Weekends Are a Beachnut

Today I thought I would talk about some of the 'why' behind my ability to maintain at least 300 lbs over the last 15 years. The biggest 'why' can be associated with five little words: "I'll start again next Monday."

Monday would always role around and I would do good throughout the day. I would watch what I ate, try to get a little more activity in. Tuesday would dawn and with it the desire for a king-sized double whopper meal with a Dr. Pepper.

The following scenario would then play itself out: I would push the idea into the back of my mind and maybe make it a couple of more days into the week where I would then justify my purchase of said whopper with the thought that, "I've been so good for the last couple of days I deserve a reward." After I had indulged myself in my 'reward' I would immediately feel depressed and that my case was hopeless. Sometimes I would give up right then and there and try not to think about my size for the next couple of months. Other times I would utter words that I have thought a million times over during my adult life - I'll start again next Monday."

In rare cases, I would make it all the way through to Saturday having been a good boy the entire week. At that point, my next little cognitive distortion would come up to bat: "I've been so good, I deserve a cheat day!" And boy-howdy would I cheat! By the time Monday rolled around, I felt so absolutely awful that there was no returning back to the more healthy pattern I had initiated the week before. Things were further complicated when I would find out that despite my hard work (Monday through Friday) the following Monday would reveal that I had not lost anything! Moreover, in some cases I had gained! Why was this? The cheat day.

I recently learned that you need to burn or limit your intake by 3500 calories to burn off one pound of weight. Let's say, best case scenario, that my 'light-weight' attempt to lose weight netted me a loss of 7,000 calories in a five-day period of time. Theoretically, I'm down two pounds. Then 'cheat day' comes along and I decide to eat two doughnuts for breakfast, a king-sized double whopper meal for lunch, a couple of king-sized snickers as snacks throughout the day and a Chinese buffet for dinner. How have I done?

Two medium cake doughnuts: 175 calories a piece (total of 350 calories) and a shlode of fat, sugar and carbs;
King-sized double whopper meal: Double whopper - 1,010 calories; large fries - 600 calories; king sized Dr. Pepper - 600 calories;
King sized Snickers - 2 at 537 calories a piece for a total of 1074 calories.
Chinese buffet: 3 plates of a combination meal (fried rice, noodles, spring roll, lemon chicken, sweet & sour pork) - 2,700 calories; Dr. Pepper - 600 calories.

So what did my cheat day net me? 6,934 calories! It should be noted that I never went for cake doughnuts - if I was going to cheat it was going to be cream filled! Also, my philosophy on Chinese buffets was to not stop at feeling full, but stop at feeling tired. Several times I went back for a fourth or fifth plate.

So, 7,500 calories to lose 2 lbs, and 6,934 calories just in meals associated with a 'cheat day'. Imagine how much more weight is added on due to all of the water weight I'm now going to retain from the nuclear blast of sodium that I chose to intake over the day. No wonder I got nothing out of it.

That has been one of the major paradigm shifts I have had to make in the last six months. There ARE NO CHEAT DAYS! Only days that cheat you. I'm not saying that the occasional high-calorie meal is bad. What I am saying is that it should still fit within the realm of reason! Again, there are no cheat days! you either choose to eat healthier and make the sacrifices necessary to do so, or you continue on pushing it off until the next Monday. If you choose the latter path, I promise you this - one day, you're gonna run out of Mondays...