Cheat Meals: Healthy Fat Loss Strategy or Disordered Eating?
Cheat Meals: Healthy Fat Loss Strategy or Disordered Eating?  
Podcast: All or Something Podcast
Published On: Tue Aug 25 2026
Description: Send us Fan MailCheat meals are one of the most common strategies in the fitness and dieting world. The idea is simple: eat “clean” all week, stick to your diet, and then give yourself permission to eat whatever you want for one meal—or even an entire day.But do cheat meals actually help with fat loss? Do they boost your metabolism, prevent metabolic adaptation, make dieting easier to stick to, or provide some other physiological benefit? Or are we giving them far more credit than the evidence deserves?In this episode, we take a closer look at the science behind cheat meals and the claims that have made them so popular. We discuss what research tells us about planned indulgences, calorie restriction, adherence, hunger, and overeating.But we also think there's a bigger issue worth discussing: why do we call certain foods a “cheat” in the first place?For some people, a cheat meal approach to eating can be completely harmless. But for others, the concept of cheat meals can reinforce a cycle of restriction, food rules, guilt, overeating, and compensation. When you spend the week being “good” and then feel like you've earned the right to eat everything you've been restricting, is that really helping you build a healthier relationship with food?We talk about where we think the line can start to blur between dieting behaviours that resemble disordered eating and why eating a pizza or having dessert doesn't need to be considered cheating.In this episode, we discuss:- Where the idea of cheat meals came from- Whether cheat meals actually provide any metabolic advantage- Whether they improve adherence to a diet- The difference between a planned indulgence and a binge- Why labeling foods as “good,” “bad,” or “cheats” can be problematic- Restriction, overeating, guilt, and compensatory behaviors- Whether cheat days are different from cheat meals- What the science actually says—and what comes from fitness culture rather than researchObviously, we don't think there's anything wrong with eating foods that you enjoy. That is not the question at all. The question is whether calling them a “cheat” actually makes your relationship with food worse.If you've ever wondered whether cheat meals are a useful dieting strategy or just another fitness industry rule we accepted without questioning, this episode is for you.P.S., If you want to support us and would like monthly lifting workouts, you can join the Momentum by Sohee fitness app. http://momentumbysohee.comIf you are interested in fat loss science, you can purchase Ben's best-selling comprehensive fat loss book, Everything Fat Loss. http://geni.us/EverythingFatLoss