Are You a Weekend Food Bender?

It’s the weekend!  The work week is over and it’s time to hang with friends.  What are you doing this weekend?  The local winery is having live music, drinks and fun.  There is birthday celebration.  Oh yeah, don’t forget girls night out!  But wait, you are trying to lose weight and don’t want to break that good streak you have going. Does this sound like you every Friday night?

All week you managed to eat healthy and avoid binge eating or drinking alcohol.  Then the weekend comes and you are consumed with guilt because you want to have good time but avoid destroying your goals.  What can you do? 

The number one thing to do that will help you stay on task with your goals is KEEP WRITING in your food journal!  Write down everything you eat and drink.  Include alcoholic beverages and if you can’t remember then there is a big problem.  Write down your daily goal each morning especially on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  If binge eating/drinking is your problem then I would focus on a goal according to this issue.  Also another question you might ask yourself; are my friends making me fat?  I don’t mean literally but if the activities you do together revolve around food and drinking you might need to make some changes. 

Drinking more than one alcoholic drink can increase your likelihood of consuming extra calories.   Your inhibitions are down and you become more social and less aware.  Wine is a little more health friendly for someone trying to lose weight.  You can make wine go a little further if you ask for it to be mixed with Seltzer water.  This turns your drink into a spritzer.  Mixed drinks are the enemy; they contain higher sugar contents.  Beer typically adds 150 calories to your day as well as the extra carbs.

If you are attending a party make a healthy appetizer.  Providing your own food will allow you to eat and avoid guilt.   In addition when I attend a party or dinner I try to consume a protein shake with some fruit.  This will help me feel much fuller and I won’t eat very much.  If you eat out, box up half of your food before eating.  Boxing up your food will help decrease the calories you eat.  Most dinners out are 2-3 servings so you can see there are a lot of extra calories. 

If it is girls night out find an activity to do.  How about a girls day out; indoor rock climbing, Sky Zone, duck pen bowling, mani/pedi anything that doesn’t involve food. 

Try to keep your normal sleep schedule.  A lot of times we sleep-in over the weekend and miss breakfast.  When I oversleep I always start my day with breakfast.  Plus consuming at least 32 ounces of water because by this time I’m dehydrated.  Try to avoid eating breakfast out because the extra calories will kill your goals.  Don’t kid yourself if you exercise really hard over the weekend and the run to your local breakfast diner.  I guarantee you will consume more calories then you ever burned off. 

There are many ways to avoid weekend benders but you need to take a good look at what you are doing. 

Success Comes With Time

I’ve worked with many people and all of them have the same goal.  Everyone wants to lose as much weight as they can in the quickest amount of time.  Whatever happened to slow and steady wins the race?  You know the story of the tortoise and the hare?

ACSM recommends one to two pounds of weight loss per week.  How can we obtain this type of weight loss?   Creating a caloric deficit and increasing our exercise is the best way to achieve weight loss.  What are the ASCM recommendations?  In order to lose one pound per week you must deduct 500 kcal from the diet a day.  If you wish to lose two pounds then deduct 1000 kcal per day.  This allows for 3500-7000 kcal deduction to reduce fat.  Here’s what happens to the people trying to rush their weight loss.  First they fall victim to someone that wants to sell them “shakes”.  If they drink a shake for breakfast, one for lunch and then eat dinner they will lose weight.  Right?  Yes, however this person learns nothing about eating healthy, good quality foods and as soon as they stop drinking shakes they return to their original weight.  Worse case they gain even more weight. 

Eating is by far the hardest part of losing weight.  Mainly because everything in life seems to revolve around food or drinks.  We celebrate with food and drinks.  Also we medicate with food and drinks.  The number one drug to relieve stress and depression is FOOD.  I get it!  I was depressed and I ate everything.  I was a binge eater.  When I felt down I would bake a pan of brownies and eat all of them.  How do we get our eating under control?  Keep a food journal. You don’t have to use a fancy app just write everything down you plan to eat before eating.  This will actually help with mindful eating.  You may be a little more reluctant to eat that bag of chips if you have to write it down before.  This will actually help you understand just what types of foods your body is craving.  Are you wanting a lot of sugar/carbs? 

Exercise to me is the easiest part of weight loss.  Although people have this misconception that exercise is what will make them lose weight.  It’s not!!  Your diet is where the biggest weight loss comes from.  The ACSM recommendation for ages 18-65 is to accumulate a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic (cardiorespiratory) exercise at least 5 days a week or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise 3 days per week.  Strength training should be a minimum of 2 days per week, 8-10 exercises hitting all major muscles and 8-12 repetitions.  Are you meeting these requirements?

When losing high amounts of weight, typically the first thing that begins to go is water and muscle mass.  It’s important to begin an exercise program that includes resistance training to minimize the muscle mass lost.  Lean muscle mass helps increase the body’s metabolism and helps with losing weight.  No worries to the women afraid they will look like men.  I resistance train a minimum of 4 days a week.  I left very heavy and I’ve managed to avoid growing an Adams apple or look like the hulk.  LOL

If you are struggling with your weight loss and would like one on one personal coaching let me know.   I would love to help you.  I have a current client I started working with in April; she has lost 22 pounds and 21 inches.  This is over a four month time frame so as you see slow and steady wins the race.