Muscle Building and Flexibility in Dieting

Flexibility In Dieting

Talk to most people about dieting, and they mention words like “sacrifice”, “pain”, “self-control”, “strict”, and other words that are synonymous with deprivation.

But dieting should not be all doom and gloom. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Some dieters think that they need to be strict 24/7, that they can never eat cheat foods, or that they can never miss a workout. Dieting is already stressful on its own, so if you add perfectionism to the mix, you will end up going back to the habits that got you fat in the first place.

As a result, we should carefully consider the issue of diet flexibility. Don’t get me wrong: by flexible I don’t mean that you can eat whatever you want! Don’t start eating dozens of donuts, honey buns, and other junk foods, while singing hymns to the joys of flexible dieting! Also, don’t just say “I am bulking, so I can eat whatever I want”. To build muscle, you need to eat more calories than you burn, but if you go overboard, you will be putting on pounds of lard, not muscle.

Dieting is still dieting. Elements of self-control and sacrifice are always present when dieting, even if you are intent on muscle building. But these periods of temperance should be followed by periods of flexibility, where you take a break from your diet, and celebrate the pleasure of eating food.

Flexibility in dieting can be implemented in many ways. For example, you could have a cheat meal once a week. In fact, you could have an entire cheat day if you so desire, where you eat more liberally and take a break from exercising.

I recommend, however, that you don’t go overboard on cheat days. Be more open in your food choices than during your regular days, but don’t eat everything that you see, because this might take you back to bad eating habits.

The purpose of cheat days is not to eat huge quantities of junk food, but rather to take a psychological break from the grind of dieting. By doing this, you will recover your energy, and you will continue your diet with more passion and zest than before.

If you don’t have a cheat day, however, you risk losing all the motivation that you had at the beginning of your diet. Day after day of dieting, hunger, and self-control can take a big toll on the human mind.

In fact, some scientists and philosophers have suggested that willpower is like a battery: if you use it all up, and don’t recharge, you won’t be able to fight temptation.

So it is necessary to have days where you give your willpower a break. When you do this, you are not being weak, but rather you are allowing yourself to recover your strength from the hard work you did over the last six days.

Apart from cheat days, you can also have cheat weeks. As with cheat days, be careful that you don’t engorge yourself during cheat weeks, or you will undo your previous efforts.

But if you do them properly, cheat weeks can be of immense help to your muscle building aspirations. You will be restoring your mental strength, your metabolism, and you will probably feel more energetic than before when you were dieting. With this renewed enthusiasm, you can tackle another cycle of exercising and dieting for muscle building.

In summary, always remember to alternate periods of rigid dieting with flexible dieting. Don’t be dieting strictly all the time without taking any breaks, because sooner or later you will take a break, and you won’t like it!

The human mind and body were not made for 24/7, 365 days a year dieting. Give yourself the break you deserve, and you will see greater success with your muscle building efforts.