Is punishment for sweets really an appropriate way to compensate for your failures?

Sweets and other various delicacies are waiting for us at every turn. To satisfy our sweet tooth, we can choose only the best to satisfy our sweet tooth. For some this means a candy bar, for others an ice cream sundae or a bar of chocolate. The problem often arises when we can't tame our craving for chocolate and the originally planned one bar of chocolate suddenly becomes a whole bar. It may be at this point that it dawns on us - we have broken our set diet, quite possibly with the aim of losing weight, and suddenly all our previous efforts to shed the extra pounds seem pointless. After a moment of regret, the idea of how to make up for our failure so that it has the least impact on our results comes to mind. How about a two-hour run or eating only low-calorie vegetables throughout the following day? Is punishing yourself with sweets really an appropriate way to compensate for your failure?

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Most of us know it, we decide to finally do something about our physique and with the spring hitting, we embark on a hard regime to lose a few extra kilos in time for the swimsuit season. Especially for women, thanks to their often indomitable will, we can see a significant change in the diet and sandwiches from the buffet are suddenly replaced by bowls full of salad, white yogurt and detox tea. While it's certainly great to swap the cheap salami from the sandwich for a bowl of vegetables, it's important to remember that in order for our dietary change to last longer than 2 days, it must consist of wholesome foods that have a higher satiating effect than a cucumber or cabbage. It is important to keep the diet nutritionally balanced, even if it is a reduction diet. We should focus primarily on protein, which will keep us full for a relatively long time, and also on appropriately chosen sources of carbohydrates and fats. This will provide the body with all the macronutrients it needs and prevent the binge eating that is common with improperly chosen diets.

Thanks to the fact that, although it is a reduction, our diet will still be quite rich in nutrients for our body, we will avoid starvation and especially uncontrollable cravings for sweets. Which brings me back to my original point - enriching our diet with vegetables is great and beneficial, but we can't base our entire diet on just munching on cabbage. Probably after a couple of days, failure will come and we'll eat a candy bar or a chocolate bar (and how easy is that, right?). Then the regrets will come and it will feel like our three-day effort has gone to waste. Then comes the compensation - I can easily burn a bar of chocolate if I run for 90 min and have a cucumber for dinner. The punishment for the sweets? Welcome to the club. You're probably in the middle of a vicious cycle at the moment, and for the next few days, a box of chopped veggies enriched with white yogurt here and there will be your best friend. And that you're supposed to go to a coffee shop reunion with your girlfriends in the afternoon, which inevitably includes dessert? That'll make up for two hours at the gym...

Punishing yourself for your own failures will not be the right way to achieve results. Especially if it is a failure due to inappropriate eating choices, where we try to deny ourselves as much food as possible in a short period of time. In general, no extreme is sustainable in the long term, and if we decide to change our diet and start working on ourselves, it is always better to start early and sensibly. Often it is enough to eliminate unsuitable foods from the diet and gradually start to include less processed, more suitable ones. Setting a moderate calorie deficit, choosing foods that we like and won't be a necessary evil to get to our dream weight. If we eat properly, but also smartly, neither fruit nor the aforementioned chocolate or a small dessert is completely forbidden. It is always about the total caloric intake, which we must adapt to our goal.

It is entirely up to us what foods we decide to include in our diet, but one thing is certain - if we think of sweets several times during the day, are overcome by uncontrollable cravings, which we finally succumb to in the evening and eat a whole box of chocolates, there is probably something wrong with our diet. And it could be that we've cut back too much, so much that we've cut one (or more) macronutrients out of our diet altogether. A balanced diet, rich in protein, carbohydrates and fats, along with a moderate calorie deficit, is the right way to get fit without punishing ourselves for failure.

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