I can be so good all week, but when it comes to the weekend, I really have a hard time. Does anyone else struggle with this? How do you deal with it?

For me, it's a perfect storm of things that causes weekends to be a LOT harder than weekdays:

1. Less schedule. My eating and exercising are less regimented, since I don't have my regular daily schedule going for me.
2. More socializing. This means food or alcohol-based events, a lot of the time.
3. Travel - I spend lots of weekend time away from home, visiting family, etc. Not having my food around makes things tough!

I deal with each differently:
1. I make sure I plan my meals just as I would if I was home.
2. I offer to cook, or order VERY carefully in restaurants. I try to keep alcohol to a minimum
3. I bring my gym clothes with me EVERYWHERE, and carry snacks in my purse.

I'm still way more likely to deviate on weekends.

I totally feel your pain, weekends are so hard for me. I think it is because I am alone during the week, kids are in school hubby is at work. On the weekends everyone is home and wants take out and I cave. Or friends want to go out to dinner or movies. I try not to beat myself up to bad over it, I eat it and move on and start fresh on monday.

No, not really. I am careful to treat the weekends like any other days. On Friday afternoon, I plan my meals for the weekend and hit the store if necessary. I let myself have one "treat" meal a week - that usually falls on a weekend and is a social situation. Otherwise, if I am eating in a restaurant - all my usual rules are in place.

If you are going off the rail on the weekends - ask yourself why. Are you too restrictive during the week and you feel like you have the right to indulge? Too many social situations? Restaurants? Too many errands and you get so hungry you just grab whatever fast food is closest?

I don't know what your exact situation is, since you didn't describe it but I would advise writing down carefully everything you ate last weekend, why you ate it,w hat you were feeling when you ate it and how it could have gone differently.

It is incredibly hard! I wish I had some good advice for you. All I can say is I try to treat it one day at a time, one minute at a time. I actually was at the mall with my daughter yesterday. She walked around with her 2 friends, and I was just hanging around myself. (My daughter and her friends are 12. Too young to truly be on their own, too old to be near their mom). So I sat at a table with a bottle of water and made index cards with messages as to why I want to lose weight. I put them in a binder which I keep in my bag with me, and I read them periodically during the day.

On weekends, I need to do that more often.

It's hard for me too. More people are in the house and my routine is off.... I think I just loose focus and let myself get distracted. I always feel like Monday is my day to "clean up".

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Oh, I am so there. I agree with mandalinn82 and Nichole28 that the weekends are just less structured-or at least not structured in the same way-and so there seems to be more opportunity to slide around. The last few weekends I have been gaining weight. This is the same weight that I had worked really, really hard over the week to lose so I was getting really annoyed at myself.

This past weekend I just said, NO. I worked out on Saturday and no matter what my DH or kids were doing/eating, I just went about my business. I was a little more relaxed on Sunday but even at a football party went for the baked chicken over the tacos. Lo and behold, 1 pound lost over the weekend.

This weekend we are going away so I think it will be more difficult in restaurants but my goal is just not to gain weight over the weekend. I can lose it over the week. Just need to not gain it over the weekend.

You are not alone!

What Manda said. For me it's:

1. Less schedule. My eating and exercising are less regimented, since I don't have my regular daily schedule going for me.
2. More socializing. (Friday night date night, anyone? ) This means food or alcohol-based events, a lot of the time.
3. Work. When I photograph weddings I *can't* keep to my regular schedule and I can't leave the premises to eat and I often am not allowed to bring my own food onto the premises so I have to eat what's provided for me. Often that's either a plate of really high fat, high calorie food, what's left on the (high fat, high calorie) buffet, or a sandwich and chips.

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They can seriously tell you that you can't bring any food with you? Not even a protein bar or apple?

Oh I've brought stuff like that in my camera bag, but I can't work a whole wedding on protein bars. I NEED a meal. Especially if I've been working since 10 a.m. and it's now 8 p.m. and I still have 4 hours of reception to shoot.

A lot of venues won't allow you to bring in outside food. Partially it's for health code reasons and partially it's because they want you to buy from them. The problem comes when you're a vendor. A lot of clients don't want to pay for their photographer to eat an $80 meal (and I can't blame them) but some venues refuse to provide "vendor meals" at a reduced cost. Or if they do, it's a boxed lunch with a soggy sandwich, an apple, and a bag of chips. Hardly enough to keep me going.

And dont' get me started on what it's like to be STARVING and smell all that wonderful food while sitting in a corner looking at a sandwich and 6 chips in a bag.

It's one of those key things that can make or break whether I enjoy working at a venue or not.

Not that all venues are like that, mind you. I've worked with some that are wonderful to the photographers and videogs and so forth and will find us food and drinks and a place to stash our gear and are generally really helpful. But many of them just treat the photographers like hired help and don't make any accommodation for us to do our jobs.

Not that this is a sore spot with me or anything!

Sorry for the rant!

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It's easiest when I go to work (I work part-time and I don't go in to work every day). I have never considered buying lunch an option, so by packing healthy I eat healthy.

Weekends are even tougher than weekdays that I stay home because of the socializing. For several months I was a wet blanket, at first refusing to go out to eat ever, then refusing to go to all but a few restaurants with low cal menus. But now I am going out and having a "free" meal most weekends. I may be more fun to be around, but my weight loss has really slowed down a lot.

Weekends only become hard for me when I'm around my boyfriend. The only healthy thing he eats is stir fry, other than that his meals are pizza, mac and cheese, pasta, burgers and fries, and bagels. Since I'm usually staying at his house it makes things a bit difficult. Although he does try to accomodate me, we'll have gardenburgers and I'll only eat half the bun. Or I'll have cheerios instead of a bagel for breakfast, or we'll make stir fry with brown rice. Gotta try and come up with ways to cut the extra calories.