T.G.I.F.

For most of us, who work to control our weight, the most difficult days to go are often weekends, starting on Friday afternoon. We often follow our diet well and exercise throughout the week, then come on Friday. I have some ideas that I believe will help you with your weekends.

First of all, we have to understand what are the weekends. This is really the company’s reward system for hard work done at our job or school studies in the last 5 days. One of the most difficult things for a diet is to overcome the idea that we are depriving ourselves of our favorite foods, etc. It’s the same for weekends. We arrive at Friday afternoon and we think we can not have fun because we are on a diet and we can not have a drink or go out to our favorite restaurant to relax after a busy work week. As human beings, we do not like things to be taken away from us. My suggestion is to develop a plan that modifies your weekend rewards system so that you do not feel that nothing is being taken away from you.

In other words, let’s do different things on weekends other than eating and drinking (swap one treat for another). Starting Monday morning, do some fun things on the weekend, with fewer food and beverage combinations. Do things that you delayed or did not even think about for a while.

Here are some ideas to help you think about your new “Weekend Reward Plan”.

• Go to the theater or a concert
• Play sports
• Meet a friend for a coffee on Saturday morning
• Go to the zoo
• Stroll through the park, wander through a field of wildflowers and listen to the bird’s song
• Drive to the mountains for a day or weekend
• Browse some art galleries that you have delayed seeing
• Discover a local tourist site that you never took the time to visit
• Take a weekend stroll through nature trying a new activity from door to door: rafting, hiking or horseback riding
• Take care of yourself during a day at the spa
• Etc., etc., etc. – the list is endless.

I firmly believe that people who control their weight have learned to balance their reward system and have learned to be happy in many ways through food and drink. The ideas above will help you to “heal” in a new way. T.G.I.F will take on a new meaning and you look forward to weekends so that you can reward yourself in new ways.

Your new success in managing weekends will help you a lot in your weight control efforts throughout your life.