when I cheat, I really cheat...

In keeping with a similar theme of last week's post when I confessed my reasons why I'll never be the fitness blogger I want to be, I thought today I'd reveal even more home truths, my 'cheat' days!

Now, I'm a bit of an Instagram junkie and tend to follow a lot of 'clean eating', 'healthy living' type accounts.  And I'll admit that I do try to keep a relatively 'clean' diet throughout the week, but the longer I try and stick to this health and fitness plan, the more I'm leaning towards a 'balanced diet' approach, than 'clean and mean' as I like to think of it.
In the run up to my wedding, obviously I had more motivation to really stay on track.  So Sunday to Friday I kept my diet super healthy, treats tended to be fruit or yoghurt (not exactly something to get excited about) and I tracked every calorie in myfitnesspal.  But come Saturday, and the flood gates would open, I would pretty much binge eat my way through the day.  And yes, it's probably not the healthiest way to live. and wasn't in line with my 6 days a week 'clean' living, but it's what kept me motivated and focused in the 6 months leading up to my wedding, and I was really pleased with how I looked on the day.


Post wedding, I attempting to maintain that structure for a couple of months, but I quickly realised that it was just unrealistic.  I resented calorie counting, and I was still working out 5/6 days a week so decided to become a little less focused on what I was eating, plus, I always thought the best thing about exercising is that you get to what you want, right?
There are a lot of health and fitness bloggers I follow who are all about 'good days' and 'bad days'.  Macro counting and 'cheat days'.  And then there's a few who have a more idealistic attitude (Carly Rowena I'm mainly looking at you), who tend to eat healthy most of the time, but appreciate that life is for living, and so if you want to go out and have a burger and few drinks, then that is what you should do.  And it shouldn't be thought of as 'cheating', which I am completely down with, so my attitude now is 'treating'.

Ok, so if do follow me on Instagram (if you don't, you should, I'm a hoot over there!), then some of you are probably thinking every day is a 'treat' day for me when you see some of the images I post.  Well, you might be right.  But I'm much happier living a more relaxed approach.  I eat three very healthy meals, which usually consist of salad for lunch, and one of The Body Coach's Lean in 15 meals in the evening, and I still workout 5 or 6 times a week, so if I want to have a big bowl of Ben and Jerry's ice cream after dinner then I will, and I'm not going to get hung up on the Saturday I just had, which involve an 'all you can eat' brunch, copious amounts of alcohol, and then a chinese takeaway.  My hangover wasn't so pretty the next day, I didn't get out for the run I'd planned, but I had an awesome day, and that's whats important!