When is it ok to cheat on your diet
Cheat days may help dieters lose weight, research finds
now to our GMA Health Alert new research
breaking down cheat days and whether
they help or they hurt your diet it
turns out they can actually be the key
to helping you lose that weight
Pizza candy junk food galore cheap days
are the indulgent break from the chore
of dieting and frequently shared all
over social media Jen Aniston goes for
Mexican fare Hugh Jackman reaches for
Tim Tam cookies and the rock chocolate
chip banana pancakes but new research
shows taking a break from your diet may
actually improve weight loss long-term
scientists found people who dieted for
two weeks then paused cutting calories
for two weeks lost more weight and fat
than people who died did continuously
why would indulging help you diet it's
the diet catch-22 to lose weight you
need to eat less but then your body
responds by burning fewer calories it's
a protective measure that goes back to
caveman days to conserve energy when you
don't have enough food to eat so diet
cheaters rejoice breaking your diet may
convince your body you're not starving
so you can have your cake and eat it too
alright our senior medical contributor
dr. Jennifer Ashton is here now so tell
us what your thoughts are on this study
that cheat days are actually helpful
okay couple of caveats number one this
particular study very small numbers we
need to study it more with more people
and even the group that had those reset
periods of time had their calories
restricted to the new lower amount of
body weight so again it needs more
research but let me show you what the
theory of this diet approach is we have
two audience members here Alessandra
she's gonna represent the person who
gets a reset day so if you think of
those bags like the number of the days
of the month as she picks them up go
ahead you could go through and let's say
she's doing six days on one day of reset
when she gets through day six you can
eat the whole plate of doesn't do
nominally diet could potentially but
Jeremy who's gonna do this indefinitely
you can see that it gets harder and
harder for him to pick up these bags if
there's no reset or cheat period so you
know by the end of six days 14 days 30
days he's physically psychologically and
metabolically getting a little bit
because your body
your body is adjusting to the fewer
calories is a very smart machine and its
exact both in a metabolic standpoint
keep going Jeremy no so if you are gonna
cheat I mean are there downsides and I
would imagine eating all the cords like
derail your obviously it potentially
could if you if you when you reset you
eat very poorly you could you could undo
all of the good that you've already done
and again making new habits it's about
making things you're doing great Jeremy
but listen I always tell people my
prescription for weight loss or
sustaining a new weight is very simple
for anything to work it has to be safe
it has to be simple and it has to be
sustainable because any diet approach
could work in that short because that's
not gonna
[Laughter]
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well hey there GMA fans Robin Roberts
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