I've always been alot better at sticking to a sensible way of eating on days when I work. I have a routine down, I stick with it (pretty well, anyways) and I lose weight, or at the very least don't gain. Weekends are different. I always have good intentions. I sometimes, once in a while, stick with them. More often then not, though, I find myself doing the mindless snacking thing, blowing myself out of the water.

This weekend I have four days off in row, owing to the 4th. I've already gained a couple of pounds from the time of cycle. I don't really want to gain anymore in the form of actual fat as well.

I'm going to try something different. I'm going to make a huge salad of lightly steamed cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, squash, snow peas, and whatever else looks good in the produce section, then dress it with seasoned rice wine vinegar and soy sauce, maybe some lemon juice and ginger and garlic as well. Then count this as a "free" food and eat as much as I want whenever the mindless snacking urge hits me. Maybe it will help, I dunno. I'm also going to commit to exercising at least two of these days.

I know I'll still have to navigate the barbeque trap. I've just been a bit down lately because of the slow down in my weight loss, and I don't want the holiday to cause me to shoot myself in the foot. I just bought a medium (mens) demin jacket, fits me great except for my tummy bulge which I need to get rid of! First time in years I've bought anything with an M on the lable instead of a couple of XX's.

I know I'm rambling, sorry. If anyone has any tips, advice, or just general helpful thoughts I'd love to hear it!

Hey Annie, I just treat the weekends like any other day. On Friday, I plan my meals/snacks for Friday night and Saturday/Sunday. I go to the grocery store on Friday night, buy stuff for the weekend and stick to plan. I don't mindlessly snack, because I already know what my meals/snacks are and I just eat the snacks I plan!

Fourth of July will be a little tougher with the barbeque fun, plan ahead on your gameplan. Eat a veggie burger on a whole grain bun without mayo, skip the potato salad, load up on fruit and make a little room for something you are craving (ribs? ice cream?).

When I have a treat meal, I make sure it is a treat MEAL. Not a treat day (well, except for my birthday heh) and not a treat weekend. A treat MEAL.

You are doing so amazingly well, don't let a free-for-all weekend set you back and hurt your motivation!!!

Great advice from Glory. Your plan for the veggie salad sounds good. I might need to do something similar. The long weekend scares me too. I plan to swim a lot which will help. I have a wedding shower to go to this Thursday night but knowing that I have a Dr's appt. Friday will help keep me in line. Good luck to you and Congrat's on your weight loss.

I agree the veggie sounds great. I always have the "rule" that I can eat all the fruit and veggies I want. That way if I am truly hungry I can eat... but I find that a lot of the time I don't because of course the cravings are -- or at least used to be -- for "junk." Not so much of a problem any longer since I haven't eaten junk now since January. I get some wonderful dried veggies at my fruit market and end up eating a lot of those.

Wow, that salad sounds excellent!

I'm with Glory: Plan, plan, plan. Sometimes before a party, I try to figure out what food will be there and plan around that. Usually there's something I can eat -- especially if I work it out ahead of time. And then I know if I bring something that there will be something else I can eat, too!

And then, give yourself a treat, but work it in.

Make a commitment to yourself to work in some exercise, too! Something fun, maybe? Bike riding? Swimming? A game of some sort??

Weekends are challenging for me, too, but only because I usually work my tail off doing physical labor of one sort or another, and then when I log my "exercise" the diet program says I can eat a HUGE number of calories to make up for what I burned. A couple of times I went ahead and ate those calories, but had a significant weight bounce the next few days.

Now I don't eat more than 500 extra calories on a weekend, no matter what the diet programs says I can eat due to the exercise I just had. It just isn't accurate for me. I'm simply not burning as much as the diet program says I am, so I don't eat much more.

This weekend will be a lot of heavy outdoor clean up each day, because we've really let the outside stuff slide this year and we are having people over on the 4th. We have to remove lots of huge weeds and mow and trim and clear flower beds.... there's just a LOT to do and I'm going to work like crazy to get the place looking presentable. Living in on a small farm isn't so cool when you let things slide and have half a years maintenance to catch up on in 4 days.

I know that part of my problem is my own stubbornness. I don't want to live like a dieter. I want to live like a thin person, or at least a person that doesn't have problems with thier weight. I want the ways of eating and living to be so deeply ingrained that I don't have think that I will automatically gain back the weight when I hit goal; I'll just keep living the way I live now and it will happen automatically.

To this end, I don't count calories anymore. I did for a few months at the start and it was invaluable as a teaching tool, but now I know how much I should be eating. I don't plan out my eating for the day because this isn't something I want to do everyday for the rest of my life. I do know that it would help me now, but I really am looking at the long term situation, where everything I do is something that I can easily do for the rest of my life.

I just have to find a way to deal with the weekends, even the long ones. Maybe if having a big bowl of low calories veggie goodness on hand will be something that works, and will be good to keep up. I already love veggies, so I can see doing this in the long term.

I've already unlearned some bad habits. I can now go without having a dessert of a pudding cup or fig newton and not feel that I am being deprived. I just have to cultivate some good weekend habits!

love your avatar, tealeaf, ha.

I have problems with the weekends too. I think it's a great idea to have food on hand. Last weekend I made a commitment to go to the gym fri, sat and sun (I usually go friday and sunday). Because I did that extra exercise, my food was much better. Friday is official weigh in day, but I'm finally breaking the back of the 250s.

Another idea, if you like to cook, make a special low cal dish for the holiday, so you feel like you're getting a treat, but it doesn't break the bank, so to speak.

If you feel like you graze, maybe planning activities where you won't be able to do that. A hike, bike riding, walk, or outing.

hope that helps

I hear what you're saying. You said you did calorie counting as a teaching tool and you don't really need it anymore. Right now, you're having problems with the weekends. You definitely don't have to plan your weekend meals forever, but you could it for a few weekends, as a tool, to create the habit that you can sustain without a great deal of planning later.

I've already decided I can never eat like a thin person again. I'll probably be counting calories for the rest of my life... but that's OK. It's just the cost of correcting the effects of decades of self indulgence.