Introduction

I'm writing this for the people that struggle with discipline, structure and or routines on the weekends. All while having no problem adhering to routines, structure, and orderliness during the week. This may be for more of a younger crowd that still like to go to bar's on the weekend's. Or maybe it's for people that have business dinners and social events on the weekend's frequently. Whichever category you find yourself in, this is written for you.

When striving for better health outcomes, most people start with the basics. Adding more exercise to their weekly routines or cutting down on the quantity of food in numerous ways. I would also throw in, usually making these changes to their Monday - Friday routines and schedules. We often associate the Monday - Friday schedule as being the productive and serious part of the week. Letting Friday night through Sunday night to be the unproductive, relaxing, recuperating part of the week. Which I don't deny that that is partially the point of the weekend. But we still need some semblance of order on the weekends. If we arrive at the weekend and are confronted with the abyss and no sign of structure we are asking for problems to occur. Anther way to picture it, is most people deem the weekend's to be for hedonism and the week for self-restraint.

The solution to fixing this problem is simple. Win the weekend's. For some, focusing particularly on your weekend routines and rituals will push you past the plateau and pull yourself out of the current that is pulling you the wrong way. This doesn't mean you have to be boring and never leave the house or count every calorie you consume on the weekend. But it does mean acknowledging where the most damage to your progress is. Acknowledging that in order to get something that you want or need, you have to make some form of a sacrifice to obtain it.

True Damage of the Weekend

To give people an idea of how detrimental the weekends can be. I'm going to list multiple negative habits and put them into perspective. First, going out to the bars on the weekends and staying till close. There are numerous ways this can be a bad habit to have. I'm going to imply that if you stay till close, you're probably gonna have 5 or more drinks. The average beer has 150 calories in it. Multiply that by five and now you've had around 700 or more extra calories that essentially don't help you with anything. On top of that, staying till the bars close indicates you won't get to sleep until around 3am. Essentially what you've done is consume a boat load of extra calories, plus jet lag yourself. Compound this over and over and you will now see why your progress has stalled. Even if you only do this 20 weekends of the year, that would be on the conservative side 14,000 extra calories per year from alcohol alone. Then think about how much sleep you lose. The more lost sleep the less likely to make good food and exercise choices.

Another example about the weekends might be just sleeping in and leaving your day up to whatever you feel like doing. Now I'm all for relaxing more and resting on the weekends. But too much freedom and chaos can lead to destruction of your goals and progress as well. I've written about this topic briefly in other blogs, but we need a certain amount of structure in our lives to keep us on the straight and narrow path. If you have to make a decision about every little thing on the weekend's I promise, you will fail. A decision about what to eat, when to eat, what to do, when to do it. Or even not making decisions before hand at all and leaving it up to your desires at that moment in time. This will lead to bad decisions, drainage of will power and the life you don't want. So create the order that is good and eliminate the pleasure seeking moments you know will arise.

Setting the Order

From person to person this will look different. But everyone needs to establish their weekend routine. It can be things as easy as going to bed at your normal time if you don't have prior events planned. Or something like just hitting your protein goals for the weekend. That alone will make you feel more full. It'll give you a small semblance of structure to adhere to. Leaving less choices up for the moment. And then trickling down to other areas as well. Hitting your protein goal could give you the feeling of satiety and not wanting to drink alcohol when you go out. It could also keep the weekend cravings at bay that so many people give into.

However small the order is for your weekend, set it in place. This structure will become second nature after a couple of months, turning into habits you never have to think twice about. Potentially saving you thousands of extra calories in the mean time. Giving you countless hours of sleep back you never thought you could have on the weekends. And leading you hopefully to more energetic and productive work weeks as well.

Conclusion

No matter your age or your goal, if you struggle with weekends the most, focus on only that for a while. See how much structure you can add to your life during the weekend and wait for the results to come. One last word of wisdom. The goal and lesson from all of this should be to wake up Monday feeling better than going to bed on Friday. If that is the case, you've won the weekend.