springmainSo, while it may not look or feel like spring outside, it’s spring! The end of Spring when Summer should be teasing us. Bringing all the fun things you’d associate – holiday weekends, barbecues, weddings, evenings drinking outside….. all of which add up to bad news for your clean eating and training regime. We are all human though and the odd blow out is not going to have hugely detrimental effects to your overall goal if it is exactly that – occasional. If you eat cleanly and exercise regularly, nothing wrong with treating yourself every now and again. What is wrong though is allowing what should be a cheat “meal” to become a full –on blow out. So you have a glass of wine and a dessert at lunchtime…. This does not give you licence to finish the rest of the bottle over the course of the afternoon and then have a takeaway pizza for dinner and raid the biscuit tin for a midnight snack. Do not let treats become pig outs!

 

However, these things will happen from time to time. So what can you do to minimise the effects of a dietary “slip up”?

Firstly – do not panic. This happens. Real life will get in the way of clean eating and training from time to time. It happens. All angels let their halo slip at some point! But tomorrow is another day, so you can wipe the slate clean, start again, and move on. You can’t change what happened so no point wasting emotional energy worrying about it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you haven’t ruined your ideal body by one day of cheating.

springwaterNext thing – drink some water. In fact a lot of water. Dilute what you’ve put into your system – especially if it has involved alcohol which will have caused your blood sugar levels to soar – making you crave more sugar. This will start to help your body return to an equilibrium, and also help to fill you up so you don’t eat more than you need to in a bid to “make yourself feel better”.

We all know (sadly) the most tempting thing after a big night out is a carb-loaded re-fill – a greasy fry up, a chip butty, cold pizza…. None of these things are actually going to make you feel better. They’re just going to over load your system with carbs, when it’s already struggling to cope with all that excess sugar (from the alcohol/cake/dirty takeaway). When there’s too much glucose in your system and your body can’t use it, it will just get stored as fat. Which, I don’t need to remind you, is bad. So step away from the multi pack of crisps, and think about eating some lean protein. This will fill you up, give you sustainable energy, and balance out those blood sugar levels. An omelette or scrambled eggs, some low fat greek yogurt or some chicken/salmon with grilled tomatoes would be a good choice right now.

If you’ve been on a food binge, chances are you’ve eaten food that isn’t exactly high on the nutrient scale. So do yourself another favour – eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg over the next 24 hours to get nutrients back into your body and to help support your immune and lymph system in getting rid of all the “things” it doesn’t need.

So to sum up – nothing wrong with the odd cheat or treat. Nothing even wrong with the odd binge – it is bound to happen. But just make sure they don’t become regular occurrences, and when an attack of the naughties does strike, you now have the damage control strategy to minimise the impact!

Remember – one day at a time, put the bad day behind you and start again tomorrow. Every day is a new chance to get fit!