Struggling on weekends!😫

cartersmom06

Ive been doing this CICO way of lifecfor a long time off and on. I find that I am compliant during the week and then come Friday evening I decide to 'treat' myself to pizza and beer and that leads to an all out weekend binge party. Sunday vomes and I hang my head in shame...Monday arrives and I do it all over again! How do I break this cycle??

janejellyroll

Are you eating enough during the week? And are you enjoying the things you are eating? I find that when my calorie goals are reasonable and I'm enjoying the things I'm eating each day, I'm much less likely to feel like I should "treat" myself. Taking care of yourself all week can make the weekends much easier.

Your day-to-day life should give you more than just feeling "compliant."

cwolfman13

I'm a lot more loose on weekends, but I don't let myself go off the rails. Friday night is usually pizza night with the wife and kids...I have 2 or 3 slices and call it a night, not the whole pizza. I also like drinking beer on the weekends which I don't do much of during the week. It all seems to come out in the wash for me unless i go nuts, which I don't. I'm also a lot more active on weekends as I have more time for exercise and other general activity with the family or doing things that need to be done around the house or property...I'm on my *kitten* very little on weekends.

janejellyroll

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I'm a lot more loose on weekends, but I don't let myself go off the rails. Friday night is usually pizza night with the wife and kids...I have 2 or 3 slices and call it a night, not the whole pizza. I also like drinking beer on the weekends which I don't do much of during the week. It all seems to come out in the wash for me unless i go nuts, which I don't. I'm also a lot more active on weekends as I have more time for exercise and other general activity with the family or doing things that need to be done around the house or property...I'm on my *kitten* very little on weekends.

OP, this is a really good point. Fun activity on the weekends is a big help for me too. The more time I'm doing exercise and general fun stuff on the weekends, the more calories I'm burning . . . and generally I'm less focused on food overall.

If food is your main source of enjoyment on the weekends, consider ways to shake that up.

kimny72

I found pre-logging to be a tremendous help. Before I ate anything, I logged it. Seeing the possible damage in black & white made it a lot easier to back away from the free for all.

You also might want to look at the way you think about that pizza and beer. Do you feel guilty that you are treating yourself? Do you actively worry as you're eating it that you are doing damage to your plan? You might need to deal with framing your treat as something perfectly healthy and normal that fits in your life.

Or is that pizza and beer a big blowout in itself? Maybe you need to tone it down a little so that it's less of a change from the rest of your week. Some people find a big calorie day every week helps them with compliance the rest of the week, but others find that the same big calorie day shoots their appetite and cravings into overdrive for days. Maybe try cutting back your portions a little on that treat meal (and eat a few more calories during the week) and maybe that will help.

Unfortunately you really need to play around with it a little and figure out "why" you ended up in this cycle in the first place. Good luck!

TavistockToad

cartersmom06 wrote: »

Ive been doing this CICO way of lifecfor a long time off and on. I find that I am compliant during the week and then come Friday evening I decide to 'treat' myself to pizza and beer and that leads to an all out weekend binge party. Sunday vomes and I hang my head in shame...Monday arrives and I do it all over again! How do I break this cycle??

Fit your pizza into your weekly goal. If it doesn't fit, you don't eat pizza.

HoneyBadger302

I found an eating plan that worked better for me and my life than the traditional "5 small meals a day." I also don't deprive myself. If there's something I really want, I fit it in to my calories for the week. Pre-logging helps you determine how much you need to "plan ahead."

Personally I can't put things off limits, and instead learned that I could be satisfied with a reasonable serving of the things I love.

garystrickland357

This will sound hash and I don't mean it to be - but - you have to decide how important losing weight is to you. I see nothing wrong with having pizza or beer; you just have to stay inside your calorie allowance. I've had the same struggles. If I know I have a big night out ahead of me I might go really light for breakfast and lunch in order to have room for a large evening meal and drinks.
I don't like to play this game too often, but exercise can play a big role. A 10 mile run or 50 mile bike ride frees up a lot of calories...
But when it's all said and done you have to decide what you want. Permanent results require permanent changes. If you want to weigh less - you have to eat less. You can't escape that reality.

StargazerB

Have you tried prelogging your food for the weekend? Also it's ok to have a treat, maybe if you scheduled your treat you would be less likely to binge as you would know you have another one coming again soon.

mitch16

I think you have to work really hard to get rid of the feeling of "entitlement" ("I've worked hard all week--I deserve this..."). I know--I've been there, and it sabotaged my results, too. We're empty nesting now, so we do tend to go out to eat on Friday nights, but my mindset now is to be very careful not to slide backwards because I'm really happy with my current progress. I either make very conservative choices on the menu, or I have at least half of my meal wrapped to go. And if I know that we're going out again on Saturday or Sunday, I make a conscious effort 1) to get a workout in and 2) to have much smaller meals for breakfast and lunch so that I don't go over my calorie limit.

amy19355

mitch16 wrote: »

I think you have to work really hard to get rid of the feeling of "entitlement" ("I've worked hard all week--I deserve this..."). I know--I've been there, and it sabotaged my results, too. We're empty nesting now, so we do tend to go out to eat on Friday nights, but my mindset now is to be very careful not to slide backwards because I'm really happy with my current progress. I either make very conservative choices on the menu, or I have at least half of my meal wrapped to go. And if I know that we're going out again on Saturday or Sunday, I make a conscious effort 1) to get a workout in and 2) to have much smaller meals for breakfast and lunch so that I don't go over my calorie limit.

