The pact itself was not scary, per say, or very demanding but it posed a real challenge to me as a consumer as you'll see later on in the article. I was not afraid of cravings for that sweet or those crispy crisps dipped in the cheese sauce with pizza for dessert during my cheat meals - none of it was a concern to me from Monday to Friday. When you are busy at work and have your workouts as scheduled, you do not even have time to go out to the store to shop around for something "tasty" or even think about it. You're there from X to Y, doing the workout, filling yourself up with the protein milkshake and going home all nice and jolly to fight against occasional small bouts of hunger by stuffing yourself up with the water till you doze off. But when the weekend came...mamma mia. That was a real challenge not to give in to the temptation.
I got used to the cheat meals on the weekends - in fact, I have had them for the past six or so months, so it was already like a habit and it was hard to give it up but there was no choice. I knew I had to change something up.
When I went to the store, I was at a loss for things to buy - nearly half of the things were not allowed to buy as per the pact. Still tempting though...three rows were packed with biscuits, stroopwafels, chewing sweets, chocolates with various jolly fillings...then I went over to the other side of the stands and there were more types of similar sweets but with different fillings, produced by other manufacturers. Ok. Fine. I continued strolling around the shop to check out the cooked food - it was quite pricy, looked like it was made out of plastic and the nutrients on the back were as high as the weather measured in Fahrenheit. I stopped over the dairy section to pick up the non-lactose milk (1.5% fat) and other products high in protein and low in fat (yoghurts and cottage cheese). Meat section had nothing good to offer plus I still had a lot of frozen chicken and beef at home. So another couple of square meters of shelfs were of no use to me either. Everything else, really, was spices, pasta, buckwheat (the latter two I already had at home) and heaps of the other shelves contained even more sweets and tons of beverages (most of which, besides still and carbonated water, had artificial sugar added to them - and no, I did not end up buying 0 kcal coke) and frozen pizzas. Then it daunted me. The rice cakes! Nutritional value in them was great - around 300 kcal in a 100g pack, 60g of carbs, low in fat, around 7-10g of fibre and 10g of protein. That substituted my urge for crisps. I then proceeded with getting the oranges and grapes and started examining the contents of the refrigerators once again. I did not want the veggies for my "cheat day" but rather something meaty. Cooked frozen lasagna looked like trash food and then there were meat dumplings. Hm...are they considered junk food? Why would they be? I started going through the nutritional values of one kind of dumplings to another until I found a package with low amount of fat, decent in carbs and protein. I mean, why would it be junk food, right? Dough was not excluded from the diet, neither was the meat. Boom - what a match! Uncle Google confirmed the same - unless you deep fry the dumplings, they are a healthy option to eat. That sealed the deal for me. With a lot of fruits, rice cakes, milk and a package of dumplings, I was ready to execute the first full day of "cheating".
This is when I had to change my strategy. Before I still maintained the habit of eating during the certain time of the day when it came to cheat meals but when it came to portions, I would usually stuff myself up, wait out, drink a lot of water/tea and in the next three hours, you'll find me busy eating again. That usually happened three times per day. Sometimes, I'd only have one or two cheat meals per day per week. That would not have been enough with the new diet though. So I thought that it would not cut the cake and I decided to eat whenever (I was reasonable enough to give myself at least one hour break between the meals) and as much as I could. I mean, it was healthy food after all. Boiled dumplings with paprika, then grapes and oranges - ate it all like a champ! Wait out a bit and you introduce a dairy fluid to your body mixed with honey - there is a substitute for your regular milkshake.
It was rough, I had to admit it - especially when you dedicate one day per week of completely relaxing and not letting the usual habits take over you. But it felt considerably better to be stuffing myself up with healthy food rather than junk and sweets, I can tell you that. And actually, one day of that "havoc-eating" was enough for me and Sunday I'd be back on track with my usual healthy diet.
However, it feels bad that when you walk into a store, you cannot purchase half of the things that you see on the shelves. And this is not just one store but many...or may be it is just me being way too selective as I do not eat pastry and high in fat foods (like cheese, olives, nuts etc.) but if you want to be fit and eat healthy, today's food selection is quite scarce, I am afraid to admit and when it comes to "healthy cheat meals" (or rather "stuff-yourself-up-with-different-but-healthy-food"), then I cannot find much. But I am exploring my options still, so I might give you a few tips on what you can eat during those days where you crave for something special, new but don't want it to be too harmful for your body. Looking forward to writing that article!
During my second week though, I am going to be drinking the “detox drink” made out of water, cucumbers, ginger and lemon for a week just to see what miracles it can do to cleanse my body over cleansing my mind, so to speak. I am still waiting out to see how this whole pact and detox drink will affect my workout and my hopes are up. And I’ll be reporting on my week III very soon.
On a side note, I quite like "Suicide Silence" band so I was influenced by the name of the album.
Let it not come across to you negative but as something positive. Like, positive anger, you know.
Till then!
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