Chef Tom Kerridge speaks candidly about how difficult he finds balancing his work and health, but said he is trying to ‘remove guilt’ so he can focus on eating better.
(Ki Price via Getty Images)
Whether you’ve committed to a certain diet or your goal for 2026 is to eat healthier, one thing that most diets have in common is the concept of “cheat days”. These are days when you “allow” yourself to take a break from the diet and eat whatever you want – but it’s a concept Tom Kerridge isn’t a fan of.
“There’s no such thing as cheat days,” he tells Yahoo UK while speaking about his resolve to have a more balanced diet this year. The Michelin-starred chef, 52, says he often swings between trying to eat healthy meals and portions to “having to test 16 different pies for a supermarket and then go to a restaurant to test new dishes”.
“My world is all about food, so trying to concentrate on what I eat has always been really, really difficult,” he explains. “So I’ve tried to counterbalance what I do, but at the end of a week rather than on a daily basis.”
However, having a “cheat day” doesn’t factor into Kerridge’s approach to staying on top of his diet, because he takes full responsibility for what he eats.
“I’ve taught myself that there’s no such thing as a cheat day, because with a cheat day, you just allow sneaky treats into your world. All those bits and bobs you allow yourself, and then you’re left trying to find balance constantly, it’s not sustainable.”
Cheat days explained
The concept of cheat days emerged in the early 2010s, around the same time that the “clean eating” trend started to dominate social media. Prominent figures in the fitness industry, such as fitness influencers and celebrities known for their strict workout and diet regimes, popularised the idea that you could spend one day a week “cheating” on your diet as long as you stuck to it rigorously the other six days.
But experts are less keen on cheat days, pointing to studies that such breaks from diets can lead to binge eating and other disordered eating behaviours. It can also fuel food-related guilt, something Kerridge is working on in his own relationship with food.
Kerridge, pictured alongside Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Seema Pankhaina during a cooking contest with students in 2024, said he does not believe in ‘cheat days’.
(Jordan Peck via Getty Images)
“Guilt is a big thing and it can become an issue when you might have overeaten. I’m trying to find balance throughout the week, but I’m also working on not feeling guilty about it if I drop the ball,” he says.
“Learning to recognise the situations in which that guilt comes up and then holding it and going, ‘OK, tomorrow we’ll do better’. It’s about owning that guilt and the responsibility you have to yourself.
“It happens to all of us, sometimes you have an hour and you decide not to go to the gym and to eat half a packet of biscuits instead. You’ve got to own that response and the next day, decide that you can’t do that again.”
Kerridge added that he is avoiding weighing himself while pursuing better health, and is instead focusing on how he feels on the inside.
“I ask myself questions like, am I happy? Do I feel good or bad? If I feel bad, how do I change to make myself feel good? Am I sluggish? Have I eaten badly? Tomorrow, we’ll make a difference,” he explains.
“A lot of people feel bad, but they don’t really know why and they might explain it away with things like, ‘It must be because I ate a lot of chocolate yesterday’. They skip over it.”
Taking part in Trainline’s recent campaign to keep Britons on track with their New Year’s resolutions, Kerridge shared the questions he thinks everyone should ask themselves about their health.
(PA)Health questions to ask yourself
Kerridge, who took part in Trainline’s recent campaign to help Britons stick to their New Year resolutions, urges other people to spend time asking themselves questions to truly understand the root of how they are feeling.
He highlights particular questions people should ask themselves about their diet, such as whether they are genuinely hungry, whether they have drunk enough water today, and whether they have eaten well.
“Question the fuels that are going into your body and educate yourself on what different foods do to you or for you,” he advises.
“Most people already know that eating yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, a hearty salad for lunch, and a balanced dinner of protein and vegetables would make us feel great.
“But the reality is that we wake up and eat a bacon sandwich immediately, then snack on biscuits at 11am. At lunchtime, you might have something well ropey and too much of it, so much so that you need a snooze in the afternoon.
“But you have something sugary to beat the sleepiness, then you go out for pizza in the evening.
“We all know that that’s what we like to do, and it’s fun, but reality hits in the form of our health declining and we need to rethink that a little bit. Maybe two or three of those things are OK, but we need to make many more healthier choices to balance it out.”