Sane Meals Part II – When, how many, and how much?
On Monday I wrote about why I decided to call what most people refer to as cheats or free days “sane meals”. To recap, sane meals takes on two meanings serving two purposes. One including sane meals in my weekly plan makes it easier more enjoyable to stick to a healthy food plan all week. But the tern sane meal also serves as a reminder to literally have a sane meal instead of a out-of-control-feeding-frenzy. Not easy but possible.
So when and how many sane meals a week should one take? Sane meals? Or sane days?
Like many other aspects of health and fitness there isn’t a one size fit all approach. For instance, Body for Life recommends 1 sane day (which he calls free day) a week. John Berardi creator of Precise Nutrition recommends 90% of your meals follows his guidelines (which are pretty basic) and allow 10% of your meals to be off plan. This ends up being approximately 4 sane meals a week if you are eating 6 meals a day. Or 3 meals a week if you are eating 5 meals a day. Other people recommend one sane meal a week.
I think you have to find what works for you in the pursuit of your goals. You may be trying to drop a few pounds or quite a few pounds. You may be working on those last stubborn five vanity pounds your make may be working your way down to a “healthy” weight. You may be training for a figure competition where every meals counts or you may be training for a sporting event where every meals counts in regards to performance but not appearance.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of the sane day approach especially if you struggle with binging. I find it’s too easy to spiral out of control and I can “eat back” most or all of my hard work from the previous week in one single day. Here is an example. You need a 3500 hundred calorie deficit to lose one pound of fat. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that I know my body roughly needs 2000 calories a day to maintain my current body weight. I decide I want to lose a half a pound a week through changes in my diet alone. So starting Monday morning I cut 290 calories (3500 divided by 2 = 1750 calories. Divide 1750 by 6 = 292) out of my diet everyday for six days of week eating about 1708 a day. I have a total deficit of 1752 (roughly half of 3500) calories for that week. If nature is cooperating (water, hormones, minerals ect) then the scale should technically be down half a pound on Sunday morning. Sunday morning is my free day so I go to Ihop for breakfast and have a Colorado Omelette w/the side of pancakes. Since I love Filet-o-Fish I decide to stop at McDonalds for lunch. Fries? Sure, it’s sane day. Might as well supersize and grab a diet coke because I really want to make this day count. That evening we decide to order pizza since I haven’t had any all week. I eat 3 slices of pepperoni pizza and I’m stuffed. But it’s my sane day so I better eat two more. I mindlessly eat 2 servings Cheetos while I watch a movie that night. Yes I have had days where I eat just like this. Everything adds up to 3460 calories for the day and that is not including syrup on your pancakes, any snacks or ketchup on your fries (or in my case tartar sauce). I also didn’t have any sort of dessert or candy which most people indulge on their sane day. Afterall tomorrow is Monday, a new day. Once I subtract the 2000 calories my body needs for the day I’m left with an extra 1460 for the day leaving me only a 290 weekly calorie deficit instead of the 1750 weekly deficit I need to lose that half of pound that week. At this rate it’s going to take me six weeks to lose a half a pound. No wonder people give up. I know, these numbers aren’t entirely accurate numbers but they are really not that far off for your average 30 something 5’4″ girl who is trying to lose those last 10 pounds by exercising moderately 5-6x a week. My point is to simply say sane meals do count. At least to your body. I could have saved 1010 calories by eating 1 pancake instead of two with my omelette, order a small fry, eating 3 pieces of pizza instead of 5, and only 1 serving of cheetos bringing me within 450 calories of my goal of 1750 calorie deficit.
So if you want to take sane days go ahead. If you have a lot of weight to lose you they probably won’t affect your progress too much if at all because you can eat more and still lose. But if you are like me either trying to stay lean or get a little leaner then be careful especially if you are prone to binging. Staying sane on sane days for most people takes some effort. Enjoy your food without guilt but don’t go crazy. Learn go be satified with 1 dish or even one pint of ice cream if you must. You don’t have to eat 1/2 gallon. Enjoy a few slices of pizza but not the whole pizza. Because like it or not these calories count at least to your body they do. Your body is not going to say, “Oh that’s right. This is a sane meal so I won’t store these extra calories.” No it’s going to say, “Yippeee. I’ll survive the next famine!!!” Enjoy your sane days but stay sane.
