When it comes to eating better or exercising, many people will often do amazing from Monday to Friday, but don’t do as well on the weekends. This is often down to a strict routine during the week and less routine at the weekend (shift workers may experience this differently e.g. days on vs days off)

Having your meals prepped, your gym sessions planned and your intentions for the week in order is great. You’ll certainly make progress throughout the 5 days of the week.

The problem comes at the weekend.

When there’s less routine, you may find yourself eating more and/or exercising less. Now, you may have the mentality that you’ve “worked hard all work so deserve a treat”, but the issue is what comes with this.

Calorie balance

When tracking calories, we are aiming to remain in a deficit throughout the entire 7 days of the week. Our calories may be higher on some days than others, but the ideal at the end of the week is to have consumed less calories than we’ve burned.

If, however, we go wild at the weekend with nights out, takeaways and fast food, there’s a good chance we’re going to tip our calories out of a deficit and over to either a maintenance or a surplus. Leading to..

Monday – Friday’s efforts ruined..

Does this look familiar?

Whilst we had good intentions Monday to Friday, unfortunately our indulgence at the weekend has now undone all of our progress. That 3,000 calorie ‘cheat day’ or that pizza and large fries on Saturday night has put you back to square one.

The solution?

Don’t worry, there’s a few key pointers that will help us fix this. Now, we aren’t asking you to be boring and stay in all weekend, nor are we asking you to munch on a tuna salad instead of your saturday night pizza. Have a read below and see what you think:

Consistently track your calories

When we start eating foods that we know are high in calories, it often seems easier to just stop tracking the calories altogether. We might do this because we find it hard to track meals out or we forget what drinks we had the night before, but more often than not we don’t track calories because we feel guilty. Or we’re hiding from the reality.

Instead of going crazy at the weekend and forgetting calories exist, instead continue to track them. It can be hard work and you may feel some guilt, but it may open your eyes to the sheer amount of calories you’re consuming. This in turn may help you learn why you aren’t quite making the progress you’d like to or it may help reduce your calories.

See calories as a ‘weekly allowance’

In MFP, there is an option to view your weekly average calories. If for example your target is 1,500 per day, this would be 10,500 for the week. Instead of binging at the weekend and starting again Monday, incorporate your weekend treats in to your weekly calories.

If you’d like a clearer example, have a read here. But for now, let’s imagine our Saturday is 3,000 calories – DOUBLE our daily goal.

Instead of writing it off and forgetting that calories exist, simply reduce your calories for the days around it. 3,000 on Saturday means you only have 7,500 for the rest of the week. This way you have to be a bit smarter with your calories and ‘budget’ them out better.

If your average calories for the week hit your calorie goal (or thereabouts), that is MUCH BETTER than tracking Mon-Fri and leaving them over the weekend.

Look for alternatives

Instead of having a takeaway every week, why not reduce it to every 2 weeks and cook something up yourself? Our recipe books include pizzas, curries and even sweet treats. For example, why not try making our Barnsley Barbell Korma instead of ordering a takeaway?

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