Sweet Treats

If you’re on a serious training regime, whether cardio or strength-based, meat-eater or vegetarian, you’re probably having to watch your daily intake of calories, especially protein, fat and carbs. A cheat meal is basically any meal where you let yourself relax and just eat what you like without worrying too much about the calorie breakdown.

A cheat day is basically the same as a cheat meal, but for a whole day. If you work out regularly throughout the week and pay strict attention to the food you’re eating, you deserve to relax every one in a while. A lot of people allow themselves one cheat day a week to just enjoy themselves. Think of it as the “weekend” to your workouts.

There’s no single hard-and-fast rule about how, when, or why you can have a cheat day. Most people choose to base their cheat days on their own performance and how they’re progressing on their own fitness journey. Use cheat days to reward yourself for your progress, but if you find yourself struggling to progress because your cheat days keep setting you back, consider having them less frequently.

Snacking doesn’t necessarily ruin your gains (after all, it depends on what you’re snacking on) but snacks are generally where we pay less attention to the nutrients we’re consuming, which is made worse by the fact that snacks are often the least healthy foods we eat. So while snacking in itself isn’t bad, you should still be careful about what foods you choose to snack on.

It’s possible to have cheat snacks that don’t interfere with your healthy diet. bulk® sells a range of nutritional snacks and fitness bars designed to satisfy cravings without piling on the calories. Otherwise, you can look into healthy baking and snacking recipes, or natural food snacks like nuts and fresh fruit.

A cheat meal is nothing more than a meal that’s less careful about calories than your regular nutrition – but that doesn’t mean they can’t be healthy at all. You can find a whole range of healthy cheat meal recipes online, but the best ones are ones that let you indulge in some extra flavour and indulgence without overloading on unnecessary calories. Meals that are rich in whole foods like grains, beans and pulses are a great choice.

Our selection of cheat foods include protein bars and snacks designed to be a little more indulgent than regular protein bars, such as our rocky road and millionaire’s slice recipes. Otherwise, we also sell a whole range of sweet nut butters and chocolate snacks designed to complement your daily routine and help you build muscle.

Put simply, because achieving your fitness goals can be really hard work, and sometimes you deserve a reward. Whether you’re a long-distance runner, a lifting addict or just a regular, casual trainer, training takes hard work and dedication, and sometimes you need a break. We eat cheat meals because sticking to our goals can be hard, and we stick to our goals because they make the cheat meals taste truly rewarding.