February 14th, the Valentine's Day, is an amazing opportunity to have a romantic dinner/night with someone you cherish. But, as always with this kind of events, it can easily disrupt your regular diet and workout routine. I'm far from perfect myself, so today, I'd like to reflect on our options and strategies to minimize harm on days like that.
I can envision several scenarios and I will talk both about nutrition and training regimen in these scenarios. The very first scenario would be simply ignoring this day – just live it as an ordinary day, do your planned workout, have your regular meal, stick to your diet etc. Obviously, it's hard to call this scenario ideal as you will likely feel like you're missing out (because you are!), but it is ideal from the standpoint of adherence to your body transformation or maintenance plan.
I believe that the second scenario is truly ideal in all respects though it requires being in a stable relationship when both yourself and your beloved one share the same goals and are supportive of each other's plans. In this case you can work out (maybe even together) and share a wonderful romantic meal that doesn't affect your diet and in the end of the day you can give each other credit for sticking to your routines. Trust me, it's unique and well-deserved!
I guess, not everyone is blessed with such a wonderful life partner, some of us don't even have one, so other three scenarios will involve going on an actual date. I'll go over them in order of diminishing adherence to the diet simply because I believe that almost everyone can schedule a workout on this day just before the date - most of the people finish their work at 4-5 pm and dates usually happen at 7-8 pm, so you can have good 2-4 hours for a workout and post-workout grooming. So, at the very least you can minimize harm by sticking to your workout routine.
The third scenario would likely be good for those who are in the first weeks of their romance, you are still going on dates, your routines are not adjusted to each other, but you already know each other well enough to have a dinner at your place. In this case, you simply can cook for the two of you and have full control over meals, ideally you won't even have foods that will be out of diet's cookbook. This way you can have your cake and eat it (literally, if you're not a low-carb diet).
If you're not at that stage yet and you're going on one of your first dates and you don't feel comfortable of having your meal at your place, we have to move into uncharted territory – restaurants! In the forth scenario, you will have way less control over your nutrition, but still I don't think that everything is lost. Actually, with proper planning you can still enjoy your date and have your diet in check. Study the menus of several potential places and reserve a table at a restaurant that has the food you can eat safely – go to a vegetarian place is you're vegetarian, or at least make sure that there are vegetarian dishes there, go to a steak house if you're on carnivore diet etc. So, after all, you won't really ruin your diet and you will still have fun.
Finally, the fifth scenario is simply going to some random restaurant on a first date and ending up having to order something that is definitely going to ruin your diet, or at least affect it badly. This scenario is actually quite likely as there are two of you and, especially, if you don't know each other well, you will likely end up going to some places that are new to you. Say, you can be on a low-carb diet and end up having dinner in an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant (happened to me more than once). My solution would be to have that meal, but with a couple of considerations:
1) Prepare well – minimize your food intake before that, or even better – fast for 12-16 hours (skip breakfast and lunch).
2) Have your workout before your date – deplete your glycogen storages, make sure that your body will use up all kinds of foods as energy and building blocks for your muscle and won't convert food into fat.
3) Try not to eat too much – there is a good chance that this infringement will not affect your diet significantly if you limit consumption of certain macronutrients and caloric intake in general.
4) Plan for a recovery day after that – fast for a day, have an extra jog or a light training session to burn extra calories.
5) Enjoy it – you already doing something that is not perfect, and nothing is perfect, frankly, so you don't want to stress and have an unnecessary spike of cortisol, which will definitely do even more harm as it's catabolic.
In the end of the day, I would like to say that there will be always moments like that in your life, we can't expect it to be perfect all the time. Just be prepared, take responsibility and do your best, give yourself credit for what you've achieved and at the same time forgive yourself for these minor infringements. Again, you don't want extra cortisol and I want you to be happy with anything you do.
Savour the good moments and enjoy the Valentine's Day!
Sincerely Yours,
Dr.Sam