June Week 2: How Can I Afford My Social Life?

Hey there! Are you ready to party? This week, we explore how to think through our social eating budget. Yes, how can I afford my social life?  Not money-wise. That matter is between you and your financial manager. I mean your weight release budget. How can you carry on a life in the real world of people - restaurants, parties and social gatherings - and keep moving towards your weight release goals? Let’s explore!

HOW CAN I AFFORD MY SOCIAL LIFE?

Life never lines up for us to ”be good”. Diets may demand strict structures and regimes and life just comes along and laughs at these “be good” plans. Sure, if we lived on “the ranch” or in a monastery, that would be one thing, but I have noticed my life isn’t like that. I eat out, entertain and get invited to parties and I don’t plan to stop doing that - and neither should you.

Weight Mastery is about living in the real world, so I would like to give you some calorie budget strategies to stay consistent with your mastery while you are at it.

1. Think through your social weight release strategy as far in advance as possible and bank calories.  The further ahead you know an event or outing is taking place, the further ahead you can plan to bank calories for the extra calories that you maybe consuming. For a party or social gathering, that may be about 500-700 more calories than usual. You have some choices:
   • You can get an intense exercise session in or a few less intense ones before the event. A spin class can burn 500 calories. That is a big glass of wine and a dessert right there!
   • You can shave 100 calories off your calorie budget Monday through Friday and have a 500 calorie credit to play with over the weekend.  I have practiced this tool for years and love it!
   • Sometimes I work both a and b together in a week. This is great for those weekends when you are being a party animal on both Friday and Saturday—TGIF &S!
2. Decide if you are releasing or maintaining. Sometimes if it’s a holiday week, or a super social week like a wedding or graduation, it helps to just get real with yourself and say, “Hey, I want to not have to be focused on weight release this week, let me just maintain. Be sure that you are clear on your maintenance calories though, that helps a lot. If you are not clear, multiply your current weight by 11 and that will be pretty close to your daily sedentary calories your body burns without exercise.
   
   Making the decision to maintain allows you to loosen your grip, have those extras and not gain weight. How cool is that? We don’t need to release every week. Sometimes it helps to take a break from the week to week weight release.
3. Look for bargains! We don’t have to overeat every time we hang out with others. There is something in our brain that wants to celebrate when we are in a crowd - it is the caveman within. But we can curb the cavewoman and get rational before heading out. Asking ourselves a few key questions can save a lot of calories and unneeded pounds.
   • Do I even need to eat at the event? If it’s going to be little bites that add up to a lot of calories but an empty feeling, maybe it’s better to eat ahead of time and just focus on the social interaction.
   • Can I just eat as many calories as I would have at home for this meal? This is a great question to ask, especially when eating out dinner and it’s not a special restaurant.  Too often we go into celebration mode even if it’s grabbing a quick bite. Often, we can get a meal that is about the same amount of calories if we are savvy-
     think this through!
   • Can I bring something light to the event and share? This way you know you have a low cal and healthy option and can keep things light.
   • Can I share a meal? This is a great choice for restaurants, especially when you know you are getting served the equivalent of 4 servings anyways!

As with any budget, if you take the time to plan ahead and think things through, you will find that almost anything is possible. Try it out this week. Do you have any social functions going on? Give yourself the chance to try-out your new social budget savvy!