Skip to main content

The Weekend Binge

It happens to everyone, diet is on track and then the weekend binge happens.
For me, the last week or so I have been 'craving' something, or rather I just have a desire to eat anything and everything looking to feel satisfied. It's a rather tough situation where I don't want to deny my body but at the same time, I don't know what it is that I am craving or the reason behind this craving.

I have been planning that the last weekend in a month is my scheduled 'treat' or 'cheat' meal. This past weekend the idea was to go to Fab! Gelato in Parkhurst for a nice breakfast of maybe a waffle and some ice cream. As it turned out, the whole weekend was filled with 'cheat' meals - at this stage I severely cheated on my eating plan.

Friday:
At work, I planned to have some date bread. High in carbs, but as a once off I figured it wouldn't be bad for fuel as I had a 45 minute run planned in the afternoon. The new call centre agents brought me cake and there was champagne as well - yes, I now dreaded my run with my 'food baby' and amount of sugar running through my veins. Dinner was at least left over Broccoli and Cauliflower casserole.

Saturday:
We had breakfast after Parkrun. I had a marshmallow and nutella hot chocolate and kippers and eggs. Afterwards I could feel my blood sugar was battling.
For lunch, we got given money to try a restaurant in Parkhurst. As I have been wanting Halloumi for a while, I saw a ravioli pasta with Halloumi which I couldn't wait to try - honestly I was disappointed, I couldn't taste the Halloumi through the sauce, so it honestly tasted like a normal ravioli to me. During lunch I also had a gin, beer and meringue dessert. At this stage I was left feeling dissatisfied, I had skipped my monthly pizza for this pasta, which did not live up to expectations.
Dinner was a tomato shakshuka and a spinach shakshuka.

Sunday:
We went to Fab! Gelato in Parkhurst. After seeing some of the photos of their ice cream selection, I was excted - that snickers ice cream was mine! After getting there, the selection of ice cream was a bit bleak, I almost walked out, after all I was only mostly there for the ice cream. We decided to sit down and have breakfast - which for me was a milo and a peanut butter, bacon, banana and syrup waffle, which was decent. We decided to go to the Fab! store in Linden for ice cream.
The Fab! store in Linden had some better variety of ice cream and I went with Marshmallow and cotton candy. A little disappointed, I was actually wanting something sweet and chocolately, which I didn't go for.
Back at home, after lunch, I had a coffee, with coconut milk and a American fudge syrup - this did bring me some comfort and satisfaction. Later on I had a whole box of astros and after dinner I had ice cream with custard. I went to bed still feeling a 'hole' in me that all the food I had eaten had not been enough to satisfy me.

The week ahead:
After gaining about 2kg in 2 days, my careful eating starts again. Unfortunately for me, I do not burn many calories, so what I eat is important to maintaining weight and having enough fuel for training. Through this weekend, I found that I may need to up my carb intake every so often, as the runs that I did were actually very good and I felt I had more energy during them. This weekend should remain as a one weekend thing, I do not plan on repeating it anytime soon, simply because of how it made me feel in general - boated stomach, stomach pains, swollen legs, irritable...
This next week, I am trying something new, where I have my 'lunch' for breakfast, followed by smaller meals, such as hummus as a snack and then a shake for lunch.
I will also be trying the USN 7-day Detox tablets to try and flush out toxins that I have in my body quicker. During the weekend I did try to drink sufficient water, which I think helped, but during this week my aim is to drink a little more than usual.


The Takeaway:
Just because you have a bad weekend, don't make it a habit by making it become a bad week. Personally I feel angry and disappointed in myself for letting myself go like I did, and emotions like this make it that much easier to seek comfort in tasty food, but my body and mind deserve better than that. This week I am going to focus particularly hard on mindful eating and not 'starving' - too often after a bad eating weekend we want to starve our bodies as punishment or we think it will make us lose the weight we gained and feel better, but it sends mixed signals to our body and can result in more overeating, weight gain and a unhealthy body relationship. The best thing to do is to keep following your eating plan and eat how you would normally - this way your body adapts back to routine and wont feel starved.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Grain free Date Bread

A few weeks ago one of my dad's clients baked what we think was a date bread. Although I am mostly low carb and didnt know the ingredients of this bread, there was so much of it and I didnt want it to go to waste. Toasted, it was amazing, almost like a caramel taste. In all honesty, I found my running for the few days I ate the bread actually improved - I felt more energetic and had more endurance. I searched for a low carb or gluten free version that I can make myself. Carb wise you looking at about 15g on average per date, making it basically your enemy if you are low carb. Rather opt for cranberries - 13g per cup. As an athlete though, dates are so good for you - in moderation of course as 90% of the carbs in a date is sugar. Medjool Dates are high in Potassium (higher than oranges, bananas and spinach), which is great for heart health and to build muscle and proteins in the body. They are also high in fibre, meaning you stay fuller for longer. You also get an energy

SA Lockdown - Days 1-4

So we have made it 4 days into lockdown... yippeee :) I thought I would recap my first 4 days into lockdown. To start off, I am still working, from home of course, so I still need to be available from about 7am to about 4pm. As such, I try get my workouts in before and after this time except on the weekend and the pre-lunch workouts (which are nice and quick). Day 1 Friday, 27 March My dads birthday - we were planning on going to craft beer library in Linden but of course with the lockdown we were not able to (something to do once we are out of lockdown). I decided to make one of my favorite cakes, an almond cake, but I made it gluten free as I am trying to be 80-90% gluten free following doctors orders. I started nice and early, so that it would be ready for my dads teatime break. The recipe can be found here , but I doubled up because it looked on the thin side: 230g Butter 4 Eggs 2 cup gluten free flour 2 cups castor sugar 4 tsp almond extract Sliced almond

HIIT #1

HIIT otherwise known as High Intensity Interval Training is a great way to get your heartrate up and get a full body workout in a short amount of time.  As the name suggests, the exercises used are often intense and the short recovery adds to it.  Most HIIT sessions are 20 seconds of workout, 10 seconds of recovery. I like to do 2 exercises per set, for 4 reps with 1 minute recovery and 4 sets in total to make up 20 minutes. If you are feeling up to it, you can increase a rep a week, but remember it is about intensity and not about overall time or seeing how much you can do.  Below are the exercises that I did yesterday: The workout I did: Set 1: Hurdles & Cones / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 seconds hurdles, 10 seconds recovery, 20 seconds Shuttle Run, 10 seconds recovery) Set 2: Speed band high knees / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 seconds High Knees, 10 seconds recovery, 20 seconds Shuttle Run, 10 seconds recovery) Set 3: Banded lateral shuffle / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 se