How to Stop the Weekend from Ruining Your Diet

Shedding pounds does change your personality. It changes your philosophy of life because you recognize that you are capable of using your mind to change your body.
––Jean Nidetch

It’s very simple…

Stop going out at the weekend.

Thank you for reading.

…

Just joking!

I have many clients who enjoy being social at the weekend, so I’m going to share six of the strategies I’ve found most effective to stay on top of your fat loss diet without missing out on these occasions.

But first, why does this matter?

Saturday and Sunday are only two days. How much of an impact can they really have?
 
You’d be surprised.

While two days doesn’t seem like a lot, consider the fact that, in order to lose fat, you need to be in a caloric deficit over a sustained period of time.

For example, let’s say you’re targeting a 1lb average loss per week.

To achieve this, you need to eat ~3500 kcals below your maintenance intake across the week, since this is the estimated caloric content of 1lb of fat.

3500 / 7 (the days of the week) = 500
 
This means that your daily fat loss target to lose 1lb per week is 500 calories below your maintenance calories.

For instance, if you maintain on 2000 calories, your daily calorie target is 1500 calories.

On a weekly basis, 1500 * 7 = 10,500 calories

So, in order to lose 1lb, you must eat around 10,500 calories every week.

If you eat 1500 calories Monday to Friday, then 3000 calories on Saturday and Sunday––which isn’t as wild as you may think when you add up a meal out, like burgers and fries, and several drinks––your total weekly consumption is 13,500 calories.

Divide this by 7, and you get 1929 calories… which is 429 more calories than you’re aiming for. And, if you maintain weight on 2000 calories…

You’re definitely not going to lose 1lb per week, and possibly no fat at all.

That’s why you want to follow my six strategies:

#1. Track your calories.

There are very few people who can eat out and drink at the weekend, eyeball their portions, and lose fat.

These people are usually very experienced dieters.

If you’re struggling not to exceed your calorie budget at the weekend, you’re not one of them.

So track your calories.

#2. Plan your meal(s) and/or drink(s) ahead of time.

Tracking calories alone won’t usually cut it.

Most people who are blowing their calories at the weekend despite tracking them, have this problem: they don’t know how many calories they’re eating until they track them… which often happens the day after a night out.

That’s when the “WTF, how could that pasta dish have 1200 calories?!” moment happens.

So I encourage my clients to pre-plan and pre-track their meal out, then budget their calories for the rest of the week to account for it.

It’s easiest to do if the menu provides nutritional information (duh), but you can do it even if it doesn’t. In fact, I have a comprehensive podcast episode on calorie-tracking that covers how to estimate calories and macros in a meal out when the establishment doesn’t provide these data.

#3. Set bright-line boundaries, especially around alcohol.

A bright-line boundary is a clear, unambiguous rule.

These are some examples:

• I’m not going to drink any alcohol.
• I’m only going to drink [insert number] of [insert beverage of choice].

 
You can apply bright-line boundaries to any specific aspect that you struggle with.

The reason why I bring up alcohol in particular is that it can easily derail your fat loss efforts because it contains a considerable amount of calories, but it’s not satiating. In fact, it’s dehydrating and can even give you the munchies.

Last but not least, it lowers your inhibitions and makes it harder to make fat loss-friendly food choices.

For these reasons, it’s not uncommon to have one too many drinks, which can contain several hundred calories on their own, then feel peckish and tell yourself, “One peanut won’t hurt…”

And, before you know it, you’ve eaten five handfuls of peanuts, two packets of crisps, and three pieces of cheesecake, and then proceeded to drown the guilt in an extra pint of beer or six.

#4. Budget your calories accordingly.

As I alluded to earlier, you don’t need to hit the exact same calorie target every day; you can achieve that same average over a longer timeframe with higher- and lower-calorie days. That’s why I give my clients a weekly rather than daily calorie range as their fat loss target.

From a physiological standpoint, it doesn’t matter whether they eat 1500 calories for seven days or whether they eat 2000 calories for two days and 1300 for the remaining five. If you average out both options, the outcome is still a weekly average of 1500 calories per day.

This approach can be especially successful if you work Monday to Friday, because being busy does wonders for your hunger management, so it’s easier to stick to lower calories on hectic days.

It’s when you’re not at work or otherwise occupied that you can get hungrier, usually because you have more time on your hands to get bored and think about food.

However, be mindful of your daily energy needs. If you have a very active lifestyle and lift weights, you may not be able to drop your calories as low as someone who’s more sedentary, with a standard 9-5 job.

If your resistance training sessions, mood, sleep, hunger, and/or stress levels are taking a larger hit than you’re comfortable with––in other words, if you’re turning into Mr. Hyde Monday to Friday––then your lower-calorie days are too low.

