Aaahh, weekends. They are beloved, and rightly so. For most of us the weekend is our little two-day oasis of fun. Time uninterrupted by the demands of work, that we can spend with our families and friends. Time to watch our favorite sports teams, or be weekend warriors ourselves at a local 5K. Also, time to go out to dinner, have some drinks, and eat all the foods we love so much. Because calories don’t count on the weekends. That’s right, we can eat and drink anything we want starting Friday night without any repercussions. Our weight, cholesterol, and overall health freezes at 5pm on Friday, and waits patiently for us ‘til Monday morning.
If only it worked that way. Obviously it doesn’t, and I am being a tad more than facetious here. But for a variety of reasons, many of us behave in a way that would lead one to think this was the case. We’re really good during the week, watching what we eat, avoiding fried, fatty foods, and going to the gym. Then Friday rolls around and all bets are off. “You know, I was good all week, I need to let off some steam. It won’t kill me to have a couple beers”. Or eight. Oh, and a bag of Doritos to go with.
Yes, the topic is self-destructive weekends, and how people trying to make positive changes in their health tend to undo 5 days of hard work in the course of a couple evenings. This is especially prevalent on my mind as within the past 24 hours I have spoken to two different friends about this exact issue.
I am intimately familiar with this topic, as this used to be me. Really, really fun weekends (with really not-so-fun headaches the next morning) were a key component of me getting to my heaviest weight. When I decided to dedicate myself to losing weight, I started working out religiously. I would hit the gym 4-6 days a week for at least an hour. Then the weekend would come around, and I still would make sure that I had a really, really fun time. I did manage to lose weight, about 22 pounds. That sounds good, except that I was still a good 30+ lbs. overweight, and I had hit a plateau.
I will use one of my friends I spoke with yesterday as an example. She asked me if I had dropped weight when I reduced my booze intake. She has been getting up at 4:40am and getting herself to the gym, eating healthier, but still drinking, and she is not seeing the results she wants. She said that she drinks wine on the weekend, and typically will have a bottle over the course of the evening. Multiply this by two evenings + Sunday, and she estimates she has 1.5 to 2 bottles of wine a weekend.
Let’s look at the weekends mathematically, using some made up (but very realistic) stats about a 150 lb. female. First, let us assume that she is working out 4 times during the week, doing 30 minutes of cardio by running 6mph. A 150 lb. woman will burn about 350 calories doing this workout. So that will total 1,400 calories burned for the week. Let’s also assume that during the week she is mindful of what she eats and runs a net-calorie deficit of 500 calories per day. So for the 5 day period of Monday through Friday, she has accumulated a net-calorie deficit of 2,500 calories. One pound is roughly equivalent to 3,500 calories, so, so far so good for the week. Our female is on track to lose about 1 pound for this week, so long as she runs a 500 calorie deficit over the weekend as well. (This, by the way, is a healthy rate at which to lose weight. Also, you notice that I don’t add the calories burned from the work outs- the person would simply have an extra 350 calories to eat on these days, as we should not be running too large a deficit, and we need to properly fuel ourselves for an active lifestyle.)
But then something happens. The whistle blows on Friday and Fred Flintstone slides down the back of a dinosaur saying “Yabba-Dabba-Doo!”. And everyone knows that the proper translation of “Yabba-Dabba-Doo” is: “It’s officially the weekend, so you are free to eat and drink whatever you like, regardless of your health and wellness goals. See you on Monday.”
How do a couple bottles of wine affect all of the week’s hard work? One 750ml bottle of wine will have about 600 calories in it. So two bottles and we’re at 1,200 calories. Now our 2,500 calorie deficit is down to 1,300, and we’ve gone from being on track to lose a pound, to losing about 1/3 of a pound. Now let’s add another favorite weekend past time, which is going out to dinner. Eating meals out is a surefire way to rack up some calories in a hurry. Chefs are fully aware of what flavors get the most mileage out of humans, and those are fat and salt. Restaurant meals are prepared in a deliberately more decadent manner so that our mouths respond by saying, “Wow! This is friggin’ awesome!” (Or if in a more upscale establishment, perhaps “Eek gats! This meal is pure ambrosia. Why, I was so moved by its delectable nature that my monocle fell clear out of my eye. Harrumph Harrumph.)
Eating out can easily add 1,000 extra calories to a meal. Let’s look at one of America’s top ranked casual dining establishments as an example: The Cheesecake Factory. Someone goes there and decides they’re going to be good, so they get the miso salmon (also happens to be one of The Cheesecake Factory’s bestselling dishes). Salmon is good for us, right? 4 oz. of baked salmon at home is a mere 110 calories. Well TCF manages to get their miso salmon dish up to 1670 calories. And so long as we’re there, we have to have a piece of cheesecake! How about a piece of the chocolate mousse cheesecake? That will run us another 940 calories. So even if we get the “healthy salmon” and split the cheesecake, we’ve put down 2,140 calories in one meal. Assuming we drank water and had no appetizer, either.
Now where is the weekly calorie deficit? It is lying on the floor of The Cheesecake Factory, rocking back and forth, crying. That’s where it is. What started as the beginnings of a 1lb deficit on Friday at 5pm is now more than likely a wash at best, and a weight gain at worst, by Sunday night.
This scenario is not outrageous at all. I know it isn’t because I used to do the same self-destructive thing, weekend after weekend. But I wasn’t eating at The Cheesecake Factory and drinking wine. I was drinking beer and eating at Chili’s. The results were the same though: I would work out all week and be mindful of what I ate, would get from square one to square three, let loose on the weekend, and Monday morning I would find myself back at old familiar square one.
Weekends count. More than we probably realize.
So much of weight loss and being healthy comes down to adopting and maintaining healthy behaviors and habits. To a large extent losing weight is about budgeting: calories consumed vs. calories burned. Weekends are also very much about behavior and habit, and a lot of those behaviors and habits lead to a lot more calories being consumed than burned. Once I figured this out for myself and took a more whole health approach to my wellness, and incorporated my healthy choices every day of the week, I saw tremendous results.
It comes down to priorities and the choices we make. This is definitely a situation where we cannot have our (cheese)cake and eat it, too.
What about you out there? Are the weekends a struggle? I’d be interested to hear other’s experiences with this topic.
Be well
Seth
No comments:
Post a Comment