How do you stick to your diet on the weekends?!?
Erica0021
Posts: 44 Member
I do great all week but when the weekends come around I can't seem to stick to my diet at all!! Any tips??
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Replies
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Because I often know I will be drinking and eating out on weekends, I bank calories during the week. So I shave off about 100-200 calories on the weekdays. That way, I have more wiggle room.10
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Structured meals. No alcohol. Make your decisions at the grocery store - if it's not in the house, I can't eat it.
What are your particular challenges?
Maybe make plans for active adventures. That way you use a lot of calories, and are away from the kitchen.7 -
For me, I have to make a solid meal plan. If I have a plan I can usually stick with it.4
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vespiquenn wrote: »Because I often know I will be drinking and eating out on weekends, I bank calories during the week. So I shave off about 100-200 calories on the weekdays. That way, I have more wiggle room.
I do this too. I know I can't be perfect all 7 days of the week and I plan for it.3 -
Have you figured out why you struggle on weekends?
For some people, it's being around food more often. For others, it's social factors. Etc.4 -
I'm normally 200 calories under my goal everyday so I guess a little extra on the weekends really won't hurt. Never thought about it that way!!0
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My biggest problem is that is normally when I get together with friends and family none of which who are dieting so we're usually cooking out or going out to a restaurant.1
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If you like to go out, either on the weekend or during the week, definitely build that into your goals. You don't have to be in a deficit every single day to lose weight. I average by week and by month, so those days out don't stress me out. Just make sure you're not letting the "big" days get carried away!3
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My biggest problem is that is normally when I get together with friends and family none of which who are dieting so we're usually cooking out or going out to a restaurant.
If you know which restaurants you are going to ahead of time you can Google the nutritional values and choose items that are lower cal.3 -
For me it's opposite. I find it way easier to stick to my calorie goal on weekends. Mostly because i don't have work related stress, which usually makes me want to eat more and also no usual temptations to fight off, like very visible fruit, candy and such, which we usually have at the office.
Thankfully i don't go out as much as i used to, so that helps a lot too.
One thing i have done, is to remove all kinds of temptations from home - so i never keep sugary treats of any kind and other similar stuff i cant resist at home.2 -
I do great all week but when the weekends come around I can't seem to stick to my diet at all!! Any tips??
I log. Seriously if I didn't I would easily lose track. And I don't consider it a "diet". It's just how I eat. For me, logging my food is necessary, always. Been doing it for many years, don't plan on changing.
I generally don't like to eat out since that means I will be tempted to eat more than I should. So I prefer to make my own food, whenever possible.2 -
My biggest problem is that is normally when I get together with friends and family none of which who are dieting so we're usually cooking out or going out to a restaurant.
Keep going... Cooking out and/or restaurants aren't inherently bad. So what is the real issue? Inability to control portions/intake? Inability to eye-ball a food item for calorie/macro counts? ... ?2 -
I do very clean eating on the weekdays . Friday night is my cheat meal and on Saturday and Sunday is the only time of the week that I allow myself to have a Quest Bar as a snack. The rest of the week is very clean with veggies, fruits and nothing processed. Yes, call me boring!3
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Meal planning and also just eating smaller portion sizes of those treats. Don't neglect yourself just make sure you have a calorie deficit.3
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I'm normally 200 calories under my goal everyday so I guess a little extra on the weekends really won't hurt. Never thought about it that way!!
You're buying yourself an extra 1000 calories to eat over the weekend, then. You might find it helpful to watch the weekly total or weekly average rather than daily.
You can even change your calorie goal from day to day if you find that helpful - eg say your goal is 1800, you can keep it at 1600 on weekdays, then change it on Saturday morning to 2300, then back to 1600 on Monday morning. I do this sometimes.3 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »You can even change your calorie goal from day to day if you find that helpful - eg say your goal is 1800, you can keep it at 1600 on weekdays, then change it on Saturday morning to 2300, then back to 1600 on Monday morning. I do this sometimes.
