EATING OUT ON WEEKENDS AND FAT LOSS

Without a doubt, the weekend is the time that is the most challenging for us when it comes to dietary adherence.

What I say to my clients is that if you can win the weekend, you will win your week, it’s your biggest test.

85% of people can nail their nutrition Monday to Friday, it’s the Saturday and Sunday where temptation presents itself and people tend to deviate.

You don’t have to avoid social occasions where eating out is involved or lock yourself away with your meal plan to get in shape either though. As long as there is a little trade off and some smart choices being made, you can very much continue to progress with your goals and enjoy such occasions like a normal human.

Think of it like this, when you plan to go on a holiday, you overestimate the amount of money you will need to take for emergencies, so you will be fine in financially worst case scenario situations. You budget for a safety net.

Try and approach eating out and the ‘guesstimation’ of calories in the same way. In the ideal world we want to be able to know the calorie and macronutrient values of everything so that we can be accurate with our calorie deficit size, but in the real world this won’t always be possible and I don’t expect anybody to go whipping out a scales at a restaurant unless they want to be thrown out.

So always aim to overestimate and create a larger buffer of calories and estimate on the side of caution when the goal is fat loss.

When you eat out typically food will be in excess of 800 plus calories, even if you make a ‘smart choice’ or ‘eat a clean option’.

And that’s just your main course without starters and desert.

Unfortunately, restaurants don’t care if you are dieting, they will do what they do, to make food taste amazing.

Additional sauces and oils, cooking methods which make the food mouthwatering.

So give yourself some wriggle room, always do a double take. Guess the calories of the meal. Then add another 200 on top of your original guess and you might be closer to the mark.

Banking or borrowing calories is NOT something you want to do regularly, nor should it be a strategy for long term eating. It is a useful strategy within a given moment or phase in your fat loss.

Most importantly, communicate with your coach and you will be able to implement their guidelines, taking out any stress, unnecessary anxiety or guess work on your part.

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