Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
While you can technically lose weight while stuffing a couple of slices of Italian Pie and guzzling an IPA, you probably shouldn’t do this if you’re serious about losing fat.
I apologize for the clickbaity headline, but there is a point I’d like to bring across that is often overlooked or downplayed when it comes to dieting.
Far too much mainstream perception of dieting equates reducing calories and upping cardio with suffering — but, unless you’re trying to get down to 5% bodyfat for a show, there’s absolutely no reason you should suffer too much.
And this means you can have the occasional beer and slices of pizza if it floats your boat.
Just make sure that you’re in a prolonged caloric deficit.
Of course, unless you’re some sort of automaton, there will be blips, relapses, errors, and moments of weakness.
This doesn’t mean that you’ve screwed up your diet forever — just get back on the horse.
If you’ve had 1000 calories in pizza and 500 calories in lager, you don’t need to go to extremes to counteract this dietary indiscretion.
All you need to do, is reduce your calories by 100-150 calories for the following week and do an extra 15 minutes walking a day on top of what you’re currently doing.
That’s it.
You don’t need to scythe off 1500 calories the following day.
And, remember, you can’t outcardio a bad diet.
1500 calories is roughly 3 hours of soccer.
Think about it, professional soccer players — carbed up, in a brief caloric surplus in preparation for the game — struggle to play a full 90 minutes.
So your dieting, in-a-700-calorie-deficit a**, isn’t going to be able to burn off the caloric surplus through exercise in a day or two.
You shouldn’t panic and go about proper, safe, and sane dietary damage control.
Furthermore, in the age of fat acceptance, there’s almost a quasi-normalization of diet and exercise being equated with douchebaggery and feelings of superiority.
Discipline and self-restraint are haaaaaard; you should be content — no, proud — of your podginess.
The required responsibility to be healthy is too much for a lot of people.
It’s easier to gorge on your favorite calorie-dense foods and drinks rather than practice moderation.
And moderation is key.
You can eat a large slice of pizza, which contains around 250-400 calories depending on toppings, crust, base size, etc, and a pint of beer, which contains around 150-350 calories depending on the type.
At most, this is 750 calories — something you can easily account for by changing a few things around in your diet.
Instead of eating red meat for a week, swap it out for white meat or fish.
Try adding more salad or raw vegetables instead of carb sources the day you plan to eat pizza and drink beer.
By making this adjustment alone, you can fit your “cheat” meal into your diet without affecting your protein consumption too heavily.
South African professional rugby player Brian Mujati is a beer aficionado and still managed to fit in a few weekly beers while dropping around 40lb to improve his game.
Alternatively, if you feel the need to drink alcohol, try exchanging hoppy IPAs for single malt whisky.
You can have roughly 4-5 servings of spirits for every pint of beer, on average.
When you go out partying, you can still drink and stay within your daily caloric requirements — just drink spirits with diet soda.
Of course, don’t use this as an excuse to get hammered and lose self-control, screw up your sleep schedule, or temporarily lower your performance in the gym.
It would be best if you didn’t eat or drink calorie-dense foodstuffs all the time, but you should learn how to break out of the chicken-rice-broccoli rigid formula when dieting.
A healthier, better body is something to be welcomed and enjoyed.
Eventually, you won’t enjoy those “bad” foods as much as before — trust me, bro.
