Weekend Binge Eating?

Spliner1969

rebeccachobat wrote: »

Thanks for the responses everyone, I'm taking all of your advice to heart. I went ahead and put in everything I ate yesterday and it clocked in at around 4,000 calories. Being honest with myfitnesspal really helps me to see my flaws and helps me to understand how I gained the weight in the first place. I cannot have another day like yesterday, I am okay with eating 2500 calories or so on a cheat day but 4000 is unacceptable. I really need to try to get on an eating schedule on saturday and Sunday, or stay busy so I don't think about food as much.

I tend to 'save up' extra calories during the week because I know I'm going to be bad on the weekend. If I finish under my goal by 200 calories on a day, i'll make note of it and go on. Over the course of the week I can easily scrape up an extra 1000+ calories that I can play with on the weekend. Sure, my goal may show I'm over on the weekends, but I know I made up for it the prior week. Or, you can simply make up for it the next week if you were unable to plan for it. An extra 1000, or even 2000 calories seems like a lot, but divide it over a 7 day period and it's only a couple hundred a day you have to make up either with your diet or exercise. I always felt this was part of learning to control my weight long term. I'm not always going to be logging my food, and when I stop and know I've eaten too much on a specific day or weekend, I'll know to buckle down instinctively the week after, or plan for it the week ahead with extra exercise or eating what I know to be lower calorie options. Food for thought.

GemstoneofHeart

It sounds like you just let yourself eat more freely on the weekends. Binge eating is an actual disorder that generally cannot be controlled without counseling or other help and is generally done in secret. I hope you find the answers you are looking for!

ladyhusker39

Yeah, 4000 can undo a lot of your weekly progress if you make a habit of it. The good news is now that you know, you can make some adjustments so that you can fit a fun and delicious weekend into your goals, however you chose to do it. Knowledge really is power.

JeromeBarry1

I saw a lady at Wal-Mart Saturday wearing a t-shirt with the message, "I workout because I really like food."

Along those lines, one of my exercise goals is to burn 1640 calories bicycling on a Saturday so that I can 'earn' a Sonic Peanut Butter Custard Concrete that has 1640 calories in it.

You can eat more on Saturdays, and with all that spare time you can exercise more, too.

CouponDancer

I too struggle with the weekends and keeping my meal plan in place. I am a bit different, however, because I don’t have “life” to keep me busy. It’s literally “idle hands are the devil’s playground” come to life.

We never had kids, and my wife isn’t on board with the healthy eating thing as much as I am. Weekends are the time for us to relax and unwind. Our walks on Saturday and Sunday are usually longer – I’ll get 16-20 thousand steps each day. But if we get up in the morning, hit the gym, and then go for a long walk, we’re still at loose ends by noon. 1:00 if we dawdle in the morning. And then we have the rest of the day ahead of us. No kids to keep us occupied with soccer games, chauffer duty, or other pursuits. And going out just costs too much to do it every weekend. So what’s to do? Sunday afternoon we can do our meal prep for the coming workweek, but even that only takes a couple of hours.

We’re programmed to relax with food and drink. Beer and chips with guacamole. A glass of wine with some bread and cheese. The thought of sitting on the patio under the umbrella drinking a glass of water with a bowl of cashews just seems anticlimactic for a nice weekend.

Help!

MegaMooseEsq

I set my goals by week and by month because I love going out and always eat more on those days. The struggle for me really isn't about the day to day, but controlling those nights out. Here's what is working for me so far:

1) log everything as accurately as possible no matter what.
2) keep your goals realistic - I aim for 2-3 lbs lost a month. Any loss is better than a gain.
3) figure out the minimum you can comfortably eat on a "regular day" and stick to it as religiously as possible. But don't starve yourself! That's just not sustainable. I eat about 1500 calories five days a week.
4) work on reasonable changes for your big days - that might be including more exercise, fasting earlier in the day, cutting from two big days to one, switching from margaritas to wine, etc. I had been going out 3-4 nights a week, and just cutting that to two nights has been a huge drop in overall calories. I switched from wine to hard cider because I drink wine way too fast, and that has been another big calorie drop, not to mention helping with the drunk munchies.

Good luck!

Russellb97

I purposely eat over my maintenance calories on the weekend. It's a great way to stay in control and keep metabolism honest.