Weekday restriction = weekend overeating

Weekday restriction = weekend overeating🍕

This is an extremely common pattern I see – being overly restrictive during the week and then overeating at the weekends. It’s tempting to go for lower calories during the week so you can ‘relax’ at the weekend. There’s nothing wrong with this and it is a strategy I employ with some clients, so sometimes this CAN work, but it rather depends how much you restrict and relax!

For example, let’s say you have a cal goal of 1800 cals. So Monday to Thursday you go extra low and only eat 1500 cals. By Friday you’re feeling deprived and craving the foods you’ve avoided, and then Saturday and Sunday you totally “relax” and have a few “treats”, because it’s the weekend right? You’ve been good all week so it’s fine… Things like two weekend breakfasts, a pizza, a few glasses of wine, some crisps, Sunday evening ice cream and chocolate etc are easily well over 1500 extra calories and take you to 14,750 calories for the week

That makes a daily average of 2100 cals and is why you won’t be losing fat. These sort of weekend ‘treats’ aren’t crazy or particularly over indulgent. I’m sure we’ve all had weekends like that right? But if you’re overly restrictive during the week you’ll find it even harder to restrain yourself over the weekend.

Now I’m definitely not suggesting you don’t enjoy some of these foods from time to time, but if you really want to lose fat then its worth getting away from the idea of restricting during the week and ‘relaxing’ at the weekends. Have the things you enjoy but in moderation and within your overall weekly calorie target – all week.

Choose a sensible calorie goal that you can include some treats in and stick to it every day – being overly restrictive during the week rarely works and almost always results in over eating at the weekends.

If you do have events or meals out to plan for at the weekends you can still reduce your weekday calories a little to give you a buffer for the weekend but only aim to save 100-150 cals per day max. Also try going for smaller options of the weekend treats, a small bar of chocolate, a single portion bag of crisps, low cal ice cream etc. Pick one meal you want to let your hair down with rather than the entire weekend and keep tracking over the weekend so you can see where the extra cals are creeping in.

🤗

Xx