Are you a weekend health nut?
Can you make up for a week of unhealthy living by exercising at the weekend? Yes - but it might not be a good idea.
|||London - Stephanie Goldstone would be the first to admit she doesn’t have the healthiest lifestyle.
During the week, the 52-year-old company director and mother of two can hardly find the time to sit down for a meal, so she snacks on-the-go.
“Breakfast is a cereal bar, then I’ll miss lunch and have a chocolate bar instead in the late afternoon,” says Stephanie, who lives in Cheshire.
“I’ll often socialise with friends at fancy cocktail bars during the week as an antidote to working hard, and that’s when I’ll enjoy several drinks a night. My work, a property relocation service, is very sociable, too. When we’ve finished moving a client in, we leave a bottle of champagne. They always want to open it straight away and insist we join them. Then I might be meeting lawyers or clients over drinks or dinner.”
But rather than curb her excess, have the odd early night or simply prioritise healthy food, Stephanie has hit on a solution many time-poor career women are turning to: a punishing routine of cramming a week’s worth of exercise and healthy living into two days.
Thanks to the popularity of regimes such as the Fast Diet, where you fast for two days then eat normally for the rest of the week, women are applying this principle to their entire lives - often using it as an excuse for bad behaviour.
For Stephanie, that means imposing an alcohol and carbohydrate-free regime at the weekend.
“The only thing that allows me to binge during the week is knowing I’ll work it off at the weekend,” she says.
“I know I would look better if I dropped half a stone (about 3kg), and weekends offer the only chance I have to lose it, so I go at it with a vengeance.”
This means getting up at 6.15am to walk for an hour and running 5km in the afternoon.
After that, she goes to the gym for a gruelling workout with weights.
“My family think I am over the top in the way I run my life. But this isn’t fad dieting, it’s about working to fit it all in.
“Of course, all this exercise and lack of carbohydrates does mean I’m exhausted at the weekend, but I sleep better and I suppose that is my way of catching up,” she says.
“I know it’s probably not the healthiest way to live, but at the moment it feels like I can manage life this way. Thinking about what I eat or drink during the week is the last thing on my mind.”
But can these ferocious bursts of activity really offset the rest of the week? Unfortunately, it seems pushing the body too far, too fast can backfire.
A recent Australian study found this kind of extreme exercise may trigger blood poisoning in people who haven’t trained properly, by causing intestinal bacteria to leak into the bloodstream.
And it gets worse. While regular workouts reduce a person’s overall risk of a cardiac arrest, a bout of exercise after a couple of sedentary days increases your risk of a heart attack at that moment, according to research by Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
The problem for people who only exercise at the weekend, then do it too energetically, is that their heart is running at maximum capacity, explains Dr John Dearing, a sports injury surgeon at the Carrick Glen Hospital in Ayr.
“This means their heart struggles to pump enough blood around the body. They have a lack of cardiac reserve - the difference between the rate the heart usually pumps and its maximum capacity to pump blood around the body.
“Blood pressure rises to compensate for this. So if there is some residual damage, such as furring of the arteries. This can lead to clots that could cause a heart attack.”
It’s also surprisingly ineffective. “Exercise has a psychological effect on what and how much we eat,” obesity expert Zoe Harcombe says.
“When we exercise, we think we deserve a reward. But all too often, the treat people reward themselves with is out of proportion to the amount of exercise people have done - even if they do a lot at the weekend.
“Women think that if they burn 150 calories on a run, they can eat 150 calories. But what you’re actually burning off is the difference between that and the calories you’d use if you were just going about your daily activities.
“The majority of our calorie intake is there to keep us alive - used up on breathing, heating our bodies or running our hormonal systems.”
Helen Bond, of the British Dietetic Association, says: “You can’t knock back some health-food drink and a handful of fresh vegetables at the weekends and think that will see you through the rest of the week.
“For example, we need water-soluble vitamins such as C and B on a daily basis - and they are also far better absorbed with food. So it’s unhealthy to take an all-or-nothing approach.”
