Don't Let Your Weekends or Road Trips Derail Your Diet

Traveling and weekends are the top two roadblocks to weight loss. Diet record after diet record, I see people who “diet” during the week cutting their calories and sweating it out at the gym yet they just aren’t losing weight. They blame genetics, their thyroid, a slow metabolism or age but the reality often lies in what they don’t realize they are eating. Once they start tracking what they eat (in an app, spiral bound notebook, sparkpeople, etools or other) the lightbulb comes on. Ah, it’s all the alcohol, restaurant food and munchies that are consumed on the weekend and can totally outweigh all the weekday calorie counting. But, a person has to live a little….

Therefore, I came up with my Top 5 Tips for Tackling the Weekends and Traveling:

Top 5 Tips for Tackling the Weekends and Traveling
1) Don’t skip meals. Just because you are out running errands or shuttling kids between events and birthday parties, it is imperative that you don’t go hours without eating. Bring a mini-meal with you or even a snack. Skipping meals is one surefire tactic to make you want to eat everything in site later.

2) Search first. Those who have cracked the weight loss code plan ahead and decide where they are going to eat and what they will get on the menu. With the internet, google and websites devoted to calorie information, it’s relatively easy.

3) Eat before you go out. I know, I know, this isn’t new and in fact, you’ve probably heard it a million times. However, many people still don’t do it. Instead, they wait until they are famished, and dive into the chips/bread or appetizers on the table and then a full meal.

4) Eat in order. Strategically eating your vegetables first and then your protein and then your carbohydrate will fill you up so you aren’t downing the entire plate of fries in a minute flat. Produce fills us up with volume and protein satiates our appetite.


5) Watch your alcohol consumption. Aside from the notorious beer gut, alcohol drops our inhibitions to resist plates of food laid out before us.

Yo-Yo Dieting Could Have Long Lasting Effects on Weight Control

I’ve never understood how people crash diet and get very thin. The level of self-deprivation and glucose for brain functioning would make me more irritable then a 2 year old who hasn’t had a nap in days. I do, however, get the 2nd half of that equation – when the former master dieter gets so doggone hungry and sick of their POW status (prisoner of weight) that they eat everything and gain their weight + some back. And, my problem with this pattern is that it wrecks havoc on a person’s psyche. The dieter is exuberant and on top of the world after their weight loss and then feels like an absolute failure and hides from people and social activities after they gain the weight back. And that, my friends, is no way to live life.

But, aside from sabotaging self-confidence, yo-yoing could make it harder to keep that weight off in the long run. A newly published study in the Journal Nutrition and Metabolism found that gaining weight, even in the short term, is difficult to shed later. In this study, eighteen young adults overate and under-exercised for 4 weeks (all in the name of science). Average weight gain was about 14 lbs (6.4 kg). After the study ended, they were monitored for a 12-month period during which the subjects collectively lost a good bit of their excess weight gain (10 lbs or 4.7 kg) within 6 months. However, at the end of the 12-month period, they gained a few lbs back. Two and one-half years later their weight was still an average 6.6 lbs +/- 8.8 lbs (3.1 kg) higher than their initial weight and this weight gain wasn’t muscle – it was fat. The age-matched controls showed no changes from their initial weight at the start of the study.

What can we make of this study? According to the authors, brief periods of overeating and under exercising may have longer-term consequences. And the lesson learned here is that we should leave yo-yos to the toy manufacturers and instead stick with a nutrition plan that we can maintain for a lifetime. Even if that means your progress is gradual – at least you’ll be moving forward consistently versus taking one step forward and two steps back. For those who have struggled with yo-yo dieting in the past, it’s time to get off this road to nowhere and work on a healthy diet, weight and body image. Learning to love your body pays great dividends that no diet can match.

For a great video that depicts this shame and yo-yoing, check out this video from Oprah’s TV show.