Diet gets ruined over the weekend :(
abhinavsood89
Posts: 11 Member
Hello everyone,
About me:
Height: 170 cm
Goal: 71 kg
Calorie Goal: 1600
Weight (01 January 2018) : 79 kg
Weight (19 February 2018) : 72.9 kg
I started using MFP to track my eating habits at the beginning of this year and also started walking and running on a treadmill. I have never been a runner - extremely flat feet make my feet hurt and the really bad ankle sprain I had in summer 2016 makes things even worse for my left ankle. However, I was able to start walking and running from a few tens to a couple hundred meters, and build up to comfortable 3km runs every alternate day, if not every day.
Now, I try to eat healthy as much as possible and pack my own lunch during the weekdays, and with the exercise, I am able to get some calorie deficit that allows me to snack a little bit during the weekends without going over the budget or feeling bad. I am so glad that the app and the exercise has brought me so close to my weight goal in less than two months, and getting this exercise in and losing weight makes me feel really good.
However, I am really feeling the blues today thinking about how my diet and nutrition goes totally off-the-track almost every weekend. I live with another person and we usually have friends over for most of the weekend, so sometimes cooking on the weekends becomes a non-option and we end up ordering pizzas or chicken biryani rice, sweets and chips etc. for snacks for our guests. What is especially adding to my misery is that both the treadmills in my building's gym have somehow suddenly gone out of order at the same time (the gym just opened like a couple of months ago and really doesn't have too many users).
Each slice of pizza with vegetable or chicken toppings seems to have upwards of 300 calories - even if I eat just one slice each for each meal that's around 900-1000 calories gone from the budget. Even a little bit of snacks in between usually exhausts the rest of the budget. This weekend, I also had a couple of beers (only the fourth or fifth beers this year). My weight today is the same as last week. Not working out is making me feel bad. What do I do? Any suggestions?
About me:
Height: 170 cm
Goal: 71 kg
Calorie Goal: 1600
Weight (01 January 2018) : 79 kg
Weight (19 February 2018) : 72.9 kg
I started using MFP to track my eating habits at the beginning of this year and also started walking and running on a treadmill. I have never been a runner - extremely flat feet make my feet hurt and the really bad ankle sprain I had in summer 2016 makes things even worse for my left ankle. However, I was able to start walking and running from a few tens to a couple hundred meters, and build up to comfortable 3km runs every alternate day, if not every day.
Now, I try to eat healthy as much as possible and pack my own lunch during the weekdays, and with the exercise, I am able to get some calorie deficit that allows me to snack a little bit during the weekends without going over the budget or feeling bad. I am so glad that the app and the exercise has brought me so close to my weight goal in less than two months, and getting this exercise in and losing weight makes me feel really good.
However, I am really feeling the blues today thinking about how my diet and nutrition goes totally off-the-track almost every weekend. I live with another person and we usually have friends over for most of the weekend, so sometimes cooking on the weekends becomes a non-option and we end up ordering pizzas or chicken biryani rice, sweets and chips etc. for snacks for our guests. What is especially adding to my misery is that both the treadmills in my building's gym have somehow suddenly gone out of order at the same time (the gym just opened like a couple of months ago and really doesn't have too many users).
Each slice of pizza with vegetable or chicken toppings seems to have upwards of 300 calories - even if I eat just one slice each for each meal that's around 900-1000 calories gone from the budget. Even a little bit of snacks in between usually exhausts the rest of the budget. This weekend, I also had a couple of beers (only the fourth or fifth beers this year). My weight today is the same as last week. Not working out is making me feel bad. What do I do? Any suggestions?
1
Replies
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You can bank calories for the weekend to enjoy and not fret or you can start cooking and tell everyone eating out is expensive so try this. Also, you can do home exercise with bodyweight or resistance bands. Lots of plans and workouts out there including YouTube. Make it work for you!7
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Dont keep food you shouldnt eat in the house. Youtube "clean eating". Start there.17
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bhurley100 wrote: »Dont keep food you shouldnt eat in the house. Youtube "clean eating". Start there.
The problem with this is there are dozens of definitions of “clean eating”.
OP, I agree with the suggestion of banking calories. I also think your deficit is too much/calories are too low based on how much you’ve lost. .25 kg a week is what you should be aiming for in order to preserve you muscle mass.3 -
Avoid eating with your friends, do something active, go on a hike or walk with them instead.1
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Live your life. You’ve lost 15lbs in 6 weeks? Now this week you didn’t lose anything? If it ain’t broke...
You want to live the rest of your life and never eat the pizza? You can loosen that up.
That said- Find a way to get your activity back. A disrupted workout routine can really mess with your head. If nothing else, go outside and walk. Find a YouTube video with some floor exercises you can do in your apartment. Is it a big building? Walk the stairs. Anything. Keep your exercise schedule in place. Fill the time slot with something that allows you to look yourself in the mirror and say you had a workout. Good habits need to be defended and preserved.
Just waiting for someone to fix the treadmill is not a plan. You need a reliable backup.
