While we might think twice about opening a bag of chips during the week, the same cannot be said for the weekends. In fact, from Friday through Sunday, we tend to relax our rules on takeout, healthy eating, and binge eating. This can have damaging effects on our bodies.
A 2015 study published in Cell Metabolism called this “metabolic jet lag” — referring to the jet-lag-like effects we feel from eating out of routine during the weekends. According to the lead author of the study, Shubhroz Gill, we not only eat later meals on the weekends, but we also eat for longer lengths of time. “[People start eating] two or three hours later. Then they [continue eating] until midnight or 1 a.m., because they typically stay up longer on a Friday or Saturday night,” explained Gill (via Women’s Health). Excessive calorie intake and eating unhealthy foods like sugary treats and highly processed snacks are linked with obesity, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. “[Processed food] bothers our tissues. It bothers our hearts. It bothers our arteries, our brains, our pancreas, our liver and our lungs. And that leads to disease,” explained Dr. Stephen Kopecky, a preventive cardiologist at Mayo Clinic.
Also, binge drinking on weekends may seem harmless, but experts think otherwise. While most of us might limit alcohol during the week in the hopes of knocking back more than a few beers when Saturday finally comes, this is probably not the best for your body. Too much alcohol not only means nasty hangovers. It affects your overall health and the quality of your relationships, per the Alcohol Rehab Guide.