Weekends can be bad for dieters. Parties, drinking and out-to-dinner meals can seemingly ruin a diet. Don't stress, though; it turns out that eating heavily over the weekend may not completely ruin your chances at losing weight. Scientists have discovered that a weekend bloat can actually be part of a normal cycle of weight loss and gain over the course of a week.
In order to better understand how weekend eating might impact a person's weight and diet, the researchers analyzed two different data sets of Americans and Finnish people. The participants recorded their weight every day before breakfast for about a year. The scientists then divided the volunteers into three categories: weight losers, weight gainers and maintainers.
So what did they find? The scientists discovered that those who consistently lost weight in the study tended to compensate more strictly during the week for their weekend weight gain. The people who tended to gain weight, though, showed a weaker weekday compensation for the weekend's indulgences, according to WebMD.
"The weekend is very unpredictable," said Brian Wansink, one of the researchers, in an interview with The Huffington Post. "It has unusual meals, it has unusual time schedules, it has unusual celebrations."
So does it look like you gained some weight on Monday? You shouldn't be all that concerned. By eating a healthy diet during the week and "making up" for the weekend, you can still shed some pounds. The trick is being able to not indulge all of the time.
"If you're too restrictive and you don't allow any flexibility and don't allow those short-term splurges, that may not set you up for success long-term," said Joy Dubost, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, in an interview with WebMD. "People who are successful at weight loss are those who see it as a lifetime journey."
The findings are published in the journal Obesity Facts.
