How do you handle the weekends?

Last week was my first week of my new diet and I did great Monday-Friday. However, come Saturday and Sunday I totally feel off the wagon! Eating out with my husband and going back to my old habits (and ultimate weakness of sweet tea)! During the week, I plan my meals in the morning and take everything to work that i need. On the weekends, is much more of a play it by ear situation and I have to extert more willpower, which I'm terrible at! Does anyone have any tips on how they handle the weekends?

Girl, when you find a good one LET ME KNOW - I kick butt during the week but weekends I FLOP!!!!!!!

Fri night - PIZZA

Sat night - huge Italian dinner

Sun - pasta and meatloaf

lol - I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!!!!!!!!!

I hear you.  I like to "cheat" on the weekends too.  I find it's easier to set a goal over a period of time and track your progress towards that goal.  Say, 6 weeks... then you can focus on your goal and it's easier to keep on track.

Also don't deny yourself.  There's nothing better at ruining healthy eating habits than completely denying yourself.  Give in to your cravings, but try to do it in a way that doesn't knock you off track.  For example if you really want chocolate, try pudding or dark chocolate (small piece).  And savior it.  Or if you really want something from McDonalds, get a small ff or shake, just enough to satisfy the craving but not undo all the good you've done.

When you go out to eat, order as healthy as possible.  But if there's something you just MUST have, order it, and then have them bring a box right away and wrap up at least half.  Also try snacking healthy throughout the day during the weekend too, I find I sometimes forget to have a snack on Sat or Sun and then end up starving come dinner time and then I tend to make poor food choices.

Good Luck!  Hang in there and stay focused!

I think it's okay to allow ourselves the luxury of letting go a little during weekends. I totally support cheat weekends or else I would totally DIE because I'll miss those foods that I used to love eating regularly which I've prevented myself from eating during weekdays. :P

If you are worried about letting go *too* much during the weekend, instead of letting go for every meal, why not have cheat MEALS instead? Why not stick to two healthy, low calorie meals (or as low calorie as you can if you eat out since you mentioned your "play by ear" thing) and then splurge on whichever meal of your choice? That way you could still have that luxury but you won't take in as much calories as you would if you let go the entire weekend.

That being said, I had pork cordon bleu and a large serving of fries for dinner on Saturday. XD Mmmmm! 

Good luck! :D 

I feel it is important not to make loosing weight so unbearable that you set yourself up to fail. I did the profile and it said that I could eat 2500 calories a day for the type program I am on. I plan to loose almost 200 lbs and do it over 3 years. What I do is try to eat only 2000 calories a day, thus saving up 500 each day for 5 days. By Saturday I have a 2500 calorie surplus...  Now this doesn't mean that I necessarily use all of those up on the weekend. But, if for some reason I want to eat a big meal... like when we went to Outback last week, and I had some of the blooming onion. (one onion is 2200 calories.)  At the end of that day I put all the info in the log and came out at 4000 calories for that day. In some ways this is sort of what Weight Watchers does... they give you so many points per day, with some extra points to use when ya want to use them.

Like several other posters, I am more relaxed with my food choices on the weekends because there are so many more social outings, etc. But, what has helped me to keep that in line is to make sure I eat a healthy breakfast both mornings. I find when I roll out of bed and eat leftover pizza for breakfast, I'm doomed the rest of the day. If I eat a bowl of high fiber cereal, it's sort of a cue or reminder to try to eat relatively healthy.

My husband & I joined an ameture sports league & that keeps us active at least 1 day out of the weekend. It's a lot of fun & ensures we'll get moving. We pick a sport for each season to keep us going: flag football, softball, kickball, golf, it's really fun!

I often go maintenance on the weekends too. We eat at home a lot & I always have plenty of fruits & veggies around, which helps.

I also agree with the "cheat meal," only I don't consider it cheating myself, just living my life. This weekend we had a Korean food extraveganza with some friends. I ate 400 calories during the day & an apple prior to dinner to help soften the load. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Live life!

I'm so glad that you brought up this issue. I'm new to this sight and was worried about weekends too. All of these posts were great! I'm not going to sweat it so much-live life-but not go crazy.

Keep the long goal in mind. I LOVE THIS WEB SITE!!!

I almost can't wait to weigh in on Wednesday! (For me-only once a week).

So glad you brought this up!  I was doing really well with the Calorie-Count until a couple of months ago, when my weekend habits slowly but surely started rolling into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday habits.  I decided this week to get back on track, and what I am thinking about doing is weighing myself on a Saturday.  That way I can remind myself over the weekends, and chart my progress between weekends as opposed to between weekdays.  I think that this will both remind me to not go overboard on the weekends, and to help me see progress more accurately.  Maybe if you do weigh-ins you could try changing the days that you do them to keep you "on task."  Just an idea, I haven't tried it yet, but again, great idea for a topic.

You guys are awesome. I feel so much better now. I felt like I totally blew it. I think that I will try and focus on one cheat meal a day on weekends to help me keep it under control. I think I will also start weighing in on Saturday mornings so that I have a whole week to make up for any damage I do on Saturday and Sunday!

Thanks so much for the encouragement. Its great to hear I'm not alone!

It is really hard on the weekends. I have less to distract me and I seem to keep making trips to the kitchen.

