August 9
Summer is a time when the regularly scheduled “skinny” days really come in handy. Mine are usually every Monday and Tuesday year round. They are my long workdays anyway so why not get the low cal days over with and, hey, throw in the laundry too, right? They can be used strategically before an event to motivate you, or immediately after to reset your appetite and quickly reconcile the budget and your guilt. Mondays are always good for obvious reasons.
That practice allows me to set aside some calories for the planned weekend indulgences as well as the inevitable spontaneous BBQs, ice cream cones and gatherings that summer always seems to bring! I have yet to meet another successful weight manager who didn’t need to create a buffer for overeating, no matter how convinced they were during the weight loss phase that that person was gone forever, that so motivated by their weight loss would they be that they would never allow themselves to overindulge again.
Whenever a client returns for a tune up (the mark of a real winner, I have noticed) when they have gained back some of their weight, they have without exception stopped doing their skinny days. They may not be eating any more on their indulgent days than they were when we parted ways and they were successfully maintaining their target weight, partially because I encourage them to be their authentic selves while we are working together so that they can learn to manage that person. But those planned low calorie days that made room for Saturday nights out, have invariably fallen by the wayside.