Monday diets make you fat by Friday

Monday morning.

Another weekend of takeaways, eating out, nibbling on the kids sweeties and crisps has passed where I pretend the amount of time I spend running about will surely burn off these naughty treats I allowed myself to indulge in.

Wrong.

I stand precariously on the scales, awaiting a miracle weight loss to be displayed on the small screen (or even for weight to be the same would be wonderful) but no my scales disagree, in fact my scales reckon I've been eating like a little piggy and have actually gained several pounds, which were not there on Friday morning!

Despondent, annoyed (with myself of course) and flabby I look in the mirror. I see someone shortly heading for the big FOUR O and looking back at me I see someone who looks fatigued, flabby, over weight and completely under whelmed.

Scolding myself inside my head I tear strips off what was a successful week last week. Then when I try to recall the days when I was an eating angel all day I find myseld realising the only day I can claim title to this was Monday - The first day of my health kick.

Now I will add here I do not do diets. For me they simply do not work. I end up eating too little, then eating too much. I prefer to eat well and in the right portion sizes. I tend to allow myself a treat when I have done well. HOWEVER I only should do this when I have reached a milestone in my weight loss goals, not every Friday after thinking "oh well a wee chinese takeaway wont hurt, after all I've been so good this week".

I am not alone in this major stumbling block.

Monday is the most popular day to begin. And why not? It is the start of a new week, new beginning, new invigourated focus and positive mindset with seven days to begin working towards meeting some preset health goals.

Now if we read the last sentence again there is a number and the number is seven, 7, the number after 6 and before 8, S-E-V-E-N.

Why then is it the week becomes five days long. We get to friday night and BAM! out goes the health kick, along with the healthy eating attitude and in walks the "be good to yourself" mindset and the "go on you deserve it" voices start taunting us.

I tend to weight myself on a Friday morning and perhaps this is where I am going wrong. Perhaps if I am truly using every day of my week to be healthy I need to shift my weight in to Sunday. However we all know if we were to weigh ourselves on a Sunday morning after a night out (few cocktails, nice meal) the scales ain't gonna me mommas friend!

So no we wait til Monday and on we jump. "Scales" we ask "give me the best of what you got, give me the low down on my last 7 days please!".

And it does. Only the low down, presents itself as either no weight loss or gaining a few pounds. We repeat the process of berating ourselves and then set off to try again, only deep down we know if we follow the same pattern we will be doing the same thing this time next week and at best we will be in same health state or worse than before.

What my message to myself and to my fellow hubbers who need to trigger some serious dips in the scales is this. You know there are seven days in the week however your belly does not. Your belly will take in whatever you give it seven days a week. It will not think "oh hang on, its Friday I'll make sure this cake, pasta dish, chips, sweets or takeaway is digested fully and removed from the system with no residue in the form of fat cells and weight gain.

No our bodies take what we give it. If we were only to put trash in the garbage can 2 days a week and the other 5 days we didn't place anything in it, come the end of the seven days, we still have waste in it, regardless of our actions for the full 7 days.

Whomever we think we are kidding using our weekends for rewarding ourselves for 5 days of semi decent healthy eating, is only kidding themselves. We are never going to get what we want from our health goals using this approach. Never.

We will remain in the vicious cycle of always needing to lose weight and knowing deep down our efforts simply are not good enough.

On a Friday night, it is the weekend, end of a hard working week and of course we want to rest and relax, however all too often the interpretation of rest and relaxation come in the form of eating things we know we should not be having. Yes we can be tired after a weeks work however eating the junk we know we are going to have is not going to make us feel better, in fact probably a lot worse.

The short term euphoria of chocolate or chips, soon becomes blubber around our hips!

It is still possible to enjoy your weekend and keep on track with healthy eating. Yes you will have more time to think about what you are NOT eating without the day to day distraction work may provide but when you find yourself (like I do all the time) standing staring into the fridge or treat cupboard, take yourself off into another room or outside with your kids. Weekend temptation is the devil in sweetie wrappers and you are the only thing standing in its way.

Eating out can be a chore so choose fish, choose veg as opposed to french fried or potatoes, chose either a starter or a dessert, not both and if you do choose both then be prepared to do some exercise to balance out your excesses.

At the end of the day noone wants not to enjoy eating. I LOVE food and I love eating it however I hate the feeling of being overweight and nothing fitting me. I hate the scales telling me I have F'd up another week of pretty good eating 5 days out of 7. What a waste!

We owe it to ourselves. Give it a try this week.