One thing I did was just keep accounting for the calories of all I had eaten. In most cases...I broke even calorie wise...or was only a few hundred over. That's not too bad really. My motto has become..."Do the numbers" it may not be as bad as you think.

I also try to get at least one workout on the weekends.  Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.  It just means my weight loss goal is pushed back one more day.

 

Yeah during the weekends I never track on here.  I go out to eat with my fiance.  Don't worry about it and enjoy going out.  You should plan out some meals on the weekends, say breakfast, lunch and snack, and then just don't plan dinner or a desert.

Kashi cheese pizza - I had it on Sunday and it was great.

For breaskfast I've been making my own Egg McMuffins every now and then: 1 egg, 2 slices of thinly cut Canadian bacon, 2% american cheese, & an english muffin

When I go out, I try to look at the menu beforehand (lots of restaurants have them available online) and decide what I want before sitting down at the table. If I get something not healthy, I limit myself to about half the meal or less and take home the rest to eat the next day to space out the calories. After two months, I've found that I can't handle huge meals w/o feeling sick. Almost ANY restaurant will substitute steamed vegetables for fries. Don't be afraid to ask. For a drink I stick to water or unsweetened tea. Add lemon and if you insist on it being sweet, add 1 packet of sugar. It'll be far less sugar than a glass of sweetened tea.

Meanwhile, my fiance and I give ourselves cheat days. We went and got wings two weeks ago (I felt so sick afterwards though). Our next planned one is for Italian.

I have an easier time on the weekends than the weekdays, I think it's because I'm awake less :)  Monday - Friday I'm awake from 5am to 11pm, Saturday & Sunday I'm usually up from 10am to 11pm.  Having fewers to eat my alloted calories is nice! :)

How do I handle the weekends? BADLY ;)  I tend to be a bit more relaxed about my diet as well....

Due to this, I've decided to move my weekly weigh in to Friday because I noticed that on Monday I'm retaining water from not eating that great on the weekend!

so true !!! I always end up in some restaurant and don't want to waste my money on a salad there ! My weekends are sooo treacherous ! I feel you girl !

I found I don't eat many more calories on the weekend, but where they come from is much different. I take in about 2200 calories of crap on my weekend days.  Well, except Sunday where I took in 6000 calories!! That's insane!

I try to set aside one meal on the weekend to eat whatever I want and not worry about it. On Sunday I skied all day then ate hot wings, nachos and a whole lot of incredibly good Long Trail Ale. I broke the calorie counter on here when I tried to enter the data!! I still managed to lose two pounds of fat and 1/2 inch off the waist for last week.

I think you'll stay on track during the weekends if set aside one meal to go a little crazy with...Just not triple of daily calorie count! 

i think i'm on track with everyone else here... weekends are hard!  i'm also great all week when i can plan out my meals and when i'm at work, i eat what i brought and that's it... i've even gotten my night time snacking/carb attacks under control... but i'm already thinking about the weekend... last weekend was my first weekend while under this thing (or maybe second since i did terrible the one before and decided not to count it  :P ) and i did okay, but not great... i think i want to at least be "maintenance" over the weekend and try to balance things out... waking up and having a good healthy breakfast should help becuase it should put my mind in gear... i'm also limiting my alchohol when i go out (by eating before hand and starting with a coke, or just a drink that i know will take me long to drink, and having a "snack" ready to go for afterwards that isn't too terible), and i'm thinking about even eating before going out to eat... i'm a vegetarian so my out to eat choices are usually limited to pasta or a veggie burger... i can resist neither, but if i've already eaten at home and i'm not hungry i'll probably be okay with  a salad or potato and veggies ... i find i barely eat any fruits and veggies on the weekend so i'm going to make sure i have some on hand for my snacks... if i know i'm just going to let loose in the evening then i think i'll just try to eat good all day leading up to that... hope that helps you too.  i'll let you know how it goes come next monday ;)

 

In my opinion, it's a mistake to let yourself go on the weekends.  Binging is binging and it teaches you to overeat even more.  I think the best line of defense is to try to keep a good balance all week and really listen to your body's needs.  If you allow yourself to have a small portion of what you crave during the week, the weekends are not so difficult.

We all love to eat, we wouldn't be here if we didn't, but the only way we can be successful in our weight loss is to stop that bad cycle and learn to live a healthy lifestyle without making food a reward or a treat. 

I've only been here a few days but my advice is to stop focusing on food and make something else a reward.  Plan a pedicure or some activity you enjoy and use that as the prize and have that extra glass of wine or a small portion of a dessert you enjoy when you feel you really want it; during the week or otherwise

just when I thought I was the only one struggling to eat according to plan on weekends.  terrific suggestions about relaxing and not focusing so much on food, starting the day with a nutritious, fiber-filled breakfast.  It's also a challenge for me to drink enough water on weekends.  Having a water bottle on my desk at work makes it more likely I'll drink it, but running around the house I either lose track of it or simply forget to drink until I'm parched. 

Hi Stoves48, I lost about 40 lbs by eating 1200 cal/day on the weekdays (except Friday night) and then not counting on the weekends, so it is totally possible to do.  What I would say is that you shouldnt treat weekends as a free-for-all - you should still try to make fairly intelligent choices about food, but you don't have to go crazy.  I still went out to eat, drank alcohol etc, etc...

Also, there are plenty of people in the world who are thin and who also indulge a bit and don't ever count calories... so it must be doable!