A recent post in the private FitterFaster client group on Facebook specified some common causes of Weekenditis.

You know, where you’re ‘good’ Monday to Friday but come the weekend (or every evening for some) you just go off the rails.

We identified several different categories of people I guess you could say and in this post, I’m addressing some solutions to some of the reasons we sabotage ourselves and cannot get rid of weekenditis.

Miss or Mr perfect

The best treatment for those that pretty much cave in on the weekends after a week of being ‘perfect’ is to remember that the decent plan you follow is much better than the perfect plan you don’t.

Be sensible with food and drink choices during the week and on weekends.  Be mindful about your choices and try to make the best choices possible at the time without trying to be perfect.

Try for a bit better than last time and stick to the wise choice.

Always 100%

For those that are all in or all out – 100% either way, you pretty much are setting yourself up for 100% success or 100% failure.  There’s no middle ground for you.

In reality, there are better or worse choices.  There are pretty good ones and not so good ones.

The key here is to make choices that are also a bit better rather than a bit worse.  Making one choice that was further down the continuum than ‘100% correct’ does not mean you’ve failed.

Cut yourself some slack and allow those 80% choices to prevail.

The Trader

This was the person who trains and then tells themselves they ‘deserve’ a treat because of it.

Or they convince themselves (usually quite easily) that they’ve been ‘so good’ that a bad choice is also deserving.

Being ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is for kids.  Instead, be an adult and make better choices.

Link those better choices to the benefits.  Exercise and you’ll more energy and more patience with your kids.

Eat well and have less headaches, tummy upsets and a smaller belly.

Be kind to yourself and make wise and sane choices.

F*** *t mode

This person follows the ‘rules’ to the T, till they inevitably don’t. And that’s when the s**t hits the fan.

They then totally give up, usually going all out to make sure it’s clear that they are definitely not ‘dieting’ anymore.

They almost always resolve to ‘start again’ Monday or on the 1st of next month.  In the meantime, they totally make sure that they ruin any progress they may have made before they stuffed up.

These people need to have less food rules.  They need to concentrate on just a few new habits at a time.  If they have less to focus on, and everything doesn’t have to be perfect, they’re  much more likely to have some ‘wins’ which then gives them encouragement to keep going for another week.

So get rid of hard and fast ‘rules’ and instead work on changing damaging lifestyle habits one or two at at time.

The Cheat Day specialist

Some people find the idea of relaxing with eating once per week useful both mentally and physically. If this is you, and it works for you, then we applaud you on finding a worthwhile strategy.  I always recommend however, that you eat a sensible portion of your ‘sometimes’ food and still eat till your satisfied, not stuffed.

But for a lot of clients, having one “cheat day” means the rest of the week is food purgatory.  You feel that if you can’t have X food till a certain day or time, it often causes an absolute overconsumption of that food because it’s a whole 7 days (or however long) till you can have it again.

If this is you, perhaps allow yourself a small portion of that food every couple of days within the context of an otherwise healthy plan.  Having yummy recipes that don’t make you feel deprived also really helps.  The FitterFaster recipes have lots of variety and are so delicious that they really can replace most of the ‘junk’ foods you may have been used to.

The other thing I find really helpful for this group is to remember that there will always be more cake, chocolate, pizza etc.  The bit in front of you is not the last piece in the world.  If you don’t have it now, you can have it at a later time.  There will be more!

The Familiar story teller

This person tells themselves and others lots and lots of stories about why they made bad food choices, why they skipped training and why they just had to visit the drive-through again this weekend.

What they choose to ignore, is that we all have choices and we all make those choices.

We are not usually victims of our circumstances.

In our Monday to Friday routine or out of it, our routine is still pretty predictable.

You can still plan our your meals and snacks.

You can pack foods and you can still get up early or go to bed early as well.

You do not have to eat everything in sight at your mum’s house.

You have choices and those choices have consequences.

Stop playing the victim in your stories.

Avoiding the Void

This person eats to fill the void.  It could be a regular thing, like when the kids have gone to bed or another time you’re on you own such as in the car.

The best way to get around this is to fill the void with something else.

A walk around the block or some other exercise.

A visit to a friend or a hobby you’ve been meaning to start back up.  Gardening, reading, writing for instance.

Putting it all into practice

A choice is one that takes everything into account.  It understands that there will be trade-offs.

No, you can’t eat junk food all day every day and still get that killer body!

Making wise choices means most often being prepared.  Rarely do thing happen in our lives that were totally unpredictable.

Working late, sports running late, healthy foods not available at the venue…….these are all predictable circumstances where you could have been prepared.

Make note of when you start to tell yourself a familiar story.  Think about how you will feel in an hour if you make a certain choice.

If you are willing to trade off, are you willing to accept the outcomes of that choice.  Why are you willing to trade off?

And if you’re an ‘Always 100%’ or a ‘F*** It’ mode person, how are you going to make sure you can get back on track as soon as taken part in your current choice?  How are you going to stop yourself from giving up totally?

Remember that YOU are free to eat and do whatever you want whenever you want to.

YOU are free to choose your own behaviour

Those behaviours come with consequences.  Sometimes they are things you want to happen and sometimes they are not.

Always know that you can make choices in most situations.