In honor of National Cheat Food Awareness Month, we're here to show you how cheating responsibly on your diet can be the thing that saves it.

Let's face it: Restrictive diets, the ones that rule out a good portion of the nutritional pyramid — leaving you with a food rectangle? — are rarely successful. You're hungry, cranky and far more likely to wind up on the couch with a bag of potato chip dust than you would be if you simply allowed yourself a "cheat" food every now and then.

Why? "The feeling of deprivation is so intense that the diet is impossible to keep up," says Belisa Vranich, a sports psychologist at the Gold's Gym Fitness Institute. "You feel punished, because the notion of being on a diet is so punitive that you wind up frustrated and wanting it to end, rather than encouraged to keep it as a lifestyle."

Strict diets also tend to list the "don'ts" more, so it feels like there's nothing you can eat, Vranich says. Cheating responsibly, on the other hand, allows you to be more in control of dieting, instead of feeling like it's been imposed on you. And despite what you may have heard, occasionally caving in to a craving won't exactly open the floodgates to more diet indiscretions.

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"Lifting the typical dieting restrictions on certain foods actually makes you desire them less," says Marissa Lippert, a registered dietitian and author of The Cheater's Diet. "By allowing yourself the occasional cheat, you'll have a more confident relationship with all types of food — the healthy and the not-so-healthy."

While this isn't a free pass to go berserk on the dessert buffet, we're here to tell you — in honor of National Cheat Food Awareness Month — that it's okay to cheat, but do it responsibly. Here's how.

1. 1. Don't let the urge decide the cheat time. "The decision to cheat should be premeditated," Vranich says. "If in the middle of the second pitcher of beer, you decide, 'Maybe this will be my cheat this week,' you are less apt to keep control of it."

2. 2. Think of your cheat as a one-time thing as opposed to a license to binge. Consider designating one day a week — Friday, for example — to the splurge. That way you can be sure to make smart decisions leading up to your cheat.
3. 3. On second thought, make it a one-day thing. "If you're prone to losing control, say, at midnight, when everyone else is asleep, schedule your cheats during daylight hours, when you're out in public and will feel more accountable for your actions," Vranich suggests.
4. 4. Eat sloooowly. Let yourself enjoy the cheat. That's the point, right?
5. 5. Remember: A little goes a long way. "Cheating responsibly means not going to an extreme where 'recuperating' will take a huge amount of effort," says Vranich. That means if you're craving chocolate, pick a piece of chocolate rather than a box of chocolate doughnuts — the damage will be less, the guilt will be less, and the temptation to binge will be less. "This is how you reap the psychological benefits of cheating," she adds. "You get to learn moderation and how to make modifications in your lifestyle to accommodate the occasional cheat." Plus you'll have a healthier, happier relationship with food, since there's nothing that's off the (literal) table when it comes to your eating options.