I agree about the challenge of feeling "entitled".

A suggestion for converting it to some other feeling that better supports our long term goals:

Look at this definition I found for Entitlement: "belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges".
Then, ask the question : "how is making poor food choices on the weekends considered to be a privilege?"

A privilege implies a positive of some sort.

Seeking positives could lead to the more sustainable idea of permitting ourselves small portions of foods that , in larger quantities, would be poor choices that hit our self-esteem later on.

MelanieCN77

How about meal planning a few days in advance? I do 3 days or so, just in a notebook or app, what you plan to eat for each three meals and what you have on hand that will work for snacks. When I've written down that I'm going to have a vegetable stir fry and some gyoza, I've really no excuse to be all WHAT SHOULD I HAVE RIGHT NOW?

Maxxitt

Breaking a cycle means doing something different. What if you saved the pizza and beer for Saturday night and let Friday be just like Thursday? And what if you established a "weekly weigh in" schedule so that you always record Sunday morning as your reported weight for that week?

countcurt

cartersmom06 wrote: »

Ive been doing this CICO way of lifecfor a long time off and on.

There's this, too. It's not a way of life if you're not living it. And you're not living it if you're doing it off and on. That's what one does when one goes on a diet.

There is nothing contradictory about somebody living this 'way of life' who eats pizza on Friday night. But if you're living this way of life, you take the next step of figuring out how to adjust your other eating to accommodate the pizza.


Easy? Not necessarily. But doable.

Running2Fit

Find other ways to treat yourself. I try to never use food as a reward because I want to break some of the emotional issues I've had with food in the past. If I want to treat myself I have a spa night or order a new book - anything but food.

It also helped me to completely cut eating out for a month. After the month was over I wasn't as tempted to order take out.

Oh and plan/buy everything you need for food for the weekend. It's harder to justify ordering food when you already paid money for food in the fridge.

kshama2001

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I'm a lot more loose on weekends, but I don't let myself go off the rails. Friday night is usually pizza night with the wife and kids...I have 2 or 3 slices and call it a night, not the whole pizza. I also like drinking beer on the weekends which I don't do much of during the week. It all seems to come out in the wash for me unless i go nuts, which I don't. I'm also a lot more active on weekends as I have more time for exercise and other general activity with the family or doing things that need to be done around the house or property...I'm on my *kitten* very little on weekends.

Yup, I'm more active on the weekends too. Makes it easier to fit in higher calorie meals.

@cartersmom06 I've also found it helpful to give my OH an extra slice of pizza instead of just splitting it with him, and having a large salad with it.

RealWorldStrengthLLC

I find that planning active things that further my fitness goals or have to be up really early for gives me a solid reason to eat right on Friday and Saturday night.

I'll plan things like a bike ride, an early morning fishing trip, dirtbiking, snowboarding - etc...these are things you want to be properly fueled and rested for.

On weekends I'm not doing those things, I keep myself in check by reminding myself that Saturday and Sunday are the only days I get to wake up with 8+ hours of sleep and go straight to the gym - my best lifting sessions are the weekends because I'm best rested - I can go harder, heavier, and do more than during the work week...if I choose to go out drinking or something, I'm sacrificing my best training days of the week. I REALLY like lifting, so that provides a lot of motivation to stay on track. That might not work for someone else though.

Another thing I remind myself of is that a night out at the bars is around $100 blown that could be put to much better use. This is not to say I don't cut loose, I just do it less than once a month.

MikePTY

What do you normally eat during the week? Eating within your calorie goals shouldn't feel like a chore. You should eat food that you like but that are within your limits. That would make you less likely to feel like you need to "treat yourself."

Also, I think if you do decide to eat something on Friday that causes you to go over your calorie limit, you just need to think of it as a one time thing specific to that day. It seems like if you get a little looser on Friday, you get in the mentality of "well I already failed, I might as well just do whatever I want," and that causes the weekend binges. Don't think of food and trying to meet a calorie goal as something we win or lose or that is worthy of shame, etc. If you eat something you don't think you should have, then just try not to eat that on the next meal, or the next day, etc. Or try to only have one slice of pizza instead of two.

As an example, I had a really rough day on Friday, and it caused me to want to emotional eat. And I knew that it was something I was going to do. But instead of leaning into it hardcore, I gave myself permission to do it, but I still put a limit on it and made better choices. In the past, my go to emotional eating choice was a 3/4 pound triple bacon cheeseburger from Burger King. However, instead of getting that, I got the 1/2 pound, non-bacon cheeseburger from Wendy's. Was it a "good" choice? Certainly not. But it still saved me several hundred calories from my other choice. Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we need to choose between the least bad of two options, and that's okay. So try to make the best choices you can under your circumstances, even if they end up being not as ideal as you would like.

Cahgetsfit

I just budget more calories on friday/saturday. The belt is tighter during the week, then friday/saturday I allow a couple of hundred more. my weight loss is not fast (nowhere near fast) but at least this way I dont feel deprived and sad.

cartersmom06

Thank you all! I am going to try to implement some of your strategies this coming weekend and let you know how it goes!
Thanks for being there!😊

DaisyHamilton

Someone once posted here that the weekend (Fri-Sun) is 3/7 days of the week. That's HALF the week not being on track. Really put things into perspective for me.
Also I still have pizza and drinks and whatnot, but am more careful in the mornings, and make sure to get some kind of exercise in before going out. Dominos has a flat bread pacific veggie and for half a Large, it's only 880cal. My usual dinner is around 700 so it's really not so bad.