Breaking the Weekend Food Trap: From Binges to Balanced Living

Let me tell you a story about Coach Adam in his 20s.

By the time I was in my mid 20s, I had been working out for almost 10 years.

Even though I was consistent with working out, I had never quite learned about nutrition.

My only real nutrition knowledge was from reading bodybuilding magazines or getting advice from other dudes in the gym.

Back then, the Sunday Cheat Day was a very popular trend.

Sunday Cheat Days were when you could literally eat whatever you wanted on Sunday, with the prerequisite that you were “strict all week”.

So every week, I would eat “perfect” Mon-Sat in anticipation of my Sunday Cheat Day.

I would literally feel like a kid on Christmas Eve going to bed Saturday night, thinking about any foods I was planning on devouring on Sunday.

Sunday morning I would wake up with a genuine excitement to order or make any food I desired.

One of my most common Sunday Cheat Day dinners was:

An entire medium Dominoes pizza

An entire order of cheesy bread

& a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

I can feel you judging me.

That ONE meal clocked in at about 6000 calories!

Every Monday I would wake up with digestive issues and a feeling of grief that I now had to wait another 6 days until my next cheat day.

After a long time in this cycle, I started to notice that I wasn’t seeing much change in how my body looked.

I even felt like I was gaining fat, even though I was “strict” with my diet 6/7 days each week.

The reason I put “strict” in quotations is because, at the time, I wasn’t tracking my calories, AND I also thought Chipotle counted as healthy food.

Hey, I was young and ignorant.

The Sunday Cheat Days eventually turned into “relaxed” weekends.

This meant that I wouldn’t do an all out binge on Sunday, but I would have multiple meals out or “off plan” Fri-Sun.

Friday’s I would go out with friends and get a burger, fries, and wings at a local restaurant.

Saturday I might grab lunch out or dinner.

Sunday, I would hit the “all you can eat” sushi restaurant.

Since these meals were spread out and not “binges”, I thought I was “being good”.

I mean it was only 3-4 meals out of my whole week.

But, anytime I ran into the issue of wanting to lose fat, I would get overly strict with my WEEKDAY meals.

I would start cutting out carbs. That was my knee jerk solution.

So all week I would have just protein & veggies, then Fri-Sun I would go back to my weekend freedom.

This would usually just cause me to overeat MORE on those weekend meals.

Because hey, “I was good ALL week!”

It took me years of nutrition education, really understanding calories, and CONFRONTING my relationship with food to realize that I could not cheat the system!

My weekends were holding me back and I was frequently starting my Mondays feeling like shit.

Every fuckin Monday I felt awful.

Digestively, mentally, & emotionally.

“Ugh, why do I ALWAYS let this happen!”

What I realized was that I was using my weekend food choices as a way to comfort and numb from any stress I felt during the week.

I viewed my weekend food freedom as my reward.

I woke up early all week, I worked hard, I got all of my workouts in, I deserved my weekend!

But this was similar to a spouse saying 

“hey, I was a good spouse and parent all week, so I am gonna go out this weekend and cheat on you with someone else. Don’t bother calling”

It was going completely against my CORE VALUES of who I wanted to be.

I was using food as an emotional escape from weekday stress.

What allowed me to change this was bringing awareness to this behavior.

Then I started to articulate exactly what weekend behavior felt aligned with my core values.

Because I DO NOT want to be a binge eater, but I also do not want to be someone who never eats fun food.

So I now implement these 3 things:

1. My weekdays are focused on meals that fit my goals but also taste great, but if my wife makes pasta & meatballs, I don’t say “no” just cuz it’s a weekday.
2. Sat & Sun I am consistent with having a protein focused breakfast, lunch & snack. Then I allow myself to be flexible about dinner choices. But I am feeling way more satiated so I don’t get tempted to overindulge
3. I set the intention to FEEL my best on Monday. This intention guides the decisions I make about food & sleep on the weekend.

This entire habit structure has made my weekends so much more enjoyable because there is ZERO guilt & no “restrictions”.

My food choices are not made out of stress or an attempt to numb.

If I eat pizza, it is because I genuinely want it and I enjoy it.

That mindset has prevented me from overeating these foods, which is something I have never thought I would be able to do.

There are times like holidays and special occasions where I absolutely eat just for taste, but like I have said before, there are only about 70-80 of those days total per year.

Weekends have become ENJOYABLE as opposed to distractions that left me feeling like I “fell off the rails”.

Anything we use in excess as a means to distract from our stress is not healthy.

Self care is enjoying a glass of wine with a nice dinner.

Self sabotage is drinking 6 glasses of wine and mindlessly eating as a way to cope with stress or numb pain.

These are the strategies and mindset shifts I really try to pass on to clients.

First step is getting out of the “all or nothing” behavior cycle.

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