Achieving long-term weight loss success is impossible if you feel that you are being deprived of something. It would be unrealistic to believe or even expect that you’re never going to eat some of your favorite treats ever again. To succeed on a long-term basis you need to have some flexibility. So I recommend scheduling a “free” day into your week.
I was first introduced to the idea of a free day about seven years ago when I picked up a book called Body For Life by Bill Phillips at the airport.
Very simply, a free day is your chance to eat whatever you have been craving throughout the week, such as pizza, fried chicken, a big greasy cheeseburger, pie or chocolate.
The free day allows you to…
- Enjoy special occasions without worry about peer pressure.
- Get through “moments of weakness” knowing your free meal is just around the corner.
- Enjoy eating your favorite foods without feeling guilty.
Can You Really Eat Junk Food and Lose Weight?
Not only does a free day provide some relief from cravings but it also may help improve fat burning. When you eat fewer calories than your body needs, your body responds by slowing down all metabolic functions. This is why cutting calories too severely rarely works to lose fat effectively.
If you reduce your food intake too drastically, the body protects itself by breaking down muscle for fuel as well as holding onto stored fat. So even though you’re losing weight, a large portion of that lost weight is muscle not fat. Occasionally over-feeding yourself with a free day sends a signal to your body that there is no need to hang onto those fat stores.
Also, implementing a free day into your diet helps keep leptin levels up. Leptin is a hormone that helps regulate your metabolism. When dieting, leptin levels can drop dramatically, slowing your metabolic rate. Overfeeding your body helps raise leptin levels, keeping your metabolism humming along.
Free Day Guidelines
The free day concept can be a saving grace for some people or it can be the undoing of others. To help keep things under control, follow these guidelines:
Schedule it into your week. This is an important point. When you schedule your free day, you have something to look forward to. So when you are standing in line at the grocery store staring down your favorite chocolate bar, you can say, “I’ve only got two days until my free day. I can wait.”
By eating so-called junk food only when scheduled, it breaks any emotional connection you may have to food. If I choose to eat my free day on Saturday, then I’m eating because that’s when I choose to eat – not because I’m bored, stressed or lonely.
Being able to indulge yourself in a free day depends on the rest of your eating habits. If you are consistently nibbling scraps from your kids’ plates or if you are unable to say no to those free donuts at company meetings then you must be prepared to accept the consequence of not being able to enjoy a free day. Don’t delude yourself by thinking you can sneak treats throughout the week, have a free day and still see the results you want.
When it’s done, it’s done. When your free day has come and gone, it’s time to get back to business – the business of burning fat. For some people, one free day can lead to a quick fall off the wagon. You need to enjoy your free day and then get back to preparing and eating healthy meals and snacks. It comes down to control. You control what you eat, not the other way around.
Drink water. When I first started having a free day, I neglected to drink enough water throughout the day. After all, water would only take up valuable real estate in my gut, right?
But I soon learned that without enough water, your digestive system is put at a serious disadvantage. Your body needs water to properly move the food through your digestive system. Without enough water, you’ll feel bloated and possibly become constipated.
And drinking water prevents you from ingesting too many calories by making you feel fuller than you really are.
Eat only when hungry. The temptation during a free day is to look at it as an eat-a-thon where you get up and immediately start eating and don’t stop until you pass-out beside the toilet. Ideally, you should stick to your eating schedule, only your meals will be from foods you normally wouldn’t eat throughout the week.
If you feel stuffed from dinner when the time comes for your evening snack, don’t eat just for the sake of eating. Give yourself some extra time and wait to eat until you feel hungry again.
Exercise. Even though Joel Marion says in his book, The Cheat To Lose Diet, you don’t need to exercise while enjoying a free day and still lose weight, I believe incorporating exercise into your weight loss program is important if you want to partake in a day of gluttony.
Exercising – particularly strength training – will help make sure you burn off some of the extra calories you’ll be ingesting, plus it helps your body deal with all of the incoming sugar.
What To Do If You’re Not Losing Weight
You may find that eating whatever you want for one entire day may not allow you to reach your fitness and weight loss goals. If this is the case, don’t panic.
Instead of an entire day, you may need to dial it back a little. First, try making your main meals “free”. If after a couple of weeks you find you’re still not getting the results you want, cut it back to two meals.
If two cheat meals still proves too much, then you may need to increase the intensity of your exercise sessions or start exercising if you’re not already.
It may take some time to find exactly what works for you, but with some trial and error, you’ll find it.
To learn more on how to incorporate a free day into a fitness and weight loss program, I recommend you check out these books:
Body For Life by Bill Phillips – As I mentioned, this is the first book I read that suggested incorporating a free day into a weight loss program. Even though it’s been out for many years now, I still consider this book to be a great resource. It gives you a step-by-step weight training and cardio exercise program. Plus it gives you an easy-to-follow eating program. Click here to read more on Body For Life.
The Cheat To Lose Diet by Joel Marion – Ironically, Marion was a winner of the 2001 Body For Life transformation challenge. Now he’s come out with his own diet book. I found the book simple – almost too much so – to follow. What I’m not crazy about, but others will no doubt love, is Joel does not really stress exercise as part of his program. Click here to read more about The Cheat To Lose Diet.
Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (BFFM) by Tom Venuto – With over 300 pages of fitness and weight loss information, BFFM could very well be the most complete and in-depth book of its kind. I highly recommend Tom’s book over all others. Click here to read more about Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle.
Every time i try to lose weight i always feel very deprived but i think if i tried your method of a free day, i think it would really help and give me something to aim for too if i had a treat to look foward to at the end of the week. Great idea, thanks.
Hi Keeley,
I find it works well. Many people become fixated on never being able to eat junk food again. With this method you take it one week at a time. The one thing a person has to watch is the compulsion to eat everything in sight, as if it’s the last time they’ll be able to eat these foods. On my first attempt at a free day I nearly threw up, I was so full. Just remember you only have seven days before you can eat whatever you like again. Hope it works for you.