Cheat meals do a body good?

Well, first full week is under way and into my second week.

So here is my report from week 1. I lost almost 4 pounds. I def am not nearly as puffy as I was, my clothes are fitting me better again, I don't feel quite so self-conscious.

Workouts were great! Def intense, especially legs and Shoulders, Chest and Tris day. I def was sore and I'm loving it. I have stuck by my meal plan to a T, which I'm proud of myself for. This was only able to be done because of my meal prep. I set myself up for success. A good part of Sunday was spent boiling my chicken, boiling and mashing sweet potatoes, cooking quinoa and measuring everything out including my veggies and counting out 7 almonds into baggies for my meals.

My meals have been good, I've been adding things like cayenne pepper, braggs liquid aminos, cumin, mrs. dash and other spices to give my food more flavor. For my sweet potatoes this week I mashed them with just a tad of almond milk, cinnamon and a little stevia. Talk about yummy! I've been eating this last in my meal along with my almonds as a kind of dessert. YUMMY!!!!

For my last meal of the day I've been having Protein Fluff! I highly recommend it! It is delicious! You have to have casein for it to work. I got the recipe off of Proteinfluff.com, but all you do is take a scoop of casein (I have the blueberries and cream flavor, Optimum Nutrition) and 1/2 cup cold almond milk, crush some ice in my blender and then beat it for about 5-10 min with the hand mixer until it gets super light and fluffy and yummy! almost like a cool whip texture! so good!

I also had my first cheat meal this last weekend. I was kind of nervous about it. Part of me was afraid that if I let myself have something that wasn't on my plan I would just not be able to stop or that it would cause a binge later on that night or whatever. Well as far as cheat meals go, I get one every Friday night, or if I want can change it to Saturday, just have to switch my workouts around a little. But this week we ended up going to some friends house and they made french dip sandwiches and I brought along a veggie tray with some yummy healthy veggie dip (fat free cream cheese, greek yogurt, hidden valley ranch dressing mix) along with a yummy Herbalife butterscotch pie in a granola pie crust topped with some fat free cool whip.

But it came time for the meal and I ate a little over half the sandwich, lots of veggies and dip and a little piece of the pie. And then I stopped and I was satisfied. I have never done cheat meals in the past because I have been afraid of them, but in the past I also often found myself having night binges or such things that were completely off plan in amounts that were outrageous. Maybe cheat meals work like they say they do. They give you that taste, that cheat so you don't feel so deprived. It's amazing to me. I was satisfied and got right back on plan the next morning. And didn't feel one bit guilty.

This weekend I plan on taking progress pics. It will have been 2 weeks and I'm excited to see the difference. A fellow gym-goer who has helped me with form and different tips asked me yesterday how much I had lost because he was seeing a lot more definition across my shoulders and back! Yay! Love that it is noticeable that I'm dropping this darn fat I gained from bulking.