How To Out-Cheat “Cheat Days”

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The 10almonds Team

Out-Cheating “Cheat Days” (Or Even Just “Cheat Meals”)

If you are in the habit of eating healthily, the idea of a “cheat day” probably isn’t appealing—because you simply don’t crave junk food; it’s not what your gut is used to.

Nevertheless, sometimes cheat days, or at least cheat meals, choose us rather than the other way around. If your social group is having a pizza night or meeting up at the burger bar, probably you’re going to be having a meal that’s not ideal.

So, what to do about it?

Well, first of all, relax. If it really is an exception and not a regular occurrence, it’s not going to have a big health impact. Assuming that your basic dietary requirements are taken care of (e.g. free from allergens as necessary, vegan/vegetarian if that’s appropriate for you, adhering to any religious restrictions that are important to you, etc), then you’re going to have a good time, which is what scientists call a “pro-social activity” and is not a terrible thing.

See also: Is Fast Food Really All That Bad? ← answer: yes it is, but the harm is cumulative and won’t all happen the instant you take a bite of a chicken nugget

Think positive

No, not in the “think positive thoughts” sense (though feel free, if that’s your thing), but rather: focus on adding things rather than subtracting things.

It’s said:

❝It’s not the calories in your food that make the biggest impact on your health; it’s the food in your calories❞e

…and that’s generally true. The same goes for “bad things” in the food, e.g. added sugar, salt, seed oils, etc. They really are bad! But, in this case you’re going to be eating them and they’re going to be nearly impossible to avoid in the social scenarios we described. So, forget that sunk treasure, and instead, add nutrients.

10almonds tip: added nutrients remain added nutrients, even if the sources were not glowing with health-appeal and/or you ate them alongside something unhealthy:

  • Those breaded garlic mushrooms are still full of magnesium and fiber and ergothioneine.
  • The chili-and-mint peas that came as an overpriced optional side-dish with your burger are still full of protein, fiber, and a stack of polyphenols.

…and so on. And, the more time you spend eating those things, the less time you spend eating the real empty-calorie foods.

Fix the flaw

We set out to offer this guide without arguing for abstemiousness or making healthy substitutions, because we assume you knew already that you can not eat things, and as for substitutions, often they are not practical, especially if dining out or ordering in.

Also, sometimes even when home-cooking something unhealthy, taking the bad ingredient out takes some of the joy out with it.

Writers example: I once incorrectly tried to solve the fat conundrum of my favorite shchi (recipe here) by trying purely steaming the vegetables instead of my usual frying/sautéing them, and let’s just say, that errant-and-swiftly-abandoned version got recorded in my nutrition-tracker app as “sad shchi”.

So instead, fix the flaw by countering it if possible:

  • The meal is devoid of fiber? Preload with some dried figs (you can never have too many dried figs in your pantry)
  • The meal is high in saturated fat? Enjoy fiber before/during/after, per what’s convenient for you. Fiber helps clear out excess cholesterol, which is usually the main issue with saturated fat.
  • The meal is salty? Double down on your hydration before, during, and after. If that sounds like a chore, then remember, it’s more fun than getting bloated (which results, counterintuitively, from dehydration—because your body detects the salt, and panics and tries to retain as much water as possible to restore homeostasis, resulting in bloating) and hypertensive (which results from the combination of the blood having too much salt and too little water, and cells retaining too much water and pressing inwards because it is the cells themselves that are bloated). So, tending to your hydration can help mitigate all of the above.
  • The meal is full of high-GI carbs? Preload with fiber, enjoy the carbs together with fats, and have something acidic (e.g. some kind of vinegar, or citrus fruit) with it if that’s a reasonable option. Yes, this does mean that a Whiskey Sour is better for your blood sugars than an Old Fashioned, by the way, and/but no, it doesn’t make either of them healthy.
  • The meal is inflammatory? Doing all of the above things will help, as will eating it slowly/mindfully, which latter makes it less of a shock to your system.

See also: How To Get More Nutrition From The Same Food

Enjoy!

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  • The Coffee-Cortisol Connection, And Two Ways To Tweak It For Health

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Health opinions on coffee vary from “it’s an invigorating, healthful drink” to “it will leave you a shaking frazzled wreck”. So, what’s the truth and can we enjoy it healthily? Dr. Alan Mandell weighs in:

    Enjoy it, but watch out!

    Dr. Mandell is speaking only for caffeinated coffee in this video, and to this end, he’s conflating the health effects of coffee and caffeine. A statistically reasonable imprecision, since most people drink coffee with its natural caffeine in, but we’ll make some adjustment to his comments below, to disambiguate which statements are true for coffee generally, and which are true for caffeine:

    • Drinking coffee caffeine first thing in the morning may not be ideal due to dehydration from overnight water loss.
    • Coffee caffeine is a diuretic, which means an increase in urination, thus further dehydrating the body.
    • Coffee contains great antioxidants, which are of course beneficial for the health in general.
    • Cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, is generally at its peak in the morning. This is, in and of itself, good and correct—it’s how we wake up.
    • Coffee caffeine consumption raises cortisol levels even more, leading to increased alertness and physical readiness, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and in this case, problems can arise because…
    • Elevated cortisol from early coffee caffeine drinking can build tolerance, leading to the need for more coffee caffeine over time.
    • It’s better, therefore, to defer drinking coffee caffeine until later in the morning when cortisol levels naturally drop.
    • All of this means that drinking coffee caffeine first thing can disrupt the neuroendocrine system, leading to fatigue, depression, and general woe.
    • Hydrate first thing in the morning before consuming coffee caffeine to keep the body balanced and healthy.

