About

Cheat Day is a one-day-per-week break from an otherwise healthy eating lifestyle.

CheatDay.net is where you show the world what you ate on that day.

CheatDay.net was created by Andy Ross and Tim Nordwind of the band OK Go. If you don't believe this, check out the following picture of us taking a photos of ice cream. Weirdos.

Food nerds on parade.

But first some background...

Nothing inspires a change in lifestyle, diet, and hairdo like a break-up. Am I right ladies? Nothing could be truer for me. Hi, I’m Tim Nordwind. I’m a touring musician in a band called OK Go, and I’ve been on the Paleo diet for a little over a year now.

Inspired by a total loss of appetite after being cheated on by an ex-girlfriend, I initially supplemented my diet with nothing but juice from my neighborhood juice cafe to make sure I was at least getting some nutrients on a daily basis. But duty called, and OK Go was set to go on an eight-week tour of the United States many miles away from my hippy left leaning juice establishment.

As tour began my appetite slowly returned and I found myself not wanting to fill up on bad foods that were going to make me feel worse than I already did. I mentioned this to one of my best friends, band mates, and really good listener for a guy, Andy Ross. He had just started the Paleo diet to go along with his CrossFit work out routines. I find exercise boring, but from what I understand from Andy, CrossFit is a type of exercise that soldiers in Afghanistan and Andy do that is very high impact done in short amounts of time. Paleo was working for Andy and he suggested that maybe I give it a shot. I was desperate to feel better and willing to try anything.

So for the next month, I was strictly Paleo, eating straight up cave man style; meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, a little bit of fruit, no gluten, lo carbs, no sugar, and no grains. In eight weeks I noticed vast improvements in quality of sleep, blood sugar levels, skin, improved energy, and consequently I lost around 15-20 pounds at the time. A year later I’ve lost nearly 30 pounds. I didn’t do it to lose weight, but I feel much better, look much better, and feel like I could kick people’s asses who weigh even a little bit more than I do (the part about kicking people’s asses is not true). And I could certainly destroy anyone smaller than me who has around the same fighting experience as long as they don’t pull any low blows. (This part is also not true.)

You may be wondering how I can maintain a diet like this, and that’s where this website CheatDay.net comes into play. Once a week I have what I like to call motherfuckin’ Cheat Day. It’s a gluttonous no-holds-barred-eat-as-much-as-you-want-whatever-you-want-for-24 hours-I-want-to-live-in-that-moment-for-ever-type day. It’s glorious. And I find after having an entire day eating like shit, that I am more than happy to return to my Paleolithic eating ways for the next six days.

So please join us here, we’ve been waiting for you. Show us how you cheat and stuff your face. Chocolate cake? Yep. Double stuff Oreo cookies…The entire box? Uh-huh. Milk shakes, pizzas, pastas, breads, fried chicken, hamburgers and fries all day long?!?! Yes, my friend, yes! Bring it all. Share it all. Eat it all one day a week. Love, Tim.

Need inspiration?

You actually should never do this.

So what's a healthy eating lifestyle?

We would like to start by saying that we're not doctors or health experts (in fact we're very, very far from those things ). So talk to a doctor about this stuff (while knowing that he or she is probably going to tell to do the same stuff that hasn't worked for the vast majority of people for like forty years, but, well, you know, disclaimer, etc). But we're also nerds and there are some pretty convincing trends forming in what people much smarter than us think. There are also things that just work well for us in terms of weight control, physical performance and a general sense of well-being. Let's take a look at some of them:

• Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in moderate and high quantities is probably bad for you.
• Wheat (or any gluten-containing products) is really bad for some people and probably kinda bad for most people.
• Foods that are processed to increase palatability are likely problematic.

In light of these things, we follow a low to moderate carb paleo-style nutritional plan. We like the paleo movement because the main focus is on food quality, not macronutrient ratios or calorie counting. There are so many variants on the "paleo-style diet" (and with it a lot of very opinionated in-fighting), but at the end of the day, most Paleo-style diets say essentially the same thing: eat lots of vegetables, a little bit of fruit, meat that was raised naturally, fish that was caught wild, some nuts, some cocount products; avoid sugar, grains, seed oils, and anything overly processed.

What about carbs?

The paleo community appears to be trending away from a strictly low-carb approach. The so-called "safe starches" -- sweet potatoes, yams, which potatoes, white rice -- appear to have no ill-effects health-wise or weight-wise for many people. Dr. Kurt Harris has a great post on this on his blog.

As Robb Wolf likes to say: experiment and see if you look, feel and perform better. Simple as that!

Doesn't Cheat Day re-enforce bad food habits?

Maybe. Probably. Uhhh, we don't know. First of all, if you are diabetic, have metabolic or digestive issues, or are very overweight, Cheat Day is probably not a good idea for you. Similarly, if you have a distorted emotional relationship to food, Cheat Day might be too much to handle.

However, if you're a person that loves great food, but want to live a more healthy life, you have a decision to make: either you will NEVER eat foods that you think are unhealthy EVER again FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Or, you will. We know that a Grimladi's pizza is bad for us. But, in all honestly we'd like to eat one at some point again in our lives, so we will have to put aside our nutritional ideals for that meal.

That is why Cheat Day is a good model: you set up the rules to eat stuff that's bad for you on one day and don't break them. Anything else is a too slippery a slope.

If you can't stick with cheating only on Cheat Days, or food isn't really a big deal for you, then don't do it!

(Comment from Tim: this section also applies to relationships.)