Can you lose weight by eating too much on a cheat day? Chinese medicine practitioners teach you 3 tips on eating whatever you want

Xiaoxuan went to a buffet with her friends on Saturday. Her friends all knew that Xiaoxuan was on a weight loss plan. However, everyone felt confused as they watched her devour one plate of delicious food after another. Xiaoxuan didn't feel guilty about eating at all. Everything went according to her plan. Her weight increased slightly on Sunday morning, and then she started to return to her original weight loss diet principles. She also took in a lot of vegetables. She weighed herself again on Monday morning and found that she weighed even less than 48 hours ago, as if she had not eaten so much.

In order to minimize fat gain from eating too much on cheat days, there are some tips to follow, focusing on three principles:

3 tips for eating whatever you want on cheat days

Rule 1: Keep insulin secretion to a minimum

We have to slow down blood sugar spikes as much as possible, remember? Rapidly rising blood sugar will stimulate additional insulin secretion, which in turn leads to fat accumulation. In terms of eating time, you can choose to eat two meals on the cheat day and do intermittent fasting to avoid eating throughout the day and keep your blood sugar at a high point.

In terms of diet, there are many foods that have been proven to effectively suppress blood sugar levels, such as broccoli, bitter melon, garlic, lemon, etc.

You can try to combine these foods as much as possible on the day. There is basically no limit on the amount of vegetables, but excessive intake of garlic and lemon may cause gastrointestinal discomfort and must be used in moderation. In traditional Chinese medicine, pharmacological studies have shown that cinnamon and coptis root can also inhibit blood sugar and reduce insulin secretion, and can be taken before large meals.

In terms of dietary order, priority should be given to eating plenty of vegetables, so that these dietary fibers can form a fence in the intestines and reduce the absorption of fat. Then eat protein and fat foods, and finally refined starch. By putting foods that cause blood sugar to rise quickly, that is, refined sugars, at the end, you can avoid the sudden rise and fall of blood sugar like a roller coaster.

The speed and amount of eating also have a decisive impact on blood sugar! Even on a cheat day, it is recommended that you eat slowly, bite by bite, and stop when you are full! I remember when I was in elementary school, the teacher told us to chew each mouthful of food 20 times, which made sense.

I have an elementary school classmate who loves sports. He is always in a hurry to finish lunch and then run to the basketball court to play. I never saw him fat when he was a student. After entering society, he still did not change the habit of eating too fast. The only change was that he exercised less. However, his whole body was like an inflatable ball, gaining weight rapidly, making it difficult for old classmates who hadn't seen him for a long time to recognize him at a glance.

Rule 2: Speed ​​up the emptying of food from the stomach

Speed ​​up the time it takes for the stomach to empty food so that it doesn't stay in the intestines for too long. On your cheat day, you eat a lot of high-calorie foods, and you don’t want them to stay in your stomach for too long and let the fat be slowly absorbed, right? There are several ways to help them pass quickly through the intestines.

First, the more dietary fiber you consume during a meal, the more it can stimulate intestinal peristalsis.

Second, after the meal, drink a cup of calorie-free beverage, such as: black coffee, green tea, yerba mate tea, burdock tea, cassia seed tea.

Since caffeine and theophylline can stimulate the intestines, burdock is rich in dietary fiber, and cassia seed tea contains chrysophanol, which can promote bowel movements and speed up the emptying of the intestines.

You may not want to eat in a sweaty state, so we recommend high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which only takes 5 to 10 minutes to perform, or you can simply choose to take a walk after the meal.

Rule 3: Perform short bursts of muscle activity

Ideally, if we allow calories to enter muscle cells instead of fat cells, would we be able to reduce fat accumulation? In modern physiological research,

It has been discovered that such a mechanism does exist, and the key lies in the channel protein on the cell: glucose transporter 4 (glut-4).

Through exercise, blood can be quickly brought to muscle cells, prompting the glucose transporter 4 (glut-4) on the muscle cell membrane to gather and open channels, allowing a large amount of glucose to enter. As for the specific operation method, you can choose to exercise half an hour before meals or one hour after meals to intercept this path before blood sugar enters fat cells.

Of course, you may not want to eat in a sweaty state, so we recommend high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which only takes 5 to 10 minutes to perform, or you can simply choose to take a walk after the meal.

A cheat day is the day you reward yourself after working hard all week. Many friends who are losing weight forget how to indulge themselves. If you have no idea, I suggest you eat some fast food.

However, when eating, remember to eat slowly and consciously so that you can enjoy the original flavor of the food. These are rare days, and you don’t want to be like in the movie “The Hangover” and forget everything when you wake up the next day, right?

By indulging on cheat days, you can keep your weight loss process in moderation. As the English proverb goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." A bright boy who only works hard and doesn't play becomes a dull boy. Weight management is like stress management. Only if you know how to relax at the right time can you go a long way.

This article is from the book "Weight Loss Blueprint" by Happiness Culture (author: Chinese medicine practitioner Lv Huanyi)