I happen to enjoy cooking, so I put effort into making meals on the weekends and I make enough to be able to eat them as leftovers midweek. Lots of meals taste better after a night or two in the fridge.

Make your own junk food that isn’t actually junk, like, I make a bunch of bean burritos and freeze them, or fill an ice cube tray with pasta sauce and pop out and nuke the cubes to add to some pasta.

I used to have this issue, but I solved it with meditation (sort of). This does sound extreme, but it worked for me - even though I was going to the gym every single weekday, I still felt like shit most of the time because of the junk food eating habit I had on the weekends (like you) and I decided enough was enough. Whenever I felt the urge to eat junkfood, I simply meditated. The first few weekends it was really fucking weird… in my mind I was thinking “I’m hungry, why am the fuck am I meditating…”, but after a while my desire to eat junkfood really just plummeted, aswell as an overall increase in energy allowing me to cook something better.

This was honestly really extreme and I do not know how I actually pulled it off without ‘relapsing’. It is not necessary, and I only recommend it if it’s a serious issue for you, which it was for me (and judging by your explanation, it is not a big issue).

Another method I used is what TMPM calls snack city (youtube video) where it’s healthy junkfood. So muffin bites, fries, chicken, etc, all pre-cooked on a single day, then stored in a freezer with easy heatups via a microwave, oven or airfryer, with low-calorie and high-protein focus.

tl;dr I meditated like crazy and stalled my junk food addiction. Easy way to replace junkfood is with ‘healthy’ junkfood -> video - easy and fast meal prep that will last you more than a day. Well worth it.

To me this sounds like the preparation you do during the week maybe is a bit tiring or boring or both, so that even if you like the food you cook, the process is a chore. I’d include grocery shopping in “the process”.

If true, then you are amazing to keep on top of everything during the week, but it may provide some clues for arranging your weekend food into something you’re happier with.

Maybe you need simpler, faster recipes for the weekdays so you’re less fed up with cooking by the weekend? Maybe you need things which are more fun to cook, or which have more pleasurable sensory aspects, both in the preparation and in the eating? Maybe you could make some extra food during the week, that you can reheat or just turf onto a plate at the weekends?

Is it possible you are too strict during the week? Or that you’re not really getting enough calories over the week? What happens if you are more relaxed about how healthy your weekday meals are? What happens if you have small amounts of junky stuff during the week?

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count your calories and you can eat what you want

There’s a diet out there focused around eating one meal a day as form of intermittent fasting and that’s typically what I do on weekends.

Though honestly it has a lot to do with me absolutely wrecking my sleep schedule on weekends and sleeping in.

Practicing intuitive eating repaired my relationship with food after 8 years of (maybe disordered) keto dieting. Then, I had to challenge body image issues—ongoing—but I feel so much better in my body and my relationship to food and movement than when I strictly dieted and exercised.

My wife and I meal prep M-F as well. We solved the weekend problem by ordering children portions or splitting a single adult order. The portion sizes served adults are far too large. When going to a sit down restaurant, we usually leave with leftovers.

I do the same thing… but on purpose. M-F is my healthy meal prep, and the weekend is when I go wild and allow myself to eat out a lot and get whatever I’d like. It’s like a treat for making it through the week.

I’m thinking of cutting back on my weekend eating out tho (cost reasons), so I might need to start prepping something a little different for the weekend to keep myself in check.

I try to set a time in which I can’t eat junk food until. Start with after lunch say 1pm and then try to extend that each day / weekend. I find having rules that I can judge myself on is better than goals when it comes to junk food.

I don’t know what eating like a little piggy means in your situation, but in mine, that meant going upwards of 5000 kcal surplus than my normal intake. Still mostly from healthy food (like nuts, I am addicted to nuts XD). Which I never really obsessed about, since I tend to use great amounts of energy some days of the week (cycling alone can go upwards of 3000 kcal some days). I really don’t like diets either. All I 've ever done, and still do, is try to understand what is good for me, why and in which amounts. I find food (all aspects of it, even having pots with the herbs I use most often when cooking) one of the greatest joys of life, along with movement (simple stuff, walking, running, cycling, swimming). And while I find their relation fascinating and I experiment a lot (been on keto for a year or so), I prefer joy and understanding being the guiding forces, not simple discipline and blindly following rules I don’t completely understand towards goals I don’t really care about.

