NEED HELP AVOIDING TRASH WEEKENDS

One last suggestion. Can you look for a class or fitness/sport event you can sign up for on the weekend? If you are in college, you could check there, or check out the local Y. It wouldn't have to be perfect, just to change your mindset.

That's interesting - I actually find it easier to stick to my calorie goal over the weekend, because of the following:
- during the week, I always have breakfast before going into work, so I always eat 3 meals a day. Over the weekend, I tend to skip breakfast and replace it with brunch or early lunch, followed by dinner only. So two meals compared to three over the weekdays
- I have more time to exercise over the weekend - in my case it's by doing lots of walking, and therefore earning some extra calories
- Are your extra calories maybe from drinking? I've mastered the art of slowly sipping a gin and diet tonic for a very long time, so I tend not to have more than one or two drinks per evening out. Yes, that usually means my friends are way tipsier than me by the end of the evening.
- If I am meeting someone for a meal out over the weekend, I prefer to meet them for lunch and have a large meal for lunch, followed by a tiny dinner at home. This is easier to stick to than having a tiny lunch followed by a large dinner as I'd be ravenously hungry by the evening if I was saving myself for dinner.
- Every now and then I will have a massive meal that's outside my calorie range. Just this Saturday, I went to a friend's wedding and ended up eating quite a lot (over 3,000 calories). In the overall scheme of things, that has set me back about a week in my weight loss progress, and I'm not sweating it. But this happens maybe once every other month, not more than that.

I know everyone is different, but I hope some of my tactics may help. I've lost about 17 kg over the last year, and my weight is dropping by just under a kilo per month at the moment - so my "method" may not be useful if you are trying to drop more quickly.

My advice:

•Cut out alcohol until you reach your goal weight/body fat percentage. Or at least severely limit it, like 1 drink only on the weekend.

•if you are going to exceed your calorie goal, then only eat up to maintenance calories - you can eat more without actually gaining any weight this way. It might even have a beneficial effect on your metabolism to eat up to maintenance once or twice a week.

•train hard the day after going higher calorie - this is the perfect time to train legs. You'll have more energy and strength due to having more "fuel in the tank", so take advantage of it.

I usually just fast on the weekends, either full water or partial (with smoothies). The other option is just to follow the routine you have during the week, replace bad foods with good foods and eat until you are content.

My best advice for avoiding those weekends is... don't. Plan them into your week. If you know you're going to be eating out this coming Saturday night, but you're cheat meal is planned for this Wednesday, just rearrange your schedule. Losing weight doesn't mean you have to give up going out.

The only suggestion I don't see here is to find fitness buddies, or a meetup, who have a similar lifestyle to yours and who inspire you to live a healthier lifestyle.

ShareeEmma wrote: »

I find that I stick to MFP during the week and cut it out at the weekends and that come monday ive lost little weight from all my efforts during the week, I feel boggy and that its hard to go back to a healthy eating routine.

Nobody is recommending "cutting it out" at the weekend. You have to keep tracking or you can blow your whole week's deficit.

There's a big difference between these two ideas: on the one hand, eating a little less during the week and a bit more at weekends, so that your average over the week gives you the deficit you're aiming for.

On the other hand, eating "healthy" through the week and then totally abandoning your goals, giving up tracking and having a massive blowout every weekend.

They are not the same thing at all. The first is one of many good approaches to calorie counting; the other is a recipe for endlessly gaining and losing the same 2lb and, as you say, feeling rubbish.

Curious why you don't exercise on the weekends? If you make it a priority during the week, why not on the weekends as well?

What are your stats - height/weight/goal weight? What sort of exercise are you doing? Did you calculate a TDEE? What rate of loss did you set up with MFP? You clearly aren't logging everything you eat currently, and you aren't weighing your food as you mentioned. When you do exercise, are you eating back a portion of those calories?

There's lots of ways to improve the accuracy of what you are doing - I would focus on being more consistent and accurate in logging and also making exercise a priority on the weekend too - before changing your overall calorie goal.

I find it works fine for weight loss, I lose weight as predicted by mfp. The only effect I'm seeing is a lot of weight fluctuation - variations in how much carbs I'm taking in lead to variations in water retention. It's no biggie. Water is not fat and I fluctuate a lot whatever I do, so it's a price I'm more than willing to pay.

I don't have a definitive answer for the metabolism question, but my hunch is that the metabolism is not going to react to short-term reductions in calories (a few days) and that eating close to or over maintenance for a couple of days a week might make metabolic adaptation actually less likely than if you have a deficit every single day. But that is just a hunch, I have zero science to back it up.

The idea is that you stick with the same deficit you would otherwise have, but you look for that deficit as a weekly average, not a daily thing. I don't know your numbers, but I'll explain mine to you. My maintenance is about 2000 net, and I am aiming to lose 1lb per week, so my overall goal is 1500 net. Instead of setting my goal to 1500, I set it to 1200, and I try to stick to that Mon-Thurs. Then on the weekend, I stop looking at my daily goal and start looking at the average (in the Android app it's under Nutrition on the left-hand menu). I want that average to stay under 1500 - I can eat quite a lot without pushing it over that. The ideal is to hit 1500 average on Sunday night, then I can go back to 1200 on Monday and the process starts all over again. Remember all these numbers are net, so if I exercise more, I eat more.

That's if I'm having a very regular, consistent week, which I often don't. In actual fact I'll often go over the 1200 a few times during the week and I don't worry too much as long as the average is still looking healthy; I just know that if I eat more during the week I'll have to eat less (or do more exercise) at the weekend. It's flexible, which is what I like about it, and the fact I can eat over maintenance every now and then makes a huge difference and stops me feeling deprived. And if people bring doughnuts into the office, I don't have to be sad about it.