Don’t Let the Weekend Be Your Weak End: How to Keep Your Weight Loss on Track Over the Weekend
May 19, 2021
This is a subject that is close to my heart, and those of you who have been following me for a while will know I post this message as a regular reminder. It’s not just for my audience, it’s for me as well.
I am glad that these days I manage the weekends so much better than I used to, and they’re not really a problem for me anymore, but they used to be the single biggest issue that would get in the way of my progress. I know I am not alone here, judging by the comments I got when I asked my Facebook Group.
So why is it so hard to stay on track over the weekend? This is what some of my group members said:
- “Social life. Getting invited for food and drinks.”
- “Tiredness from the week and a desire not to or lack of ability to make the tough choices.”
- “On my days off (could be any day, as weekends aren’t a thing in my work) it’s the lack of routine. When I’m working I have a very set ‘menu’ and can only eat when/if I get a break, have to have breakfast at 5.30 and dinner will be something light when I get home at 8ish with no time for snacking. Days off it’s much easier to snack and make unhealthy choices and much easier to reward myself with an alcoholic drink as I don’t have to get up at silly o’clock”.
- “The feeling of…. changing the rhythm from week to weekend and wanting to indulge”.
- “Boredom, no routine, laziness and no pre-prep”.
My own experience has been similar; it could be any one or more of those things. We like to relax at the weekend (or days off for those who don’t have traditional weekends) and that includes relaxing our resolve, and doing the easiest things, and things that we want to do. We want to lose weight but we don’t want to have to stop doing all those things. So we are in conflict.
Now, if we are not trying to lose weight, none of these things are usually major issues, if the rest of the week is ok, and our weight is stable. But when we are trying to lose weight, they can have a huge impact, and either stop us from making progress, or we can even end up gaining weight.
It’s oh-so-easy in the moment to do what’s easiest, and/or the most enjoyable, and allow what we feel in the moment to override our desire to lose weight. And then one thing leads to another, and before we know it we’ve wiped out any calorie deficit, undone our hard-won efforts through the week, and then we move into the zone of f*** it, and rub salt into the wounds by completely letting go.
Then Monday morning comes and we’re filled with guilt, shame, anger, frustration and disappointment, and our confidence hits rock bottom, and we resolve to cut right back to undo the damage. And we repeat the same cycle over and over. The boom and bust cycle. I call it the Monday diet. At one point I put on over two stone doing the Monday diet.
The results we get are directly linked to our behaviour, and we have a choice.
So we have a choice… we can either carry on doing those things that we do over the weekend, and accept that we are not going to make progress, or we can make different decisions, and take different actions. It comes down to what is most important to us.
So assuming that we DO want to make progress, the next thing to consider is how much weight do we want to lose and how quickly. The faster we want to lose weight the more strict we have to be. If we do not want to be too strict, then we have to accept that our results will be achieved more slowly, but the good news is that this gives us some room to enjoy the weekend and not feel so deprived, and make some compromises and trade-offs with ourselves. Then we’re more likely to achieve progress in the long run as we can get away from the boom and bust cycle, and away from those awful feelings of guilt and failure.
And guess what…. we don’t have to do the same thing every week or weekend…. we literally can just take it one week and one weekend at a time. The key is taking control of our behaviour and deciding in advance what we are going to do.
We do, however, have to be realistic, not idealistic. There is no point in setting ourselves up for something that we are not likely to be able to achieve. Our goals have to be in line with what’s possible in our life, and our behaviour has to be in line with our goals.
We also have to accept that some planning ahead is required if we are to overcome the typical responses that we keep repeating. We have to save ourselves from ourselves, and we’re not going to change anything in the moment, unless we make it easier for ourselves to do the things that are in support of, and not taking us away from, our weight loss goals.
We KNOW what trips us up. Being tired. Wanting to relax and not have to think too hard about what to do. Not planning ahead. Not having a routine. Being invited out for drinks. So we need to have a strategy, and a plan, of what we’re going to do, that we can put in place BEFORE the moment strikes, so that when the weekend comes, and we get asked out for the drinks, or get tempted with the takeaway, or the snacks, or the wine, we do something different.
Easier said than done, right?
Well, no, not if we put the right things in place.
One of the most important things is to be working daily on our motivation…. just like we spend time working our bodies, we have to take the time to work our mind as well, just as much, if not harder, or it just ain’t gonna change.
Just taking 5-10 minutes out a day to tap into the things that are the most important to us, and why they are important to us, and thinking about how we will manage temptation, can make a huge difference. As when the moment of temptation strikes, these things become easier to recall and help us to stay in control as we are reminded that we want the weight loss MORE than we want to have the wine, the snacks or the takeaway.
I love my running and knowing and reminding myself of how much putting on weight can affect my running really helps me to make the better decisions and avoid overindulging.
We also need to be cultivating our environment to remind us on a daily basis of our weight loss goals, so that they work for us when we’re not even trying, eg talking to family and friends, getting them onside, keeping a journal, putting pictures up on a vision board, having a motivational screensaver, removing temptations from your sight or from the house, etc.
Then we need to consider the practicalities of what is coming up.
If the weekend coming up is going to involve things that we don’t want to miss out on, then it’s about considering our intake. If we imagine we have a specific amount of calories for the week in the bank (whether we are counting them or not this is true) then it’s up to us how we spend them over the week. We can have less during the week, in order to be able to have more at the weekend.
However, this doesn’t mean completely splurging at the weekend, it means being reasonable… giving ourselves permission to have something that we want, but without going overboard. This is where counting calories can really help, as we will be able to determine how much we can have whilst still staying within our boundaries. Restaurant and takeaway food is surprisingly high in calories so it’s all too easy to undo our calorie deficit even when we think we’re being careful, unless we’re tracking it.
If, however, the weekend is going to be uneventful and not stressful, another option is to just not eat any differently at the weekend compared to the rest of the week. This is very manageable if your diet is already interesting, nutritious and enjoyable. Alternatively you could have things that are different but have no more calories in them, if you feel the need for still having a treat at the weekend.
There are lots of interesting recipe ideas at www.pinchofnom.com that are lower in calories but very tasty.
The bottom line is… remember the 5Ps. This is true in pretty much anything we do… how we eat isn’t any different.
The same principles apply if we want to maintain our weight, we just have a bit more leeway.
If you want to explore any of the issues covered here a bit further then you might want to check out my blog articles, and especially the ones on:
as they all contain useful information to help with weekend eating.
If you want to work on any of these things in more depth then check out my books How to Eat Less and Preparing for Successful Weight Loss.
Are weekends an issue for you?
Let me know. Email me: claire@youronelife.co.uk
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