Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater!

Everybody preaches about the elusive “balance” in life. A balanced diet, a balanced chequebook, balanced tires… but for many people, the balance with regard to diet and health is always out of reach.

I wouldn’t cheat on my husband, so why would I cheat on my diet?

This was the response I gave people during my first round of contest prep, when people would constantly ask, “Isn’t it hard to be so strict with your diet all the time?” It seemed so straightforward and obvious to me that I couldn’t understand why people started to regard me as being disciplined or having a strong sense of self-control. I couldn’t wrap my head around the difficulty people have when it comes to adhering to—or staying faithful to—a diet.

Similar to using the word reward with regard to food, using the word cheat is repugnant to me. However, it also seems to appeal to a lot of people. Consider this diet book that recently came on the market:

Amazon.com describes the book as follows:
“Dolvett’s effective eating plan is as easy as 3-1-2-1: three days of clean eating, one day of cheating, two more days of clean eating, and one final reward meal at the end of the week. No foods are off limits and you will never feel deprived because the plan is flexible enough to fit into any lifestyle.”
(Apparently, he also believes in using food as a reward!)

Can you imagine if we applied this logic regarding cheating to other areas of life? “It’s OK, Honey; it was my cheat day!” Think the auditor will give me a break if it was one of my designated cheat years on my income tax?

I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised that people are so drawn to the idea of cheating. After all, a lot of people have, at some point or another, cheated on a test at school. Just by glossing over most of the diet headlines on magazine covers, it’s obvious that most people want a quick fix. And a quick fix is really just a desire to cheat one’s physiology by speeding up a process that ought to be much more gradual. A lot of people are willing to lie (to themselves) and cheat their way to their goal weight (of course, this usually doesn’t last, and it’s usually just the beginning of another yoyo-diet phase).

The main issue I see in promoting cheating is that it sets people up for failure. In fact, it’s based on the assumption that people will cheat. And when people begin any program that from the start assumes that everyone is undisciplined, weak, and lacks self-control, the implication is that people will at some point fail and give up. If the diet plan has no faith in the dieter; why should the dieter have faith in him- or herself?

FYI: We can all do anything we put our minds to (diet included), and we are all stronger than we think we are. Don’t give away your strength to some diet “guru” who tells you otherwise. Decide, commit, and just do it!