That hasn’t stopped Amanda McAlister. As the head of family law at Slater & Gordon, the 42-year-old mother of two has a frantic schedule overseeing 46 staff, and regularly works 60-hour weeks.
She doesn’t use her weekends to recharge, but instead spends them trying to fit in a week’s exercise.
This includes a 5km run on Saturdays and Sundays, followed by an hour at the gym, then another hour at home exercising using kettlebell weights.
She’s also likely to play tennis with her husband, go for a 20-length swim and take her children - aged six and two - out on their bikes.
She has even taken part in the Tough Mudder competition - a 12-mile obstacle race designed by British Special Forces.
Little wonder she can hardly get through Monday mornings without endless caffeine boosts.
Yet she says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“On weekdays, I simply have no time for anything other than work and spending a little time with my children when I get home,” says Amanda, who also lives in Cheshire. ‘But keeping fit is vital - not only for my body, but for my mind, too.
‘So even though I could just let it all go at the weekends, I want to rein in some control. Not only by doing some exercise, but with what I eat. After a week of skipping meals and grabbing bars of chocolate on-the-go, I want to think about what’s on my plate.
“In the office there are always barrels of biscuits or tubs of Quality Street. I can’t resist that. Especially if I’ve missed lunch. I also get home too late to eat properly.
“My mom collects my children and while they have a proper, home-cooked meal, I might just grab some buttery toast. I know it’s not ideal, and I don’t like my weekday diet or the way I cram exercise into the weekend, but it’s all about balancing what you can manage - and this seems to be the best way for it to work for me.”
But exercising like this can cause painful localised problems.
“Undoubtedly, there is a physical fall out,” says Tim Allardyce, a Surrey-based chartered physiotherapist and osteopath.
“In our clinics we’re seeing increasing numbers of middle-aged women who come in for physiotherapy treatment following over-exercising at the weekends.
“The most common complaint we see from over-intensive runners is Achilles tendinopathy, which is a tendon injury in the ankle. Other common injuries are hamstring strains, patellofemoral pain syndrome (pain at the front of the knee), and calf strains.
“Achilles tendinopathy is particularly bad due to its chronic nature, and it can take three to six months to recover.”
But dentist Ilana Pine, a divorced mother of four from Manchester, says she simply doesn’t have the time to spread her exercise regime across an entire week.
“For women like myself, there isn’t the time, energy or choice to exercise any other way,” explains the 41-year-old.
“I leave the house at 8.3 am and after a full day at work, I need to be at home for my kids. I don’t have any domestic help, so there’s cleaning and tidying to do.
“In addition, in my line of work, I’m totally focused on my patients all day long, which is mentally draining. So when that’s all done, I just want to flake out in front of the TV with a large glass of wine and a bowl of popcorn.
“I’m so anti-exercise during the week that I use my car for everything. Even for running an errand which might be a five-minute walk away. Exercise simply doesn’t happen for me then. My mind and body can’t handle it.”
To compensate, Ilana will cycle two 15km bike rides, and do two or three 5km runs at the weekend. She also does yoga sessions in the afternoons.
“I always feel great afterwards - I try to remember that feeling as a reminder during the week, when the furthest I walk is to my car.”
So what should these time-poor women do instead?
Professor Hugh Montgomery, director of University College London’s Institute of Human Health and Performance, says: “If time is an issue, try fitting in a brisk walk at lunchtime or straight after work. Use the stairs, get off the bus a couple of stops early.
“All of these things will help. Just two extra 20-minute bouts of exercise a week should help improve general fitness without having to cram it all in.”
Eating healthily is now much easier given the diversity of good food in the supermarket.
Start consciously putting low-salt, low-sugar items in your shopping basket and you’ll naturally find yourself snacking on those.
But Amanda McAlister says those life changes are a pipe dream: “I love exercise and want to stay in shape.
“But with me it’s all or nothing, and I’d rather do it all than nothing at all.”
Daily Mail