Cheat foods, fast food and nights out

The 80/20 rule

Nobody fails a twelve-week program on a Tuesday lunch from the approved list. They fail it on the Friday night nobody planned for. So plan for it.

Eighty percent of your calories come from the approved list. Up to twenty percent, and ideally closer to ten, can come from whatever you want, as long as it's logged. On a 2,200-calorie day that's a budget of roughly 220 to 440 calories for the fun stuff, which is typically plenty: a couple of tacos, a small dessert, two beers. Not all three.

This is Jordan's rule, and the budget is the whole idea. It's not a reward for being good and it's not a loophole. It's a line item, and when you treat it like one the cravings lose most of their power.

Your goals matter more than the urge to eat a whole slice of cheesecake. But if you like it, have some.Jordan, who loves cheesecake

What to avoid

The things that quietly wreck a day are nearly all high in fat. They don't fill you up, they don't feel like a cheat, and they cost two to three times what the same weight of protein or carbs does.

Jordan's go-to orders

These were Jordan's standing cheat meals when he was under ten percent body fat, and I love that he shares them. Most coaches hand you a rule. Jordan hands you his actual order. The point isn't the restaurants. It's that both orders keep the protein high, strip the fat out, and still feel like going out.

The night-out playbook

You know on Tuesday that Friday is a restaurant. That's three days of warning, and you only need one. Here's the sequence, in order.

1. Fast the first half of the day

   If you have a hard time staying inside your calorie limit, shortening your eating window does most of the work for you. Jordan has fasted until three or five in the afternoon plenty of times when he knew a restaurant or a gathering was coming that night. Our ancestors went long stretches between meals as a matter of course, so a late first meal is well within what a human body is built for.

2. Start with a large salad, no matter where you are

   Or a plate of leafy greens. This is about food volume: it fills you up before the expensive calories arrive. Dressing on the side.

3. Order protein, and not the deep-fried kind

   You have to get enough protein every single day. You can't go back in time and eat the protein you were supposed to have yesterday, so the restaurant doesn't get a pass on it.

4. Be smart with the app

   You've got MyFitnessPal. Type things in as you order. When the exact dish isn't in there, pick a substitute that seems very close and move on. The goal isn't a perfect log. It's not overeating.

5. Dessert: one or two bites

   Jordan absolutely loves cheesecake. The one thing that genuinely helped him is taking one or two bites and letting that be all. It's mental, and it's self-control, and it gets easier every time you do it.

If you have to eat on the go

Jordan will happily be the bad guy here: eating on the go is almost always a planning problem. You should have one or two days a week set aside to cook ahead. He did twenty-one meals in two hours every week for months, and these days he enjoys more creative preps that still never take more than four hours a week. He even filmed how he does it; it's on the meal prep guide.

But when you are caught out, two things save the day: a protein supplement that lives in your car or your backpack, and ordering for food volume. Plenty of places will customize if you ask.

The bottom line

If you're committed to hitting your macros every day, you will find a way to make it work. Go back to the approved foods list when you need meal ideas and snack options, and look at the sample meal plan to see a full day laid out. In the program, Jordan is always glad to help you plan it. His goal, and mine, is that you can pick your own food and know why.