How “Clean Eating” Leads to Weekend Binges

I had an email from a reader who said he kept losing control on the weekends. I want to share my response here, but I'll add some commentary that wasn't included in my reply. This is a new style I want to try. Let me know what you think.

Q) Hi Andy! I'm losing control every time the weekend comes around. On weekdays, I eat clean and work out, but when the weekend comes, I completely mess up. I tend to eat sweets and savoury foods, but my favorite is plain bread with butter topped with honey or something like that.

I know my week's progress isn’t completely ruined after that, but it feels like it. I lack consistency. Do you have any advice?

A) I don't know you and your situation well enough to say anything with certainty, but I will guess the problem:

To you, "eating clean" means avoiding anything sweet, particularly carbs. You're sweet food/carb-starved by the weekend, when you are at home more, with more free time, and know that honey is just a few steps away in the cupboard. Cravings + boredom + easy access = a delicious bread-and-honey snack.

(Clean eating is pushed hard by a subset of well-meaning fitness influencers incapable of speaking with any nuance. It washed over the fitness industry in the early-to-mid 2010s but still lingers like a nasty slug trail, and it's common for people to ask questions with unspoken fears and hangups around certain foods and food groups. Coaching clients tend to be further along in their fitness journey and more savvy to nonsense, but the email list is free, and I get questions from everyone.)

You start to feel guilty and jump on the scale later that day, the morning after, and the morning after that. The scale is up, and it's stayed there. Fuck. You've done it again.

(If I were king for a day, I'd decree "WEIGHT FLUCTUATIONS DO NOT EQUAL BODY FAT CHANGES" be printed on all bathroom scales.)

Some might say, "Keep the honey out of the house!" However, while managing your food environment is important for adherence, this would only be a band-aid solution. The real issues are:

Bad ideas around carbs and "clean eating" lead you to put unnecessary restrictions on your diet, compromising diet adherence. (If unchecked, this could lead to binge-starve cycles.)
A lack of knowledge about weight fluctuations, particularly how carbs affect them.

Let's tackle these one by one.

1) The truth about "clean eating"

There isn't anything "unclean" about honey and bread. Yes, honey is sugar, quite calorie-dense, and easy to overeat, so you need to be careful about the total quantity. However, we need carbohydrates to fuel our workouts, so it's a mistake to try to avoid them.

I'll quote from our Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Nutrition book:

There are very few, if any, foods that are actively unhealthy for you. Truly, there are no foods that, if eaten once, regardless of quantity, immediately and measurably harm your body. The only plausible negative connotation associated with, say, a Twinkie, a Pop Tart, and other foods commonly labeled as “bad” is that they are relatively devoid of micronutrients, fiber, and protein.

Some people refer to these foods as “empty calories”, which is probably a slightly fairer description than simply labeling them as “bad”. This term means that while these foods contribute to your calorie (Level 1 of The Pyramid) and macronutrient counts (Level 2 of The Pyramid), they won’t do much to satisfy your micronutrient requirements (Level 3 of The Pyramid).

While this description is relatively accurate, it doesn’t mean these foods should be villainized and completely avoided. The main thing to be aware of is that “empty calorie” foods can only cause issues if they completely dominate your diet. It’s not that we need to remove them entirely; it’s that we need to make sure that we have included the “healthy foods” first to ensure our bodies are nourished and taken care of. After that, feel free to have the “bad foods” (which really aren’t bad at all) in moderation, as this will improve your flexibility and, therefore, your consistency.

By allowing yourself to diet while consuming a wider range of foods that might include “treats” in moderation, you will feel more normal, have more flexibility, less restriction, and ultimately more long-term adherence and success. This is the reason that the seemingly normal approach of eating “good vs bad food” or “clean vs dirty food” can potentially cause problems.

2. Carbs and weight fluctuations

Consider this: bodybuilders, who win or lose based on how jacked and shredded they are on stage, literally suck down crackers covered with honey before a show to look more pumped.

This is called "carbing up," and it pulls water into the muscles. Why would the body do that? Carbs are bound to water and stored in the muscles as a fuel called glycogen.

So, if you starve yourself of carbs and then have a bunch of them, your weight is going to fall and then rise. This is not linked to fat loss or gain.

Solutions:

Nix the "clean vs. dirty" dichotomy and embrace a more "inclusive" mindset about foods. Prioritize the "good" stuff and allow yourself bread and honey in moderation (to the extent that it fits your calorie budget) more often.
Ignore short-term weight fluctuations and assess your progress over longer time scales. To do that, you'll need to weigh yourself each day. Do it at the same time of day, then note the average at the end of each week, and then look at the trend over four weeks. You'll get used to the fluctuations. If you want to minimize them, keep your carb intake at similar daily levels.

Of course, these are my best guesses since I don’t know your exact situation. But let me know if this resonates. 💪

(There is one more thing worth mentioning — this person's focus on clean eating is likely restricting calories too heavily, exacerbating hunger, and leading to a binge-starve cycle. I chose not to mention it because I didn't want to overwhelm them — solving the "clean eating" issue first while gently referencing "calorie budget" is likely their best path forward.

However, if you struggle on the weekends, you might consider increasing your calorie budget. A simple 200-250 kcal bump can often be enough. This will improve adherence. Improved adherence will lead to "cleaner data," and you'll then be able to see the rate of weight loss and fine-tune your calorie intake from there. Here's my guide on how to do that.)

Thank you for reading. Let me know if you like this "added commentary" email style and want me to continue it. 💪

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