Dieters Fight the Weekends, 6 Tips to WIN

OK, so you’ve done great all week and now you face the scariest thing since SAW – The weekend!! Do you hear the horror music in the background? OMG! For real, right?! What is UP with the weekends for dieters?!!!

Looking at this pic I found of the movie makes me think that is what we need to have on our head on the weekends so we STOP EATING!! How out of control we can be is really so lame. I’m speaking to myself! I know what I’ve done on weekends and it’s pathetic, but NO MORE!! I’m totally raking control. I’m the BOSS of ME and I’m going to ROCK this weekend!! Some people already are talking about blowing it before the weekend even came. It’s like waving the white flag before you even see your enemy. Come on people. Let’s be fighters!!

Peer Pressure
As if we don’t have the power to say NO. What are we? 6th graders, not able to overcome peer pressure? Really! Joyce Meyer once said “So you really are going to let a cookie have power over you?” What a joke! WE are the one’s in power!! You can waive that martini in my face all day long and my answer will remain NO! Thank you very much!

Ask yourself this: Do you want to look ridiculously fit or are you OK with food and junk making you look average. The reality is the average American ain’t looking that good! Obesity is out of control and it’s because Americans are out of control – literally! They have NO CONTROL over their body!

So you like your wine, you like snacks, etc – SO DO I! But come on! I don’t go to the mall and spend thousands of dollars a ton of stuff I can’t afford because I “like” it. I get what I can afford and I WALK AWAY from the rest! It’s called discipline and there is no flippin’ reason we can’t practice the same discipline with the way we eat and live on the weekends.

Why the weekends?
Because that’s when I see everyone fowl up their diets. People rock it in the gym and in the kitchen all week only to blow it at a party or going out to eat. It’s like one step forward, two steps back. Then they act surprised when they aren’t getting results.

SURE, you are working out 5 days a week and dieting 6 days a week. SO what! None of that matters if you blow it on the 7th day overeating and partying with friends. Exercise just can’t compete with diet so if you want results you MUST value calories for what they are and understand how they work.

I don’t care how healthy you eat, I don’t care what organic foods you eat and how many vitamins you take. You may be “healthy” but if you are wanting to lose weight, you need to count your calories like you count your pennies! You don’t burn just fats or just carbs, etc – you burn calories. PERIOD! So, why count everything else?

I love it when people give me a long list of what they ate for the day. “I ate oatmeal and egg whites on toast for breakfast, then I had fish and a salad – oh, and for dinner, that was my best meal. I had blah, blah, blah.” That tells me NOTHING when it comes to weight loss. It tells me you eat healthy, but I can’t tell you if you should expect to lose weight or not – that comes down to calories in vs calories out.

But I Have to Eat Out (LAME EXCUSE!)
Well, so does my friend, and fitness social media goddess, Kelly Olexa of FitFluential. The girl travels more than I shower (and that’s a lot!) – and she’s able to eat on the go and eat smart. Sure she tries to eat healthy as she can, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t go to McDonalds. She just looks up the nutritional information, selects foods that fit her budget and she stays on target.

Many fitness peeps would FREAK out at the word McDonalds, but Kelly and I share a common belief system and that’s called “REALITY” and not everyone lives there. SURE, organic is awesome, whole foods are best, etc – but I’m all about facing reality and doing our best, whatever that means. If all you can do is Lean Cuisines – go for it. I’m sure it’s better than a Big Mac and fries and eventually you’ll get to where you improve your health after you learn to master calories. Baby steps people. 🙂

Are you ready to take control!
Steve calls it Majoring in the Minors. Focus on the major stuff first – calories in vs calories out. If you have no idea how many calories you are getting, count them for a couple of days. Boy, will you have a rude awakening! It’s like balancing your checkbook, and that can be pretty depressing! But you NEED to know the facts right? I mean, you don’t want to live life clueless do you?

Most diets for women allow women to have 1200-1500 calories per day and 1500-1800 for men. If you want to lose a couple of pounds a week, that’s a safe bet to follow. But if you are just guessing your way through eating, go ahead and just plan to fail because people rarely guess right enough to see fast enough results to stick with it.

OK, off my rant on calories and back to the weekend. Here are some tips and motivation for you to FIGHT the weekend weight gain!! Be a FIGHTER!!

1.) Next time you are faced with a good or drink you love, ask yourself this: How bad do you want to be fit? 

2.) For every 100 calories you eat, are you willing to run 1 mile to run it off? If not, then bye-bye food!

3.) Try not to eat more than 300 calories at one time for a meal and 150 calories for a snack.

4.) GRAZE! Eat small bites 5-6 times a day. You’ll be less likely to be HUNGRY and mess up – and you keep your metabolism revved!

5.) Eat PRIOR to going out. If you are invited to a party or dinner where you know you’ll be tempted, eat something prior to the event so you don’t arrive hungry. 

6.) Make room for the extra calories. OK, so you know you are going to go over your limit – burn a few extra calories that day to make room. If you burn 500 calories in an extra kickboxing class, then you have 500 extra calories you are allowed for that day! 

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