What's Harder - Work Days or Days Off?

My hardes time is at night! anyday. During the day I am busy with work or getting things done on the weekend but as soon as I sit down for the eveing I am doomed. During the day I eat Breakfast and soup and 1/2 sanwhich for lunch simple. But at night I have 2 teenager who are both slim and eat like pigs so sometime I find myself eating as much as them for dinner.

Days off are harder for me, I find I eat better when my days have structure - like on work days.

Weekends are harder for me because we rarely go out on weekdays, but often do on the weekends. I can be good as gold as long as I'm home or at work, but when I'm at a restaurant, party or other social gathering, I rarely worry about calories.

Weekends are slowly getting better for me. I think something that helped was not specifically tracking my food. I don't log on to track on the weekends, just jot down what I eat. I have a general idea of how many calories things are so I keep a running total in my head based on that (homemade breakfast sandwich = about 300, banana = about 100, etc). Doing it this way keeps me more conscious of what I'm eating, believe it or not.

Something else that helps is making a routine out of the weekend days. It's easy on a work day - you have so much to do and only a few breaks so it's easier to behave. But on the weekends, the day is less structured - you might laze around watching TV or spend a few hours cleaning or go shopping or even get an unexpected invite to lunch with friends. You can't plan everything but you can at least have a general idea of how your day goes.

Get as much of the junk out of your house as you can - or find good substitutes. For instance, I keep two types of popcorn in my house One is regular movie theatre butter for hubby and the other is 100 calorie light butter for me. 100 calories is easy to budget into my day so I'll reach for that if I need a salty snack. Fruits are great if you want something sweet - a couple of clementines or a banana can kill a sugar craving.

Recognize your triggers. Boredom is a very common food trigger that I personally suffer from. I also recently realized that if I'm bored and watching food shows, I'm definitely going to want to eat something. So I switch off the TV and read a magazine or book, or go for a walk or go shopping - anything to get my mind off eating.

And if none of that works, make sure you're working out on the weekends to continue earning those extra calories.