    What you can see from this is that coffee and caffeine are not, in fact, interchangeable words, but the basic message is clear and correct: while a little spike of cortisol in the morning is good, natural, and even necessary, a big spike is none of those things, and caffeine can cause a big spike, and since for most people caffeine is easy to build tolerance to, there will indeed consistently be a need for more, worsening the problem.

    In terms of hydration, it’s good to have water (or better yet, herbal tea) on one’s nightstand to drink when one wakes up.

    If coffee is an important morning ritual for you, consider finding a good decaffeinated version for at least your first cup (this writer is partial to Lavazza’s “Dek Intenso”—which is not the same as their main decaf line, by the way, so do hold out for the “Dek Intenso” if you want to try my recommendation).

    Decaffeinated coffee is hydrating and will not cause a cortisol spike (unless for some reason you find coffee as a concept very stressful in which case, yes, the stressor will cause a stress response).

    Anyway, for more on all of this, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Senior Meetup Groups Combating Loneliness

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    “I would like to read more on loneliness, meetup group’s for seniors. Thank you”

    Well, 10almonds is an international newsletter, so it’s hard for us to advise about (necessarily: local) meetup groups!

    But a very popular resource for connecting to your local community is Nextdoor, which operates throughout the US, Canada, Australia, and large parts of Europe including the UK.

    In their own words:

    Get the most out of your neighborhood with Nextdoor

    It’s where communities come together to greet newcomers, exchange recommendations, and read the latest local news. Where neighbors support local businesses and get updates from public agencies. Where neighbors borrow tools and sell couches. It’s how to get the most out of everything nearby. Welcome, neighbor.

    Curious? Click here to check it out and see if it’s of interest to you

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  • 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don’t Do – by Dr. Amy Morin

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The saying “happy wife; happy life” indeed goes regardless of gender. One can have every other happiness, but if there’s relational trouble, it brings everything else down.

    This book is not intended, however, only for people whose relationships are one couple’s therapy session away from divorce. Rather, it’s intended as a preventative. Because, in this as in every other aspect of health, prevention is better than cure!

    It is the sign of a strong couple to be proactive about the health of the relationship, and work together to build and reinforce things along the way.

    The style of this book is very accessible pop-science, but the author speaks from a strong professional background in social work, psychology, and psychotherapy, and it shows.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to strengthen your relationship skills, this book gives 13 great ways to do that.

    Click here to check out 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don’t Do, and strengthen your relationship(s)!

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Related Posts

  • How To April Fool Yourself Into Having A Nutrient-Dense Diet!

  • Pomegranate’s Health Gifts Are Mostly In Its Peel

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    Pomegranate Peel’s Potent Potential

    Pomegranates have been enjoying a new surge in popularity in some parts, widely touted for their health benefits. What’s not so widely touted is that most of the bioactive compounds that give these benefits are concentrated in the peel, which most people in most places throw away.

    They do exist in the fruit too! But if you’re discarding the peel, you’re missing out:

    Food Applications and Potential Health Benefits of Pomegranate and its Derivatives

    “That peel is difficult and not fun to eat though”

    Indeed. Drying the peel, especially freeze-drying it, is a good first step:

    ❝Freeze drying peels had a positive effect on the total phenolic, tannins and flavonoid than oven drying at all temperature range. Moreover, freeze drying had a positive impact on the +catechin, -epicatechin, hesperidin and rutin concentrations of fruit peel. ❞

    Source: Effect of drying on the bioactive compounds, antioxidant, antibacterial and antityrosinase activities of pomegranate peel

    Once it is freeze-dried, it is easy to grind it into a powder for use as a nutritional supplement.

    “How useful is it?”

    Studies with 500mg and 1000mg per day in people with cases of obesity and/or type 2 diabetes saw significant improvements in assorted biomarkers of cardiometabolic health, including blood pressure, blood sugar levels, cholesterol, and hemoglobin A1C:

    It also has anticancer properties:

    …and neuroprotective benefits:

    …and it may protect against osteopenia and osteoporosis, but we only have animal or in vitro studies so far, for example:

    Want to try it?

    We don’t sell it, but you can buy pomegranates at your local supermarket, or buy the peel extract ready-made from online sources; here’s an example on Amazon for your convenience

    (the marketing there is for use of the 100% pomegranate peel powder as a face mask; it also has health benefits for the skin when applied topically, but we didn’t have time to cover that today)

    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Real Self-Care – by Pooja Lakshmin MD

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    As the subtitle says, “crystals, cleanses, and bubble baths not included”. So, if it’s not about that sort of self-care, what is it about?

