CANCEL THE GUILT TRIP
In dire need of a holiday from your eating plan? Ease up for an all-inclusive way to stay lean
How you can depart from a strict diet, without packing in your hard-won body
It is quite likely that, by now, the fervour for your new year diet has started to wane. In fact, we’re willing to guess that the only thing still keeping you on the macro-nutrional straight and narrow is the fear that packing it in for even a day will result in you losing all your hard-won progress. Well, we’re here to tell you to take a break. Because while the ability to out-train a poor diet has long been contested, a recent study from the University of Michigan may have justified a guilt-free diversion from dietary dogma.
Their research found that adults who increased their calorie intake by 30% for one week, but also spent at least 150 minutes doing aerobic exercise – that equates to a very manageable 30 minutes on weekdays with the weekend off – managed to avoid all of the spikes in insulin and inflammation you would expect after an unscheduled dive from the dietary wagon.
In delicious opposition to recent scare-mongering headlines which claim that just five days’ indulgence in junk food can alter your metabolism and increase the likelihood of long-term weight gain, the Michigan scientists discovered that regular aerobic exercise mediates insulin’s role as a ‘lipolytic hormone’ (it shuttles fatty acids and glucose to your cells where they are stored as body fat). All of which happily means that one week of ‘work out, pizza, sleep, repeat’ will have no lasting effect on your physique.
So, if your motivation is on the decline, don’t be afraid to sate your cravings once in a while. So long as you’re not throwing in the gym towel too, you can bin the macros without sacrificing your body goals in the process. Don’t worry – the lean turkey mince and alfalfa sprouts will be waiting for you.