You do great during the week, eating healthy, hitting the gym 3 times. But the weekend comes around and things go bad.
You go out for dinner on Friday, have a few drinks, have pancakes for breakfast on Saturday. Your family is home on Sunday, so you break out the Doritos. And things got so busy that your good intentions of going to the gym were put aside.
All the progress made during the week is lost. You feel like it is time to give up. This is one definition of weekenditis.
Weekenditis is when you eat healthy during the week, and maybe even have a good workout routine. When the weekend comes, your eating habits change for the worse. Perhaps it is not the weekend for you but evenings, or some other day of the week.
I see this in myself and I see it in my clients. It is difficult to make progress when there are bumps in the road, but for some women, the weekends can be more like potholes that you can easily get stuck in.
What causes weekenditis?
If you are too strict with your weekly eating routine, this can sometimes lead to weekenditis. Either you feel like you’ve been good all week and deserve a treat. That is fine if you can stick to one treat, but often one treat leads to two, or three or more.
Your routine likely changes during the weekend, so this leads to you losing track of habits that work during the week. Maybe you pack a salad for lunch every day, but on weekends you stop for fast food while getting the shopping done.
Or maybe your family is home more on the weekend leading you to eat and snack on what they have. That bowl of Doritos is hard to resist.
How can you cure weekenditis?
There are several ways that you can help to reduce weekenditis:
- Don’t try to be perfect during the week. If you never eat anything you shouldn’t during the week you might be setting yourself up for a disaster during the weekend.
- One misstep is not the end of the world. There can be a perception that if you make one diet mistake, that you might as well give up. If you decide to have a glass of wine Friday night, then enjoy it and move on.
- Stop telling yourself you deserve it. If you’ve had a good week of meeting your goals, you might want to reward yourself. Try finding a non food way to reward your good week. Or reward yourself with a special meal, not an entire weekend.
- Change your habits. You have probably been successful during the week because you have good habits, your weekend may suffer because of bad habits. If you want to get rid of Friday night dinner out, then find something else to do on a Friday night. When the unhealthy snacks come out, go for a walk. If you normally skip the workouts on the weekend, plan a bike ride or a cross country ski outing. If you stop for a fast food lunch while shopping, shop before or after lunch, or bring a healthy lunch or snack along to tide you over.
- Keep healthier choices in the house. If you snack too much on weekends, then having some healthier choices to pick makes it easier.
Conclusion
Weekenditis is a serious condition but fortunately it is not incurable. Become aware of what is causing it and take steps to reduce it. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If you are looking for more tips for weight loss during menopause, then download this free guide.
