Weekly Measure

Incremental victories. The theme of my week in many ways. This week, I lost half an inch in my hips and almost half an inch in my arms. I was down 1 lb this morning, but I'm pretty much disregarding the scale right now. In reality, Tuesdays would be a better day to measure and weigh because Sundays are my free days to eat whatever and not feel guilty. Many fitness experts say one free day a week can be crucial in someone's failure or success. One reason is mental: If I want something naughty, I can have it, I just have to wait until free day. The second is physiological: As your body gets leaner and you reduce your caloric intake, sometimes our metabolisms get stuck in a rut of only burning that smaller amount of calories. So in order to keep it from getting into a rut (or starvation mode in some cases), the best way is to have one day of a very high caloric intake. That revs it back up. But you can't do that for more than one day. It's the perfect solution for addressing cravings and also keeping your metabolism at an all-time high.

From bodybuilding.com:

Cheat Days (or meals) are necessary to not only emotionally calm your cravings, but to jump start your metabolism and provide extra energy. Eating foods that are higher in calories, or are not normally in our food plan, will increase our metabolism since our bodies are forced to work harder at burning the calories ingested. The key is to cheat only when necessary, and this skill can take time to learn.Many people I know have a cheat day every Sunday, however I work better on cheating a few meals or snacks each week. Devoting an entire day (Sunday) to cheating doesn't work for me emotionally since I know I would want something naughty by Wednesday or Thursday. Through trial and error, I know my body and mind works best when I allow myself to have a cheat meal when I truly need one. This may mean a Frappuccino, a small bowl of ice cream, or some toast with peanut butter.Whether you have reached your fitness goals or have 20 pounds to loose, having a cheat meal will keep your sanity and rev up your metabolism so that when you return to your clean eating you will burn calories faster, now that your metabolism is working harder.

So I didn't get the results I was hoping for at this measure. I'm not discouraged, at least there was a little progress. It makes me want to workout really hard this week. Watch out naptime! Mama's pulling out the weights!