Sane meals have their own challenges. Some people do better with a day because it’s one day and that’s it. The line is drawn. Six other days on plan. Period. If this is you, great. Stick with what works for you and your lifestyle. Most of the time sane meals work better for me since I need the flexibility to fit my will power (or lack of). I find that usually I don’t have all day events where there is a ridiculous amount of fun food but rather challenging occasions throughout the week. So I schedule my free meals in accordance with my weekly plans. Also, I clearly have binging issues so I find it easier to enjoy my fun food one meal at a time without the fear of spiraling out of control the rest of the day. It also helps that my sane meals tend to be dinner. Of course, a sane meal can become a binge if I let it and the previous example can work for 3 meals taken anytime during the week. I don’t want to have an “insane sane meal”. In other words, I work really hard on choosing to enjoy my lasagna but try to stop before I reach painfully full. For me this takes effort. A lot of effort. More than I care to admit. I rationalize my sanity away by saying things like, “It’s a sane day I deserve it.” Not true. Do I deserve to feel sick after I eat? Do I deserve to have trouble sleeping? Do I deserve to undo all my hard work from the day? There is nothing wrong with enjoying 2 or 3 pieces of pizza for a sane meal but I don’t have to have an entire pizza. At least that’s what I tell myself as sit on my hands in the booth staring at the greasy cheese. Again, the truth of the matter is you can undo all your previous week’s work by having insane-out-of-control-sane-meals. There’s one more reason worthy of mention as to why I prefer sane meals as opposed to days. Since I exercise in some fashion most days of the week I have a “boost” in will power for that day. I tend to schedule sane days on rest days therefor I don’t have that little boost of motivation from my workout. Again this is just me. If you like taking entire days you could easily schedule your workout in for that day if that helps.
Obviously if you choose to take sane days it’s one day a week. But what about sane meals? How many can I take a week and still reach my goals?
Again there isn’t a one size fits all approach. For me it depends of a few factors, my goals for the week, weekly plans, and overall goals. Am I maintaining? Am I trying to lose? How many and what sort of special occasions are on the calender? Is it my birthday week? Holidays? I refer to this as “planned intuition”. In other words, I plan my meals according to what I intuitively and honestly know will be strengths and weakness during the week. If I know one week is full of bbq’s and parties (or vacation) then that week I may take 4 or 5 free meals and then only 1 or 2 or none the following week. I’ve found on average I can take about 3-4 sane meals a week and not gain weight. I can have about 2 sane meals a week and still lose weight assuming I indulge a little but not overindulge. On an average week I have one or two social occasions such parties, bbq’s, meetings, or dinner invitations. If that’s the case, I will use my sane meals on those nights. Sometimes we go out to eat to a resturant that has a menu item I love that fits into my everyday plan. In that case, I don’t take a sane meal.
You have to find how many sane meals you can have to reach your goals. Plan and track you sane meals on your calender. If you want try having a full day for a few weeks and see what happens. If you are like me and find full days are too much then try 4 meals a week. Still not seeing the progress then try 3 sane meals a week. If you get down to two sane meals a week and are still not losing then it’s time to show yourself some tough love. Take a hard and honest look at the rest of your week. Are you not getting in your workouts? Are you really eating on plan 90% of the time? Are you “forgetting” about the little extras. Here are a couple a posts that address other reasons why you may not be losing weight. If you are working on those last 10 this may help. Losing fat is really simple (burn more calories that you eat) it’s just hard to do and even harder to do it right. (Fueling up with healthy food instead of low-cal junk or unsustainable extreme dieting.) When it comes to weight loss I really believe slow and steady works the best and thankfully sane meals are a part of that strategy.
xoxo
j
This is my (almost) sane quest for insane health. Let's 
It’s in these posts…I love you!!!!!
The whole things is very well put!
Love this,”Losing fat is really simple (burn more calories that you eat) it’s just hard to do and even harder to do it right.”
Man, you are good!!!! Another wonderful post I will be book-marking!
I just found your site. Great post! I love the reminder to keep sane meals sane!
Thanks so much for the post. I’m a binge eater too. My problem is if I have a sane meal once during a given day I tend to think oh that was horrible I will just write this whole day off and I end up eating bad for the whole day. Silly thinking. This really puts it in perspective though. Thanks!!
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