Your coach will help you with all of your decisions and will make sure that you stay on track. I have found that many people will give up on their plan if they are following it on their own, but if they pay someone to keep them accountable, they will stick to it until the end. If you become one of my clients, I provide you with your own grocery lists, nutritional guidelines, and will keep you on track, effectively doing most of your Sunday planning for you!

Try out these 5 secrets and you will be on your way to losing fat fast and for good! My biggest piece of advice for you is to remember that consistency is key. There is no diet plan that will give you results overnight. You need to stay consistent with your plan and trust the process. Setbacks happen, and when they do it is important that you don’t beat yourself up. Get right back on the plan and continue to make progress!