I am currently running a mid-year resolution challenge at a board called lowcarbfriends.com, and one of the mandates I have always made when running a challenge is this:
Always weigh in on a Monday.
I hear the collective groans every time this is mentioned, but I’ve found that, in general, Monday weigh-ins are beneficial.
People usually prefer Friday weigh-ins. This is because people tend to eat more during the weekend or let their diets or ways of eating slip through their fingers like Sarah Michelle Gellar lets money slip through her fingers in a shoe store.
Friday weigh-ins give the mental go-ahead that the ‘famine’ people spent all week committing has now ended, and it is time to feast! The problem is, many times, people spend all of the following week fighting just to get back to their previous Friday’s weight and are usually dismayed with the initial salt-water retention weight gains.
The entire proposal behind a Monday morning weigh-in is that it really foments that this is a lifestyle change, and not just another diet or way of eating. The brain has been programmed all these years to view weekends as the Festivus of Eating Craptacularly, and, as a result, we find the pounds really go nowhere. To make better choices on weekends, and to learn to cope with the crazy cacophony of events means that we’re not sabotaging our efforts every 5-6 days.
Maybe this means you can’t plan those pizza pig outs on Fridays any longer to celebrate the end of a work week. That’s what I want to hear. There are always venues for celebration which have nothing to do with food as a reward. The hard work and the accomplishment of a difficult task is the reward. Food is merely fuel and should never be the end. After all, look what it did to our ends.
That said, if you are looking for long-term weight loss success, try looking to everyone else’s least favorite day of the week and make it your favorite for long-term health and happiness.
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