Thursday Q and A (While at Dick’s): “Aren’t You Cheating on Your Diet??”

Cover Image

I was at the great Dick’s Drive-In on Friday night (how many nutrition blogs start like that?), when a Rockaholic named Alex asked, “what are you doing here, aren’t you cheating on your diet?” as I was about to order a Deluxe, fries, and strawberry shake!

He was totally cool about it for the record (we had an awesome quick conversation about Ghost coming to town September 19th.) and while I told him I don’t have a “diet”, I thought I’d elaborate more for this week’s #ThursdayQandA

I’ve never said NOT to eat cheeseburgers in these blogs. They are way too delicious. You probably already know a bunch of them probably won’t help you lose weight. It would be a little patronizing to remind you here, right?

That doesn’t mean you should NEVER have ANY! In my case, on a late Friday night after checking out #Pain2019 band POUND?? Hell yeah!!

Keep in mind, I also worked out 5 times and ate a bunch of protein, salads, apples, asparagus, and carrots all week. Like those were my main sources of food for the 5 days prior. It’s just how I live my life and I enjoy it. I wasn’t doing it to “earn” a burger.

So that’s probably the most important thing, is finding the healthy lifestyle and eating habits that YOU enjoy! Experiment away. Don’t give up, cuz it’s an experiment and there’s no failure: just information on what doesn’t work. I’m YEARS into my experiment. You got time.

Sticking to our example from Friday, things like burgers, fries, and shakes are meant to be fully ENJOYED! They’re a choice made for flavor, not so much for health. That’s totally cool. We’re living in the golden age of flavor and convenience! Most humans that walked this earth never had access to delicious Dick’s. Bummer for them. Get in there and seize your day!

Keep in mind that when you’re eating something for the flavor, you will enjoy it the most by eating it slowly. Eating slowly will also help with weight loss. So slowly chew each bite of food COMPLETELY, before shovelling the next one down. (Way harder than it sounds!) This leads to more enjoyment, and often less calories.

Dial in your daily habits with more exercise, protein, vegetables, fruits, and hydration than you currently do, on your terms (start with gradual improvements from where you are, get GREAT at them, then add more); eat slowly and enjoy your food more; then let the rest take care of itself.

Down With The Fitness is here to give you simple, actionable tips that will improve your health. If you found this helpful, feel free to check out the archives for more. I'm pretty proud of the rabbit hole this thing has become.
If you have any questions or comments, you can get direct access to me in the Down With The Fitness Facebook Group. It's also the most algorithm-proof way to make sure you see future posts!

Have fun and do your best,

Matt Koch

Certified Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach (American Council on Exercise; Precision Nutrition)

Dick’s is not affiliated with this blog in any way. They are awesome and I think would appreciate this message because they seem like cool people. They’ve kept prices low, taken care of their employees, and donated a bunch to charity, for DECADES. Nothing but love from this nutrition coach to an awesome fast-food burger joint! I'm trying to estimate how much of my burger intake they make up and I think it's around 75%.