So you’re pretty much in control of your food during the week – you’re diarising your meals, drinking lots of water, and your coffee and alcohol are at a minimum.
Then in comes the weekend you develop an extra stomach just for pizza and dessert, you down way too many wines and you eat a bag of jet planes on the way home from your child’s sporting event. You feel completely knackered and so you miss MetaFIT or your daily walk.
Does this sound like you?
I know – when I wrote this I was on the way back from dropping Fraser off in Palmy, he gave my his back of licorice from his O bag…. I shouldn’t have opened it…
If you add up all the Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays there are in a month, thats about 12 days – THAT’S ALMOST HALF A MONTH!
Unless you get a hold of your weekend excesses you are sabotaging your healthy nutrition 50% of the time.
So if you’re doing really well during the week, staying on track, then blowing it at the weekend, you’ll be spending all of the following week trying to get back to where you were and not getting anywhere.
Here are my top tips for staying on track:
- Keep things as normal as possible. I often hear it’s the break in routine that blows everything off target. But here’s the thing, most weekends we do the same thing – Friday drinks, Saturday morning sport/run/housework, Saturday evening out with friends or an event. Sunday morning sleep in or church, lunch and evening prep for the week. So is the ‘lack of routine’ another excuse? Do you actually need to be a little bit more organised and ready to keep things as normal as possible? I’m not saying don’t have treats, either choose your event and choose your treats while being mindful of just how many drinks or treats you’re having.
- Limit your alcohol. Sorry guys, but alcohol really isn’t your buddy. I know we all hate this one, but it’s true: studies show that one of the top sources of extra weekend calories is alcohol, so it pays to scale back. Be the sober driver, learn to enjoy partying without the crutch, get used to soda water!
- Set a weekend family routine. My family enjoy pancakes for Saturday lunch. I make protein pancakes for myself and it works. I feel I’m not missing out.
- Just like during the week – plan your weekend. If you’re going out to a restaurant check out the menu beforehand, choose your meal and if you get stuck ask me to help you. If you’re meeting friends maybe go for a walk or a gallery, a manicure, an exercise class instead of a cafe or a bar? If you end up at a cafe then remember the coffee is the treat not the muffin!
- Keep track of your food. Why stop your food diary just because it’s the weekend? Use the extra time at the weekend to keep you on track. You know it works!
- Get moving. Enjoy the weekend to get out, move around more and do something you wouldn’t normally do – tidy the garden, go for a walk, bike ride, grab a crocodile bike from the water front. Walk up one of the many hills in Wellington!
- If the kids want a treat like an ice cream you don’t need one too! Just have some mummy tax – one mouthful of theirs, a taster from the seller. If baking is your thing, bake for a family in need or a new mum or an elderly neighbour.
- Big eating events might be unavoidable, so be the last to go to the smorgasbord – usually all the healthy stuff will be the only stuff left and anything else that’s even remotely tempting will look rather disgusting by now and have had loads of hands in it! Also make sure you’ve had your normal breakfast or lunch before you go so your full of good protein and carbs so less tempted to eat the party carbs.
- Be prepared. Take a muesli bar, protein shake, high protein snack or a piece of fruit so you don’t get caught out somewhere with the munchies.
So, just remember, if you have a big blow out or set back, don’t worry!
Brush yourself off, start again the next mealtime.
Learn from it and put in strategies to avoid it happening again.
Never take a bag of lollies with you in the first place as if it ends up in your company.
And never, ever open the bag…