    Dr. Lakshmin starts by acknowledging something that many self-help books don’t:

    We can do everything correctly and still lose. Not only that, but for many of us, that is the probable outcome. Not because of any fault or weakness of ours, but simply because one way or another the game is rigged against us from the start.

    So, should we throw in the towel, throw our hands in the air, and throw the book out of the window?

    Nope! Dr. Lakshmin has actually helpful advice, that pertains to:

    • creating healthy boundaries and challenging guilt
    • treating oneself with compassion
    • identifying and aligning oneself with one’s personal values
    • asserting one’s personal power to fight for one’s own self-interest

    If you’re reading this and thinking “that seems very selfish”, then let’s remember the “challenging guilt” part of that. We’ve all-too-often been conditioned to neglect our own needs and self-sacrifice for others.

    And, while selfless service really does have its place, needlessly self-destructive martyrdom does not!

    Bottom line: this book delivers a lot of “real talk” on a subject that otherwise often gets removed from reality rather. In short, it’s a great primer for finding the right place to draw the line between being a good-hearted person and being a doormat.

    Click here to check out Real Self-Care and “put your own oxygen mask on first”!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    How To Actually Use Those Indices

    Carbohydrates are essential for our life, and/but often bring about our early demise. It would be a very conveniently simple world if it were simply a matter of “enjoy in moderation”, but the truth is, it’s not that simple.

    To take an extreme example, for the sake of clearest illustration: The person who eats an 80% whole fruit diet (and makes up the necessary protein and fats etc in the other 20%) will probably be healthier than the person who eats a “standard American diet”, despite not practising moderation in their fruit-eating activities. The “standard American diet” has many faults, and one of those faults is how it promotes sporadic insulin spikes leading to metabolic disease.

    If your breakfast is a glass of orange juice, this is a supremely “moderate” consumption, but an insulin spike is an insulin spike.

    Quick sidenote: if you’re wondering why eating immoderate amounts of fruit is unlikely to cause such spikes, but a single glass of orange juice is, check out:

    Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    Glycemic Index

    The first tool in our toolbox here is glycemic index, or GI.

    GI measures how much a carb-containing food raises blood glucose levels, also called blood sugar levels, but it’s just glucose that’s actually measured, bearing in mind that more complex carbs will generally get broken down to glucose.

    Pure glucose has a GI of 100, and other foods are ranked from 0 to 100 based on how they compare.

    Sometimes, what we do to foods changes its GI.

    • Some is because it changed form, like the above example of whole fruit (low GI) vs fruit juice (high GI).
    • Some is because of more “industrial” refinement processes, such as whole grain wheat (medium GI) vs white flour and white flour products (high GI)
    • Some is because of other changes, like starches that were allowed to cool before being reheated (or eaten cold).

    Broadly speaking, a daily average GI of 45 is considered great.

    But that’s not the whole story…

    Glycemic Load

    Glycemic Load, or GL, takes the GI and says “ok, but how much of it was there?”, because this is often relevant information.

    Refined sugar may have a high GI, but half a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee isn’t going to move your blood sugar levels as much as a glass of Coke, say—the latter simply has more sugar in, and just the same zero fiber.

    GL is calculated by (grams of carbs / 100) x GI, by the way.

    But it still misses some important things, so now let’s look at…

    Insulin Index

    Insulin Index, which does not get an abbreviation (probably because of the potentially confusing appearance of “II”), measures the rise in insulin levels, regardless of glucose levels.

    This is important, because a lot of insulin response is independent of blood glucose:

    • Some is because of other sugars, some some is in response to fats, and yes, even proteins.
    • Some is a function of metabolic base rate.
    • Some is a stress response.
    • Some remains a mystery!

    Another reason it’s important is that insulin drives weight gain and metabolic disorders far more than glucose.

    Note: the indices of foods are calculated based on average non-diabetic response. If for example you have Type 1 Diabetes, then when you take a certain food, your rise in insulin is going to be whatever insulin you then take, because your body’s insulin response is disrupted by being too busy fighting a civil war in your pancreas.

    If your diabetes is type 2, or you are prediabetic, then a lot of different things could happen depending on the stage and state of your diabetes, but the insulin index is still a very good thing to be aware of, because you want to resensitize your body to insulin, which means (barring any urgent actions for immediate management of hyper- or hypoglycemia, obviously) you want to eat foods with a low insulin index where possible.

    Great! What foods have a low insulin index?

    Many factors affect insulin index, but to speak in general terms:

    • Whole plant foods are usually top-tier options
    • Lean and/or white meats generally have lower insulin index than red and/or fatty ones
    • Unprocessed is generally lower than processed
    • The more solid a food is, generally the lower its insulin index compared to a less solid version of the same food (e.g. baked potatoes vs mashed potatoes; cheese vs milk, etc)

    But do remember the non-food factors too! This means where possible:

    • reducing/managing stress
    • getting frequent exercise
    • getting good sleep
    • practising intermittent fasting

    See for example (we promise you it’s relevant):

    Fix Chronic Fatigue & Regain Your Energy, By Science

    …as are (especially recommendable!) the two links we drop at the bottom of that page; do check them out if you can

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

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