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You're only 2kg from goal, you're SUPPOSED to ease up.3
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This used to happen me too, especially the nearer I got to goal weight. I banked calories and that sorted it. I cut an extra 100-150 cals during week days to save them for the weekend but I still had to be careful with how much I ate on the weekends so I still didn't wipe out my weekly deficit.1
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this was my problem ..... even eating at 1500kcal during the week means if you have 2 weekend days at 3000kcal, your average for the week is ~2000kcal ... which in my case was maintenance. .. and you loose no weight.
It took me a while to realize this and I have only cured the issue since joining MFP, logging and tracking everything and seeing where I can improve the situation
I do this
(1) Suffer ! (this is personal) but it sucks to not pig out at the weekend, but you simply have to keep the calories under control at weekends, only have a couple of cheats, choose between the extra beer at dinner or mid afternoon donut. When you make your wife a 700kcal fried chicken burger and chips, dont have the brioche bun, eat the meat with salad and only have a couple of chips .... yes this sucks ! ... instead of having Pizza, chose lower cal lunches, lean pasta sauces with zoodles .... yes this can also suck from time to time
(2) Bank weekday calories for the weekend, I do "IF" on a monday, sometimes Tuesdays or thursdays and save a few hundred calories to add at the weekend, so my weekly average is on point despite going 1000kcal over the limit on a saturday
(3) Move more, exercise more, ride a bike, go for walks, go swiming, go shopping .. MOVE !
(4) stop snacking .... really, think about it, do you really benifit from that 100kcal cookie with a coffee at 11am .. you have lunch in 2 hours, you dont "need" the cookie.
(5) Desserts .... a good one is 500kcal .... but you can achieve the same fun making your own with 0% greek yogurt, fruit, stevia, egg whites, cocoa powder etc ... for 250kcal
Ultimately .. its doable .... I know because I am doing it ... it doesnt mean though that it doesnt suck at times because you have to accept you cant eat as you like to, or as everyone else is doing.
you dont have far to go ... in a month or so time you will beat your goal ... you can start to eat at maintanence, you can introduce a couple of treats back into your daily life again4 -
Idontcareyoupick wrote: »You can bank calories for the weekend to enjoy and not fret
This is basically what I do. I aim for 1400 to 1500 on week days so I can eat up to 3k calories on weekends. I also step up my activity level on weekends, take longer hikes or fit in an extra lifting session, etc. The answer for me has always been a blend of reducing weekday eating and increasing weekend activity.
5 -
I bank some calories during the week and try to do something super active on the weekends! My husband and I are training for a half marathon, so we usually do a 9 mile walk/run on Sundays...so that gives me plenty of calories to play with! Try hiking, or biking! Those have always been my favorite!0
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This may not work for you, but it's what works for me,
During the week I more or less eat my normal 3 meals per day + 2 snacks to meet my calorie allowance. On my more active days, this sometimes leaves me with a slightly higher deficit than normal, which I will "bank" for the weekend as I look at my calories over the week rather than the day.
On a weekend I deviate from my weekday routine, I have a glass of OJ in the morning and don't eat til around 12/1pm having brunch rather than separate breakfast/lunch, I usually tend to have an omelette or poached eggs on toast, something around 400 cals or so but high protein, that leaves me the rest of my calories for the day plus those banked during the week for eating out or takeaway.
As for your treadmill issue - have you considered outdoor running or going out for a hike, even a walk around a local park will be better than doing nothing at all.1 -
Tell whoever it is that you're living with that this matters to you. That you need a little support for a month or so and that you need to lay off the pizza, beer and snacks until you get to your goal.
Prep a meal before your friends come over - or can you order a salad when they order the pizza/chicken biryani?
Go for a walk, and phone up the building management whilst your walking to ask them to get the treadmills up and running again.
Remember you have already lost 6kg and only have 2kg to go. That's a couple of weekends where you hit the waters and have a salad whilst they hit the pizza.
Its a choice, either you want the socializing more and want to take longer to drop the weight by only sticking to your diet during the week or you take the hit for a month, maybe get a few comments, but get to where you want to be quicker.3 -
You can employ a cheat "day" if that works best for you.
Back when I was doing this first time ( and lost 60 lbs in 9 months as a result ) I gave myself a cheat day each week.
I was strict about not eating bread, sugar etc during the week, but then on Sat I would just eat w/e I wanted, and then Sunday go back to how I was eating the rest of the week.
It had another side effect where eating pizza and such on a Sat, made me unable to even stomach the thought of it during the week.
It also meant that I gave myself a " reward" to look forward to for crushing the week.
I employ that now while doing this a second time ( I ruined ankle shoulder and knee in succession, so haven't been active for ayear or two now ) and eat what I want on saturday ( wraps, sandwiches etc ) but I also do my best to not go over 2000 cal ( 1800 is my daily ) and if i do, I don't sweat it, I just eat a little less on sunday, or I just chalk it up to a " it'll take an extra week to lose a 1lb, but I deserve to treat myself too" mindset1 -
From what I'm reading, you don't seem to be "ruining" your diet. If your saving during the week, enjoy your weekend just try not to go overboard. If you've enjoyed your weekend and haven't gained anything..be happy! Just account for everything, find a way to continue working out and stop being so hard on yourself.1
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From what I'm reading, you don't seem to be "ruining" your diet. If your saving during the week, enjoy your weekend just try not to go overboard. If you've enjoyed your weekend and haven't gained anything..be happy! Just account for everything, find a way to continue working out and stop being so hard on yourself.
