How to stop sabotaging your weight loss on weekends
One of my clients, let’s call her Jane. Jane has been doing the Mind over Body Programme for the past 4 weeks. She told me in our last session, that sticking to a healthy eating plan all week is not a problem for her at all. She has the same breakfast most mornings, she brings her lunch to work and she plans and preps most dinners at the start of the week. She has found her sugar cravings are gone and she doesn’t want to have the daily muffin which she used to have for mid-morning break. However, she told me that weekends aren’t going well for her.
We explored together what exactly is happening on weekends and what her triggers are.
Weekends provide a challenge for most people and Jane told me that she is out of routine, she would meet friends for lunch or dinner and thoughts like “I have been good all week, I deserve…..” pop into her mind.
Together we made a list of small steps Jane can take to get better control of her weekends. We decided that each week she would choose two or three items from the list and set them as her goal for the week. Once she has made those, goals a new habit, and this may sometimes take more than one week), she would move on to the next items.
This is what Jane put on her list:
- No picking on food between meals
- Drink 2l water every day
- Eat 3 main meals and 2 snacks a day
- Eat fruit and not more than 8 nuts and add some Greek yoghurt for snacks
- Eat everything sitting down
- When going out for meals plan ahead
- Exercise at least once over the weekend
- Put knife and fork down between bites
- Start reading a new book
- Read my new response card every day first thing in the morning
All those points were Jane’s choice, and everyone is different and will find their own points they would like to work on.
In addition to writing out the above points, Jane made up a response card to her sabotaging thought of “I have been good all week, I deserve…..”. She came up with
“I have been eating healthy all week and feel great, I deserve to be healthy, and I know this craving will pass in a few minutes. Every time I don’t give in, my resistance muscle will grow stronger.”
For the weekend ahead, Jane chose to focus on point 1. and 10.
I asked her if she thinks that there might be any obstacles in carrying out those 2 points. Jane thought that point 1. will be easy enough for her, but she might not remember to read her response card every morning. So she came up with the idea of putting the card in the bathroom beside her toothbrush.
Once Jane is confident that she has created those habits we can move on to the next points on the list.
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