As a rule of thumb, I don’t recommend lowering your calories by much more than ~10-15% for multiple days in a row during a fat loss phase, even though it may be sustainable for a single day every now and again. For instance, if you have a 1500-calorie budget, I wouldn’t go much below 1275-1350 calories.

This isn’t only to prevent the above-mentioned Mr. Hyde experience. It’s also easier to consume enough nutrients on a higher number of calories.

Furthermore, taking this strategy to an extreme can become a planned binge-restrict cycle for some people, thus having a negative impact on their long-term relationship with food.

I’m not completely against lowering your calories by more than 10-15% for more than one day, as I’ve worked with individuals who can do it without any of the issues I’ve discussed.

However, those who are most successful with the more extreme version of any nutritional strategy, usually have:

• A lot of experience with successful diets
• A stable relationship with food, and
• Strong pre-existing health-promoting habits

 
If you’re still in the process of making your lifestyle change, nurturing your relationship with fitness, and understanding nutrition, you’d likely benefit from being more conservative.

#5. Sleep in.

Sounds odd? Hear me out.

If you sleep in and skip breakfast, you’re essentially intermittent-fasting: you’re shortening your eating window, or the timeframe within which you eat. This makes it far easier not to go overboard with your calories whilst still enjoying a meal out and/or some drinks.

While this strategy can work with any meal, it’s especially beneficial if you’re having brunch, as you can almost literally roll out of bed and into the restaurant, then usually have enough calories left for dinner and maybe an afternoon snack.

Sleeping in is a valuable component of the approach because, of course, you could just fast until lunchtime.

And, if it works for you, great! For one, I’m not particularly fussed about breakfast and sometimes skip it if I’m not training in the morning, but I also don’t feel excessively famished if I go without food until 11 to noon.

However, unlike me, some people can get so “hangry” they’ll end up over-eating later in the day. 0/10 recommend.

#6. Plan filling, highly nutritious, and lower-calorie breakfast options.

If fasting isn’t a good option for you, you can still save some calories on a weekend day without starving yourself and then “accidentally” devouring your meal out, the table, and the server.

The solution is to have a low-calorie, high-protein, high-volume breakfast.

Any combination of lean protein + fruit or vegetables contains minimal calories whilst being very filling and highly nutritious.

These are some suggestions that fit the bill:

• 0% fat Greek yogurt, flavoured protein powder, and fruit of choice

 
One of my favourite ways to make this consists of 225g 0% fat Greek yogurt, 25g lemon-flavoured clear whey isolate protein powder, and 100 to 125g of blueberries. This comes out at around ~271 kcals, with 46g protein.

Mix the protein powder into the yogurt to add flavour and make it creamier.

I love using vegan protein powder because you can add a little water to it to make it into a pudding-like consistency, thus getting a more voluminous portion than if you used whey.

Soy isolate is the lowest-calorie, highest-protein option. Depending on the brand, it can be just as low-calorie as whey isolate, which is usually one of the most calorie-friendly types of protein powder.

If you really need to save as many calories as possible, then clear whey isolate, also known as whey hydrolysate, is the lowest-calorie option I’m aware of that mixes well with Greek yogurt.

Pro tip: Get frozen fruit and mix it with the yogurt and powder before thawing it, then leave the bowl in the fridge overnight. As the fruit defrosts, the fruit juice will seep into the Greek yogurt, which makes it taste incredible. It’s reminiscent of cheesecake if you use vanilla protein powder and a very thick Greek yogurt like Fage.

• Turkey bacon and vegetables

 
Six slices of low-fat turkey bacon contain ~175 calories and 37g of protein.

If you have it with a side salad of 100g fresh spinach leaves and 150g cherry tomatoes with salt and pepper, it comes out at ~220 calories in total.

• High protein wrap with fruit

 
The following recipe comes out at ~234 kcals and 40g protein.
 
I also usually add some fruit, like strawberries or raspberries, to bump up the fibre content and volume with a minimal caloric load.

This makes one large wrap or two smaller wraps, depending on the size of your pan.

Ingredients:

• 40g self-rising wholemeal flour
• 20g vanilla whey isolate powder (or any other flavour of your choice)
• 30g granulated erythritol
• 155ml liquid egg whites
• 30g 0% fat Greek yogurt

 
Mix everything in a bowl and stir until you get a lump-free batter, then fry it on both sides for a few minutes. Use a non-stick pan, so you don’t need oil, or add low-calorie oil spray.

Conclusion

In a fat loss phase, you don’t have to give up food and alcohol at the weekend if it’s an important part of your life…

… But you can’t wing it and expect to see results.

Instead, budget for the caloric content of these experiences ahead of time, so you can have the extra flexibility to eat, drink, and remain in a deficit.
 
Thanks for reading. May you make the best gains.
 
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