Weekend Weight

LessToLoveTexas

Am I the only one who has a hard time staying on track on the weekends? I have no problem exercising. But the weekends are for family, friends, having drinks by the lake/pool/fire pit. I ALWAYS go over my calorie goal on the weekends. It's so hard to stay on track when there are so many get together, birthday parties, BBQ's and so on... I even limit myself at all of these functions and still go over. Any advice?

CassidyScaglione

I always go on long rambling walks on weekends. I don't go especially fast, but it's 2-4 hours when I'm not sitting at home eating. Plus it gives you a nice little cushion of exercise calories if you need them. There are family/group activities beyond sitting around eating and drinking too, why not a hike, bike ride, game of touch football, lawn bowling, whatever as a precursor to just plopping down and eating?

murp4069

How far over your calorie goal are you going? I tend to eat more calories on the weekends as well, but I still exercise portion control and try to swap some higher calorie options for lower calorie options. I might trade a mojito or margarita for a vodka soda, or a craft beer for a light beer. For food, it can be tough in social settings, but exercising portion control is key, as well as staying away from snacking stuff (bowls of chips, baskets of bread, etc.).

I've also found it helpful to bank some calories during the week for the weekend. For example, during the week, I don't eat back my exercise calories, or I eat back a very small amount of them. This gives me some leeway for the weekend.

I suppose it depends on just how far over your calories you are going on the weekends. It's easy to bank calories from the week if you are only going over by a few hundred on the weekends. But it's not going to be easy if you are going over by a thousand or several thousand calories.

blues4miles

murp4069 wrote: »

I've also found it helpful to bank some calories during the week for the weekend. For example, during the week, I don't eat back my exercise calories, or I eat back a very small amount of them. This gives me some leeway for the weekend.

I suppose it depends on just how far over your calories you are going on the weekends. It's easy to bank calories from the week if you are only going over by a few hundred on the weekends. But it's not going to be easy if you are going over by a thousand or several thousand calories.

Banking has helped me. But I also work on trying to make sure it won't be every single weekend for me. This whole thing is baby steps for me. First I added in walking. Then I got serious about logging my food and staying below calorie counts. Then I started weighing every day. Weighing every day can be kind of challenging but when you see the scale go up every Monday after eating back on the weekend I think it's also motivating. In the past I was letting bad weekends wipe out a whole week's worth of work. So now my baby step is that not every weekend is like that. If I ate a lot last weekend, I know this weekend I need to make smarter choices. Can I have something low calorie for lunch as a first step? Choose something different that is less than I usually choose? Each little baby step is a step in the right direction.

LessToLoveTexas

murp4069 wrote: »

How far over your calorie goal are you going? I tend to eat more calories on the weekends as well, but I still exercise portion control and try to swap some higher calorie options for lower calorie options. I might trade a mojito or margarita for a vodka soda, or a craft beer for a light beer. For food, it can be tough in social settings, but exercising portion control is key, as well as staying away from snacking stuff (bowls of chips, baskets of bread, etc.).

I've also found it helpful to bank some calories during the week for the weekend. For example, during the week, I don't eat back my exercise calories, or I eat back a very small amount of them. This gives me some leeway for the weekend.

I suppose it depends on just how far over your calories you are going on the weekends. It's easy to bank calories from the week if you are only going over by a few hundred on the weekends. But it's not going to be easy if you are going over by a thousand or several thousand calories.

I never thought about it, but I guess I bank some of my weekly calories too. I'm fairly new to MFP. I usually go over by a few hundred...

LessToLoveTexas

CassidyScaglione wrote: »

I always go on long rambling walks on weekends. I don't go especially fast, but it's 2-4 hours when I'm not sitting at home eating. Plus it gives you a nice little cushion of exercise calories if you need them. There are family/group activities beyond sitting around eating and drinking too, why not a hike, bike ride, game of touch football, lawn bowling, whatever as a precursor to just plopping down and eating?

If it's just myself, my husband, and our boys, we usually go hiking, fishing, play basketball... But when other friends and family are around we just kind of chill.

ElizabethOakes2

I try to plan for it, and before I drink that microbrew or eat those pub fries, I do the quick calculation of much extra I'm gonna have to walk to get rid of them. Just 500 calories is going to bring my 5 mile daily power-walk up to 6.6 to 7 miles for the entire week. A lot of times, I'll come right up to the limits of my maintenance calories, but I'm still managing to lose okay just because I try to compensate.