“Everybody’s working for the weekend” – so goes the 1981 hit by Loverboy. And it’s so true. No matter what you do for a living – whether you love your job or hate it – the weekend looms ahead joyously. It’s the one thing we can focus on when everything else is falling apart. It’s our idealized oasis, our Holy Grail of release from the mundane nature of our job, the real world… and our diet…

It’s called the weekend weakness – those 48 hours of celebrating freedom from the cubicle, the counter or the classroom are also the 48 hours that can be most damaging to a diet or overall fitness plan. You’ve worked hard all week, you deserve a break. However true the statement is, it can be taken to excess and, in just two uninhibited days, undo five days of religious gym time.

Fortunately, there’s a way to have your cake and eat it too. Because, after all what fun would it be to have cake and not eat it?

Here are some useful (and practical) tips to help you enjoy your weekend and even treat yourself without forsaking your fitness and diet goals in the process.

Give yourself what you really want (within reason). If you’re craving pizza or ice cream, it’s OK to cave in as long as you do it intelligently and reasonably. Downing a large pizza all by your lonesome or slurping your way through an entire carton of ice cream are definitely going to throw off your diet progress. But a slice of vegetarian pizza or a cup of low-fat ice cream can be perfectly fine ways to reward yourself. They may add 400 to 500 more calories to your daily intake, but it’s better than the alternative: listless snacking. You know the routine: you’re craving something (pizza let’s say) but you don’t want to give in, so you try to satiate that desire with one snack at maybe 100 calories or so, but that doesn’t satisfy the craving, so you try something else… and then something else. Before you know it, you’ve added all the extra calories (or more) that the one slice of pizza would have been, but still haven’t satisfied the craving or really given yourself the treat you were looking for.

A related hint is to refrain from being so strict with your food intake during the week that you need a respite on the weekend. A more balanced approach through all seven days may keep you from craving those tabu foods over the weekend.

If you drink, make wise choices. Most experts recommend limiting yourself to one drink a day, but don’t save up your whole week’s quota for the weekend. That many excess calories can derail your diet worse than that pizza we talked about. And when you do pour yourself a drink, think wine instead of mixed drinks – it’s lower in calories and has some additional health benefits besides.

Another strategy is to set aside an hour on the weekend for some additional physical activity. But instead of running on the treadmill or riding the stationary bike like you do during the week, go for a long walk or a hike. Make it fun. Make it recreational. Not only will it help to burn extra calories, but it can also help break up the routine of your week. After all you work hard, you deserve a break.

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