There are a few things I 've learnt over the years that are pretty easy for me to follow, especially since I 've seen how badly they affect my mood when I don’t.

• Super processed foods are not worth it (i.e. energy drinks).
• Processed foods cannot be a foundation for health, but won’t harm me once in a while (i.e. flour products).
• I don’t eat sugar. But I don’t obsess about it either. i.e. prefer water melon to ice cream, but I get the latter a few times in the summer.
• Some carb sources can be very dense in nutrients (i.e. oats & legumes), don’t mess my insulin levels, so they make a good foundation as a carb source. They are also cheap, easy to prepare, and there are so many of them.
• Super easy (takes less 1 minute to prepare), super dense in nutrients daily breakfast with oats, nuts, seeds, cocoa, cinnamon, raisins. It’s packed with things I won’t need to care about later in the day (i.e. magnesium).
• No supplements (part of the “eat real food” axiom).

Even though I can handle carbs well (mostly thanks to decades in different sports and a pretty active life), I like to think that respecting the metabolic pathway our body uses to metabolize them will allow me to keep using it without issues later in life. Besides just feeling better when I do (no cravings, no crashes, no insulin related side-effects).

Overall I have a pretty good sense of what each food I eat contains (in every sense you can think of, macros/micros/phytochemicals/lipid types/amino-acid profiles/energy/water/fiber -its been almost 2 decades I look up every food I introduce) and do 2 simple things. Reloading glycogen stores (slowly) between days of long rides on the bike is ok. No bike or very diminished activity after a few days? Turn to foods that mostly contain fats (which also allow me to skip meals way easier) with fresh vegetables (limited carbs). Which is what I tend to do in weekends.

I enjoy cooking, or even preparing the materials I will cook beforehand. Got my own tofu, which I tend to make close to 3kg (really hard pressed, the way I like it) each time and lasts for a few months divided in portions, in the freezer. My own tempeh and seitan. All low (close to zero) carb/ low energy protein sources. These and eggs, are really easy to prepare in stir fries and can be really delicious.

Btw, I went from 96kg to 84 in 5ish months following the stuff I just wrote. Flat stomach isn’t something you lose or get with one meal, it takes bad habits to lose, and good habits to maintain. And I am not mentioning flat stomach as something related to the image of the body. I am mentioning it as an indicator of health. Having your vital organs take up the space they need to perform optimally, especially during movement, feels great.

Finally, if you read this far, don’t beat yourself up! It’s a learning process and it looks like you are doing fine. Don’t rush it either, habits take time to form, but can last a lifetime. The more you develop one good habit, the less effort it requires, freeing your focus to form the next one. Don’t try to change everything at once. And it shouldn’t feel bad, or else it’s not sustainable. Takes time, but it’s totally worth it!

It’s easiest to not eat junk by just not buying junk to begin with. I noticed I stopped eating TV dinners as often when I started taking them off my grocery list. That forces me to think about what I want to make. Might be as simple as whole wheat pasta for dinner with a smoothie (unflavored yogurt, milk, frozen berries, a banana, and spinach).

While I’ve certainly done it myself, I’ve noticed my SO tends to go to town on certain snacks like chips or Ritz over regular meals. This has helped me also realize that it would be beneficial to myself to also cut down on the amount of snacks foods I have. Going too far in the other direction (just having raw ingredients only) also incetivizes eating out though, so a balance must be struck.

Look into Soylent: powder food that you simply mix with water. I pretty much only use my stove to keep my coffee warm these days.

I just always eat easy to prepare stuff that satisfies me more than junk food does anyways, the idea that junk food is somehow better feels like astroturfing from mcdonalds to me.

Why not just prepare meals for the weekend too?