"Cheat" meals are a well-known feature of many new healthy eating regimens. You can’t be perfect all the time, the thinking goes, so why not plan to have one or two indulgent meals a week that fall outside your healthy confines?
Proponents say that the mental break can help keep you motivated the rest of the week. If weight loss is your goal, some experts even claim that varying your caloric intake can help prevent the dreaded “weight loss plateau" by stimulating a metabolism-boosting hormone, leptin.