The Power of the Pause: The Difference Between a Cheat Meal and a Diet Break
Both can offer a reprieve, but a diet break is a structured, planned pause in your diet, unlike a weekly cheat meal.
Cheat Meal: A single weekly meal that allows a calorie splurge and is "off-diet."
Diet Break: A planned, multi-day or multi-week period, typically 1 to 2 weeks, during a longer diet phase in which you intentionally eat at energy-maintenance levels rather than in a calorie surplus.
For example, a 20-week diet phase might become 24 weeks by adding two 2-week diet breaks, turning one long, sustained diet into an intermittent, three-part process.
The Matador Study: What the Research Says
Interest in diet breaks surged after the 2017 landmark research paper known as the Matador Study (and the subsequent popular Matador Diet).
The study compared two groups:
Continuous Diet: Dieted continuously for 16 weeks.
Intermittent Diet (Diet Break): Alternated two weeks of energy deficit with two weeks of energy maintenance (totalling 32 weeks).
The key findings from the diet break group:
Fat Loss Retention: They retained significantly more fat loss and experienced much less fat regain at the 6-month follow-up than the continuous diet group. This was the biggest finding, as maintaining weight loss is often the hardest part of dieting.
Fat Mass Loss: They lost 50% more fat mass overall.
Metabolic Health: They reduced the decline in resting energy expenditure (R.E.E.), which helped retain more muscle mass.
Workout Performance: They experienced better motivation and improved workout performance than continuous dieters, who often struggle with motivation and low energy availability during prolonged dieting.
The Psychological Edge
Beyond metabolic benefits like better muscle retention and R.E.E. restoration, diet breaks offer substantial psychological benefits.
Taking a break every few weeks can:
Reduce Deprivation: Feeling more energetic and able to "enjoy life a little more" for a period reduces the sense of deprivation.
Improve Adherence: It helps with the struggle to stick to a diet long-term, addressing the common dropout seen around the 6-to-12-week mark in weight loss research.
Manage Binge Eating: Planned breaks led to less overconsumption and fewer binge episodes, which are common when people focus primarily on restriction.
Practical Recommendations for Coaches
Diet breaks aren't for everyone and depend on the client’s goals and history.
Client Goal: If a client has only a small amount of weight to lose, a diet break is likely unnecessary.
Psychology & Buy-in: If a client's past challenges involve adherence, burnout, or feeling overwhelmed, diet breaks are a smart idea. You must get client buy-in to extend the total diet duration.
Suggested Timing: While the Matador study used a "two weeks on, two weeks off" approach, a more sensible suggestion for most dieters is one to two weeks at maintenance every 6 to 8 weeks of dieting.
For Dieters
Consider implementing diet breaks if you have:
Adherence Issues: You struggle to stick to a diet for periods longer than 1-2 months.
Muscle Loss Concerns: You've noticed a significant drop in muscle tissue during past, hard diets.
Binge Eating Episodes: You experience periods of overeating or struggle to control binge eating during a sustained deficit.
Further Research
It is important to note that the Matador study was conducted on obese males. Follow-up research, including a 2021 paper with a resistance training intervention and a 2023 paper on resistance-trained women, found no significant difference in fat loss or R.E.E. between intermittent and continuous dieting groups.
However, both subsequent studies found that participants who used the intermittent diet approach (diet breaks) reported more favourable changes in hunger and appetite regulation and said the diet was much more enjoyable.
While more research is needed, the strong psychological benefits and potential metabolic boost make diet breaks a useful, customizable tool for long-term diet sustainability and weight maintenance.
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