Ep #22: Stop Overeating on Weekends

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 22.

Welcome to Weight Loss for Successful Women, a podcast for women who are ready to break the diet cycle and end their struggle with weight for good. Here’s your host, Fortune 100 executive and Certified Life Coach, Shannan Christiansen.

Hello love, so excited to be back today. You know ladies, I love recording these podcasts. I love spending a little bit of time with you. So today, we’re going to talk about weekends. So many of my ladies struggle on the weekends. So I’m going to talk about weekends, and then of course, I’m going to leave you with a couple transformational questions to help you start taking action today.

Ladies, it is time for our listener shout-out. This is where I read a review of the podcast in each episode. This week’s shout-out is to L76X. The title of her review is, “Must listen.” And she writes, “Shannan is amazing. She gives great insight.”

I mean ladies, I love all the reviews. Short and long. I love that you take the time to give a review of the show. I really appreciate it so much. And you know ladies, leave a review, I might read yours.

So today I want to talk about my granddaughter. Oh my goodness, this is my oldest granddaughter. She’s six years old and she’s in the first grade. I am just so proud of her. I cannot stand it. Belle will often say, “I’m shy,” and when she gets around people she does not know, or in front of a lot of people, she gets a little quiet.

She recently volunteered for a program at school where she would write and give a speech. She’s in the first grade so I’m like, what? And she did her speech on Rosa Parks. So cute. She rehearsed it and rehearsed it. I mean, she even did it for myself and my husband.

It was the day of the event and all the parents, grandparents, everyone was there, and then a microphone was there. Yes, a microphone. She walked up to the microphone and she looked at us in the audience and she shook her head no, I can’t do this.

So the teacher who was so kind walked her to the side and my daughter-in-law and the teacher, they were talking to her, encouraging her. Everyone in the audience was encouraging her. And so she ended up doing the speech. She turned her back to us, but she talked into the microphone and she gave her speech.

It was amazing. She was the only person from her class to volunteer to do this, even though talking in front of people makes her uncomfortable, and she was so scared and she still did it. I’m not sure when I was six if I could have gotten up in front of an audience and done anything.

She inspires me so much, to face my fears, to be uncomfortable. Even though she did not win and go to district, she still did it. And next time, it’ll be a little less scary. What have you done lately love, that scares you? That’s just a little inspiration from my cute g-baby.

So on today’s show, I see and hear this a lot from my clients. “The weekend was a struggle, Shannan. I was doing good all week and then I overate and went totally off plan. I did not even make my realistic plan.” So today I want to dive into some of the reasons why and then leave you with a few things you can do if this has been a struggle for you.

And this could be weekends, vacation, any time that you think you’re out of routine. So I remember that Friday nights were always a struggle for me. I mean, I was tired, I wanted to rest and relax. I wanted comfort. So I would eat. Mostly overeat. Then because I overate on Friday, I just kept overeating. And then I would beat myself up, and then I would just say, screw it, and go full-on binge.

I repeated this pattern for years. I mean, for many of us, our weeks are full of routine, business, work, family, kids’ sports, I mean, all the things. Then the weekends come and we’re craving rest, joy, relaxation, and we have tied food and comfort together.

When we think of comfort, we think of food. When we think reward, we think of food. When we think of relaxation, we think of food. We have made a brain connection that weekends equal overeat fest. We have done this because we’re craving more. We’re craving more rest, joy, and pleasure.

For many of us, we’ve had these false pleasures in our lives like food, social media, shopping, I could go on and on. But loves, they are not real pleasure and joy. They’re just ways we disconnect, buffer, avoid, resist our feelings.

I asked my Jumpstarters to tell us what joy or pleasure they’re planning to do for the week. And for so many of them, it’s so hard to come up with. We’ve been walking around like robots, just doing all the tasks in our lives that we’ve not looked up to see, do we even like it?

And when I say like it, I mean our lives, loves. Loves, we have to look up. We have to find ways to have more pleasure and joy in our everyday lives so we can just love this life that we’re living. If we do have joy or pleasure, we’re saving it for the weekend or a vacation we take once a year.

We must put more joy and pleasure throughout our week, our everyday life. Real pleasure. Like reading a book, taking a walk, laughing with your spouse, playing a game with your kids, I mean, there’s so many ways to get real pleasure and joy.

Another reason we overeat on the weekends is we’re not doing enough around self-care, like getting enough sleep and water. So when the weekend hits, our lizard brains take over. Have you ever thought, “I’ll catch up on sleep this weekend?” I know so many of us have.

I mean, I used to think this all the time. But we cannot catch up on sleep. It just does not work. When we are tired, it’s a trigger that leads to overeating. We have to rest, loves, throughout the week. We have to make it one of our priorities.

Another thought we have is, “I’ve worked hard all week and I need a reward.” And loves, we believe food equals reward. So we have this false thought, “I’ve worked hard, I need a reward,” to, “I’ve worked hard so now I get to eat whatever I want.” But loves, we know where this leads to, an overeating fest and then we beat ourselves up. We break the commitments we made to ourselves.

I understand that we have events on weekends or celebrations, but loves, if you make your realistic plan, you can add in a piece of cake. Weekends are not rewards. They’re just two additional days in the week where our schedule might be different.

We can continue our daily routine of making our realistic plan and eating on plan. I mean, you got this, love. Another thought some of us have is just, I have more time on the weekend. I’m not as busy. So I overeat because of boredom or loneliness. I have all this time to think and all the stuff comes up, so I want to eat to push it back down. I want to buffer.

Loves, remember that feeling a feeling is the only way to stop avoiding and buffering our feelings. Listen to podcast number seven again. It’s where I teach you how to feel a feeling all the way through. And love, no feeling will kill you, and no cupcake has ever solved our problems.

The way to stop overeating on weekends is to know what thoughts are leading you to overeat. Is it not enough joy or pleasure? Is it that you think food is reward? Is it that you don’t want to feel your feelings? Once you know what thoughts are causing it, you can change the thought. You can also construct your life in a way where you’re getting real pleasure and joy throughout the week, so you’re not craving it during the weekends.

Also loves, don’t forget about rest. We have to get enough sleep and water throughout our weeks. So here are a few transformational questions to ask yourself. Why are weekends triggers for you? What thoughts are you having on the weekends that leads to overeating? How much joy and pleasure do you have throughout the week? How can you get more rest, joy, and pleasure throughout the week? Loves, so good.

If you love this work and you want to go deeper, take my free course. You can learn more about it at bflycoaching.com/free-course. Bye for now, loves.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and want to learn more, come over to bflycoaching.com. That’s B – F – L – Y coaching dot com. See you next week!