Weekends Are 42.9% Of The Week
Nerissa Shea@nerissashea_fitness
'Diet starts Monday'
Does this sound like you and your weight loss journey -
Are you hammering out the gym Monday to Friday BUT NOT SEEING RESULTS?
Are you having smoothies for breakfast, eating salads for lunch, and having chicken and rice for dinner Monday to Thursday BUT NOT SEEING RESULTS?
Are you hitting those 10k steps NEARLY every day BUT NOT SEEING RESULTS?
This used to be me. I call it the Monday to Friday WARRIOR.
Although realistically, that 'Fu** it, it's Friday' mentality used to hit pretty early on a Friday.
I completely understand that people feel the need to let loose and enjoy themselves on the weekends, especially people who work full-time, Monday to Friday.
It is human nature to want to ‘celebrate’ freedom.
And for many people finishing up a 40 - 60 hour work week, that is what the weekend is,
FREEDOM.
BUT if you are on a weight loss journey and you disregard what you do on the weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), you are ultimately disregarding nearly half a week.
For the sake of this post, I am only going to touch on one aspect that could be addressed with regards to how you perceive the weekends. Know that there are many other factors that you could be either implementing or reducing on the weekends to aid your progress.
Being an Irish woman, living in Ireland (more so, pre-Covid times)
It is fair to say that alcohol, or ‘the drink’ as we call it, plays quite a big role in our lives, especially with regards to socializing and weekends.
Let’s discuss ALCOHOL.
1. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram but doesn’t provide any nutritional value to our body.
To put that into context – a shoulder of vodka (350ml) is about 720 calories (standard 'prinks'. Prinks is a term in Ireland we use for pre-drinks: before you go out)
2. Alcohol reduces protein synthesis, so it impacts our GAINS.
3. Alcohol plays puck with various hormones related to sleep, metabolism, and testosterone production, among other things!
4. Our bodies see alcohol as a toxin and not a nutrient so we’re unable to store alcohol calories in the same way as food calories. Instead, our metabolism shifts from burning stored food calories to removing toxic waste.
BASICALLY, your body has to remove the alcohol before it gets to the food.
And let’s be honest, we don’t exactly crave the best of foods the night of/day after drinking and very few people are buzzed to train after a heavy night on the beer.
I say very few, I know some people love it.
That is NOT me.
I don’t want this to sound preachy.
I just see so many people starving themselves all week and punishing themselves in the gym only to drink themselves into a calorie surplus on the weekend and can’t understand why their efforts aren’t paying off?
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER and all that jazz.
I fully believe, everything in moderation and so if you enjoy your beverages on the weekend, just be aware of this.
On a completely unrelated note, something Covid also taught me is that I actually don’t really like drinking all that much?
Shock, horror, anyone that knows me for years will probably laugh at this.
But I REALLY don’t.
I like the social aspect of it and I LOVE meeting people, chatting to people, going places, and experiencing things.
Take that away and I don’t really see the allure of drinking in the sitting room.
NOW, everyone is different.
Some people love a glass of wine in the evening, I personally love a bar of chocolate.
Different strokes for different blokes and all that jazz.
So this post is not written with the intent to ward everyone away from alcohol. That is 100% NOT the point but most people (myself included, not that long ago) would not be aware of the facts above and fall into the category of the 'Monday to Friday WARRIOR'.
If you feel like you are hitting your head against a brick wall with your weight loss journey, I BEG you to look at your weekends and subjectively assess whether that could be where the problem lies?
Knowledge is power and awareness is key and as soon as you realize that something could be hindering your progress, assess your relationship with it and see if something can be changed?
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