A Luxury of Bulking - The Cheat Meal

I love this bulking experiment!  On a bulk, it is inevitable to gain fat while gaining lean muscle.  The trick is to minimize the amount of fat gain, which is the reason why I still perform a bit of cardio.  Similarly to a cut diet, when you eat clean for too long, your body’s metabolism adapts to the constant caloric and macro levels.  But once or twice a week, I throw a little curve ball to my body and psych it out with a Cheat Meal to keep metabolism levels maximized.  This is optional, of course, but I think it is beneficial as a “few steps forward, one step back” approach.  For one, I love food and it helps with satiety and sanity from eating clean all the time.  When I’m back to my normal eating regimen on Monday, I am ready and can commit 100% until the next cheat meal.

The sodium content in cheat meals at restaurants are usually abnormally high compared to the normal meals I prepare myself.  For this reason, I know water retention will occur and the scale will read 2-5+ lbs. heavier than normal.  It usually takes about 72 hours for the body to regain water balance and remove the excess water, given water intake is at least a gallon every day.  Thus, I know I will not get an accurate read on the scale until about Wednesday because my cheat meals usually land on a Sunday.  But no fear if I break the scale on Monday. 

What do I constitute as a “Cheat Meal”?  It is a meal where I do not count calories or macros and enjoy foods that normal people eat!  Instead of having Meal 4, for example, I would have a cheat meal—pizza, sushi, Korean BBQ, burritos, pasta, lasagna, pancakes, burgers & fries…  Then I would try to continue with my scheduled meals, 5 and 6.  I eat pretty clean on a bulk and cook all my meals Mondays thru Fridays, and most meals on the weekends.    

Last weekend, I was craving something fried, crispy, and carb-heavy, so I had this:

Chicken Ten-Don, Hannosuke

 The tempura bowl was delicious but lacked epic portion size, so I thought I can afford another cheat meal.  I had a little over a half of a large-sized pan crust Pizza Hut pizza.  I'm sure the caloric and carb spikes during the weekend contributed to my performance at the gym today for Back Day.