Weekend Woes...

Don't get discouraged!! Part of the journey is messing up. I've been at this almost six months now and I still have days that I log and look at and say "oh boy, that's not going to help the weigh in" but the way you handle it is by saying "that was one day. Tomorrow is a new day." Don't bring the set backs from the weekend into your week. It's Monday. Stay the course! Work out a little harder today and eat extra well. Take the success of today and turn it into the success of tomorrow. And if you goof up again? Who cares!? It's about you and how you feel. Just pick up and keep going. Week one as a whole you had two rough days. Week two, let yourself only have one rough day. Then week three you'll be a rock star! Just don't give up! The weekend it past, let it go! Come on, you can do it!

Welcome to the site! :flowerforyou: I consider myself a newbie too, since this is my first post. I have learned what to eat and what not to eat using MFP. I also learned how and when. You will learn it quickly too. I needed to have more fiber in my diet, due to a medical condition so I Googled "foods high in fiber" and it told me what to have. Do your research and read suggestions people tell you about. I have enjoyed MFP so much and I AM losing weight.

Yeessss bump for the awesome site suggestions!
I love to cook and am always on the lookout for new websites with healthy recipes. I rarely make one thing twice

I had the same problems on the weekends when my husband & I started...especially on weekends we normally went to restaurants. Plan what your going to eat everyday especially weekends. If you do go out look at their calories thru this website & figure what your going to have. I still carry my snacks on me on the weekends in baggies & their counted out of how many I have.

One tip. Olive garden - get the salad with the dressing on the side & make it the low fat dressing. If you get spagetti request tomato sauce instead of their regular.

I eat the mcdonalds bacon ranch sald w/o chicken alot - get the low fat basalmic dressing instead of ranch...this is only 180 calories.
Always plan your day...your in control...dont get discouraged...find what to you can have at restaurant that doesn't count as your whole day & stick to those same items. Do you have anyone who can help you or encourage you? My husband doesn't enter in his day on mfp - I do it for him & tell him what were having. It's time consuming but it's worth it.

Good Luck
Lynda

I started on MFP November 2009. Each weekday I would carefully log, brown bag my lunches, and do everything "right" toward my goal . . . then the weekend would come and everything would go off the charts . . . every Monday morning I would be the exact same weight as the previous Monday because all of my weekday hard work would get undone with my weekend bad habits.

Finally in May 2010 I sat down and made a 2 week menu, including weekends and every meal or snack. This not only helped me prepare things in advance to keep me on track, but helped a lot with building my grocery list and keeping expenses down as it can get expensive throwing away all those fresh fruits and veggies when you don't actually eat them!

The first week doing this . . . because I had made a PLAN . . . I effortlessly made it through the weekend and lost 3 pounds . . . that just gave me the motivation to keep going.

It is now 4 months since I had this "ah ha" moment . . . and I've lost 35 pounds . . . a steady loss of 1 to 2 pounds per week.

The best things you can do is to PLAN, PLAN, PLAN, so you never just grab something to eat out of hunger, and be completely honest with your logging . . . every little morsel. I found that I learned more about myself from my bad days, or bad choices, than anything.

This is an emotional journey, sometimes you will have a setback . . . we all do . . . you can either use it as a learning experience and get right back to it . . . or let it bother you and just stay in the same place . . . .

Don't think of this as a "diet" ... because it isn't. It is a change in lifestyle and a change in eating habits. The Food Diary is designed to help you watch what you are eating and begin to teach you what portions look like. PORTION CONTROL is key here. There are so many different foods in the data base already and all you really have to do is type things in.

I will tell you how I have survived the weekends. If you don't cook, or just don't want to on the weekends, get Lean Cuisines. They are good and filling and are portioned out so you aren't blowing all your sodium, carbs etc in one meal. In fact, on Labor Day I didn't feel like cooking at all, I didn't work out at all and I had 3 lean cuisine meals and snacks and stayed below 1200 calories (just below).

Also, exercise. You get calorie point on your food diary for all the exercise that you log. If you take a walk for a 1/2 hour at a slow pace type that in the exercise tracking and you will get X amount of calories added to your food diary. These calories are to be consumed ... so if you cheat a little, you have a buffer.

DRINK YOUR WATER. Minimum 8 glasses a day. Try to stay away from caffeinated or diet drinks. BUT drink your 8 glasses if nothing else.

YOU CAN DO THIS! there are a lot of people to help you. If you want shoot me a friends request. I have my diary open to friends and it will give you a good idea of what you can snack on. Not a day goes by that I feel like I am missing anything. Trust me, you can do this without fast food which is high in sodium (even if it's a "healthier" choice).