Weekend Madness

‘Yee ha! The weekend is here!

Time to enjoy that well earned beer/wine with my pizza and chips. I have eaten healthy all week, I can do what I want and get away with it, just like the 80/20 rule.’
Now I agree with the chilling out and relaxing with your diet from time to time, studies show that between rigid and flexible dieting in females, flexible dieting shows less risk of eating disorder, mood disturbances, and excessive concern with body size/shape.
Personally, I feel flexibility on a daily basis is a preferred way to go, as it is more social, relaxing and reduces the chance of excessive binging at the weekend, hence my children giving me my name. For me to come home and refuse ice cream with my children each night would be unforgivable.

Example!

A day of adequate carbohydrates, protein, fats and fibre, chosen from, where possible, minimally processed sources (animals, fruit , veg, starch etc) is pretty unlikely to exceed your required calories for the day, therefore, if you would like to enjoy that ice cream, glass of wine, popcorn (insert your favourite food here…) as long as it is not in excess, please be my guest.
Now lets go back to that well earned beer, pizza and chips. Presuming you have at least 4-5 slices of pizza (it would be extremely rude not to) along with 2-3 beers, this could easily bring your calorie intake for the day to around the 3000-4000 mark, more than enough to ruin this calorie deficit that you have worked so hard to create all week.
I’m not saying don’t do it, but be aware that there has to be a trade-off somewhere. To achieve your goals like this you would have to be super strict with your diet all week, which is no fun and I wouldn’t recommend, or you just have to accept that progress may stall from time to time, or be very slow.
Also, this creates the idea that what you are doing at the weekend is having a ‘cheat meal’. This is to me a stupid idea.

Who’s getting cheated?

This idea of creating a good foods vs bad foods mindset leads to restrictive eating, cravings and could potentially lead to an eating disorder.

I promised I would never use this phrase but ‘everything in moderation’ is true, and I mean everything. Just so long as you are fully aware of what moderation is, and the impact that exceeding this moderation may have on your goals.

Happy weekend!