If you have the paid version, you can set different goals by day of the week - I really love this feature.1 -
This is all good to know because I find myself sometimes having a hard time on the weekend1
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When I'm cutting weight I typically eat at maintenance on weekends.2
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Treat the weekends the same as weekdays. Plan ahead of time.4
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I know I'll be a bad boy on the weekend so I try and counter balance it by being a really good boy during the week. But I'm at the point in my life where I'm not trying to get in shape for a circuit or anything, so a little debauchery on the weekend is good with me. I just keep it reasonable.
But if it is that important to you then plan a head, I use to prep my meals for the week on Sat and Sun, which also helped me to eat healthy during the weekends. And I stayed away from alcohol as well. But Daddy needs his snakebite medicine, so that didn't last long.
Plan a head and you'll be fine.
Good luck!4 -
I weigh myself Saturday mornings so I see the progress I've made and am not as tempted to go overboard during the weekend. Also, when I go out to eat I eat half of the meal and already plan to box the other half for leftovers.2
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I relax my rules at the weekend and have a meal out on the Saturday evening and maybe a piece of cake on Sunday. Then I am back to my regime on Monday. Granted I am not trying to lose weight currently but I have lost weight with this system as well.2
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I do a lot of food prep on the weekends which actually kind of reminds me to stay on track and if I snack while prepping it's okay because I am prepping healthy food. That said, I ALSO tend to stay up later on the weekends and do a fair amount of mindless eating, so there is that too...2
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The way I 'stick to my (plan) on weekends' is to have breakfast. Yup. Wake up, have breakfast, sip a pot of coffee, and have a good start to the day. The breakfast must have oodles and gobs of protein or else the whole plan falls apart. Today I started with a bowl of yogurt, added some Nature Valley granola with protein and some PB2 and blueberries. That was a tasty start but not quite enough. A couple of hours later I had a piece of raisin bread with some leftover shmear from a bagel place spread on it. That got my calories for 'breakfast' up over 300. I did some stuff and got a little exercise, so I had a granola bar with protein at about noon. By then, I had already developed a plan of having a ribeye steak for dinner, so I let that granola bar be my lunch. I did some more stuff that kept me busy and at 4 pm started cooking dinner with putting the potatoes in the oven. At 4:30 I put the carrots in the oven and at 4:50 I put the ribeyes on the fire. At 5 I put the butter on the steak and commenced to eating 554 grams of the best steak I've ever tasted and becoming very happy to be under my calorie budget for the day.
I got turned on to oldtownmkt.com by an Uber driver, of all things.2 -
Since I have more time, I run/walk 10 miles first thing on Sat/Sun to build up a nice deficit for the day, then eat my goal and most of my exercise cals. So on a weekday if I have 1700, on the weekend I'll eat 2100'ish2
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I try to get some extra exercise in and pre-log everything leaving cals for a treat or bit of a splurge meal. And if worst comes to worst I just try to stay below maintenance2
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Change your thinking and behavior. People tend to RELAX on the weekend from work and treat their diets the same way. Guess what? You eat 7 days a week and should not treat it like a work schedule. Doesn't mean that you can't indulge, you just can't LET IT GO and not be accountable for the calories you overconsume.I do great all week but when the weekends come around I can't seem to stick to my diet at all!! Any tips??
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Well, for me, Sabbath (Friday night/Saturday) is the temptation zone. So...
1) Friday afternoon, I pre-log what I plan to eat for supper and all day Saturday, accepting that I will be indulging within my calories. "Breakfast" today was two pieces of potato kugel, a sugar cookie, and some cantaloupe and honeydew. I come up short on my protein and iron, but I don't go over calories.
2) Friday mornings, I do my usual walk to the baker and deli takeout, a ways from home. It generally takes over 2 hours net (i.e. deducting time spent standing in line at the checkout). Saturday afternoons, I have a walking buddy and we go at least 2 hours. In addition, it takes 20 minutes to walk to and from synagogue. Today, we had guests for lunch who are friends aware and supportive of my weight loss efforts. I walked them home. 40 minutes round-trip. There was a lecture at someone's house in the neighborhood, 14 minutes walk away. (And my buddy was there, so we took our 2 hours afterwards).
3) Sunday morning? That's my weigh-in day.1 -
I bargain with myself:
Am I working out this day? If yes, I splurge a little on food. If not, stick hard to my diet.1 -
I exercise lots on weekends.
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