You are trying your hardest to eat healthy. You eat super clean all week. You eat a caloric deficit. You do your workouts. THEN Friday night arrives along with the weekend.
You overeat on whatever you want. You drink plenty of alcohol. You sit on your ass all weekend. When Monday comes, you are frustrated and sick of spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere.
This is okay – you aren’t the only one, far from it.
My first year of trying to lose weight was this exact scenario – after all it was college.
How does this happen?
Here is a fantastic graphic from Carter Good (Envision Being Thin – @cartergood on Instagram)
So how do we avoid this? Stop having fun? Stop being social? STOP DRINKING?
No, no, no, and no. There is no need to become a full on Buzz Killington.
1) Set Rules
Rules suck, but we listen to them. Instead of coming up with weekend goals every weekend like “I’m gonna do better this time…”, set rules like:
- If I go out at night, I will go to the gym the morning of.
- If I go out on a Saturday, I will have an active Sunday.
- If I go out on a Friday, I won’t go out on a Saturday.
- If I know I’m going to have a fun filled night with drinks and food, I will focus the rest of my day on eating lean proteins and veggies.
Set the rules, and follow them, and enjoy your weekend – guilt free.
2) Change How You Eat During the Week
Do you fixate on “clean eating” Monday through Friday? Can’t have this, can’t have that…well that may be setting you up for disaster on the weekend.
If you try so hard to “eat super healthy” all week and deprive yourself of certain foods or food groups that you might really want you are more likely to binge on them over the weekend.
Let’s find a happy medium.
If you want a sweet treat during the week – have it – but account for it appropriately:
- Know roughly how many calories it is.
- Know what swaps you could make to stay within your nutrition parameters.
- Plan it out in advance. If your kid has a baseball game and they always get ice cream after, you can plan your day accordingly so you can still enjoy ice cream later.
- Know what you REALLY want, and what you could exclude to shave off some extra cals. i.e. you really want a brownie, but could pass on the extra pecans on top (shave off 300 cals)
It doesn’t even have to be sweets either.
Eating healthy doesn’t have to be boring and bland! Experiment with recipes, spices, flavors, make it fun – make it an activity with family.
3) Shift Your Mindset
“I earned this weekend”
“Thank God the weekend is here, time to rage”
“I was good all week, time for a break”
“This is what we do on the weekends – bottomless mimosas WOOO!”
If you constantly think of the weekend as a light at the end of the tunnel, you will hype your brain and body up for letting loose and getting cray cray.
Don’t use food and drinks as a reward, or as a shoulder to cry on – it’s just food.
Find different ways to reward yourself or de-stress.
ALSO don’t use exercise as a punishment. There is a big difference between, “I had a bad night, I need to go to the gym and repent” vs. “I’m going to feel much better after I go to the gym and work on getting stronger” – exercise is ALWAYS for gaining health – not beating you up.
So find some balance 7 days per week, come up with some little rules to follow, break the mold of what most people think the weekends are, and you will find your life a much happier one, and healthier as well!
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Stay healthy my friends,