Bingo, that's my approach on it too.
Life is far too short to not enjoy and treat yourself. It's the small things that make it, the big thins are going to happen.
You might take an extra few weeks to reach your goal, but it's far better to enjoy yourself and reach that goal by treating yourself, than to beat yourself up and stress ( which can actually cause weight gain.. ) about enjoying yourself
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One thing that has really helped me is to make Sundays a "stricter" day. I used to go a little wild on the weekend and it didn't hurt my progress too badly because I was getting so much extra exercise on Saturdays (especially during nice weather with all day hikes). But then in the winter, I find that I can really undo the week's progress by going overboard with eating/drinking on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. So now I try to make Saturday my only real "weekend" day as far as eating goes.
It's made a difference for me and also helps curb the dining out budget. For awhile my husband and I found it way too easy to go out to lunch on Sundays and now we plan ahead to avoid that.2 -
I love biryanis! If eating out I drink lots of water to curb my appetite, eat half the biryani and then quite happily have the other half for breakfast on a Monday morning. I also try to save calories for a weekend by eating slightly less during the week. Agree about Sundays too. .. Almost tempted to treat Sunday evening as prep for Monday and therefore cut back on the booze on that day but do what I want on Saturday. You need to get help from your flatmate and look at what you could cook that is less calorific... Maybe make your own curry so you know what is in it!1
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It's a very common problem. There are a few things you can do like eat at maintenance on the weekend. Up your overall calories if you're restricting too much. Perhaps it's causing you to go overboard on the weekend. Just chose to eat less. Exercise more to accumulate extra calories.0
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For me there's a difference between eating a piece of pizza and a pizza. Order the thin crust to cut down on unwanted/unneeded calories and have a piece (cheese pizza is the easiest to deal with for me). 300 calories won't blow up your day. Add in a salad with some vinaigrette and there's a dinner! Just plan ahead. Take an extra long walk or workout that morning to give yourself extra room in your calorie allotment and then just moderate your meals as needed. You can have pizza and still stay on track, its fine.0
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brian_gunther wrote: »For me there's a difference between eating a piece of pizza and a pizza. Order the thin crust to cut down on unwanted/unneeded calories and have a piece (cheese pizza is the easiest to deal with for me). 300 calories won't blow up your day. Add in a salad with some vinaigrette and there's a dinner! Just plan ahead. Take an extra long walk or workout that morning to give yourself extra room in your calorie allotment and then just moderate your meals as needed. You can have pizza and still stay on track, its fine.
All depends on your goals I suppose, I'd rather enjoy my full personal pizza and side from Dominos which is around 1200 calories, still fits into my week and still on track.2 -
Join a gym. Planet Fitness might not be the greatest, but it's only $10 a month. Personally, I ended up buying a treadmill so I'm not dependent on weather/being able to go to the gym etc.
Jog/walk outside. Even before I got the treadmill, I'd go crazy if I stayed inside all day. Now I got a dog too so I HAVE to walk her at least once a day or she goes nuts.
About your friends, you can always order something lower calorie for yourself. You don't HAVE to eat the pizza. I get it, we regularly see our friends on week ends too and there's a lot of snacking involved, but really, you don't have to eat the snacks, and you could order your own food somewhere else if you don't want the high calorie stuff (I like pizza occasionally, but I'm not spending 300 calories on a slice if I'm not in the mood for it).1 -
Thank you to every single one of you who replied! Your comments were very insightful, inspiring and generally really helpful. I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to post a few updates to tell you how I used your advice and what I achieved:
1. The easiest thing to practice was building a budget during the week to be used on the weekend since I was already doing this more or less.
2. On returning from work, I started walking to the next nearest subway station instead of the one I usually go to.
3. I usually discard pizza crust at the edges that has no toppings. Someone I talked to told me that I was being too harsh on myself to record a whole slice when I didn't eat the crusts at the edge, it has a large number of carbs relative to the rest of the slide. I still track a slice as a slice to ensure that I don't go overboard if I eat more than a slice
4. I started doing squats when cooking, cleaning around the house more often, etc. to be active
5. I started Intermittent Fasting, eating my dinner between 7-8pm and then lunch next day at noon, with only a cup of tea in the morning.
I have reached my weight goal and I feel happy One treadmill is functional and I go walk/run whenever I can. Thank you for all your feedback, help and support! 3 -
Lots of great dieting suggestions so I'll make a social one. How about having theme nights when the friends come by? I.e., Greek night...everyone brings something you assign: greek salad, chicken skewers, hummus and pita, a nice Greek wine, etc. Try to control the food coming in where you can, and where you can't, enjoy friends. Life is short may be a cliche' but it's a true one. No one knows what tomorrow will bring...1
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Congrats on hitting your goal!1
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