How Stop Making Excuses for Poor Lifestyle Choices
You can do what you need to or you can keep making excuses, but you can’t do both.
Person ‘X’ (anon, but a real story) in their early forties, is two stone overweight, separated from partner with two young children in primary school, has a history of minor back injuries, owns no workout clothing or equipment, is in a massive amount of dept. She works two jobs and often gets no more than 5 hours sleep.
No supplements were involved, no surgery, so salon treatments, and no gadgets of any kind.
Using simple food choices and ‘moving’ in the right way resulted in all but ½ a stone coming off in 6 months, which has stayed off, and what’s more, this person has almost saved the final amount of money needed to embark on a personal training course and start a new career helping others achieve their fitness, heath and weight goals.
Now tell me again why you can’t do it?
You have choices.
You have, with the right knowledge, the power to make decisions.
Raining outside? Workout inside using an online programme or DVD.
Eating at a restaurant? Choose simple food, making sensible choices, and don’t finish it all if portions are large.
No time? Wrong priorities – make time by not doing something else that’s not so important, like watching TV or doing the washing up right this minute. Or get up 30 minutes earlier and do it before breakfast.
Hungry on the go? Pre plan – take healthy snacks with you always, out of habit.
Forgotten to take food with you? Please don’t tell me the only thing available was junk, that’s a lie – your local corner shop sells more than you think. Or stock up on portable healthier snacks and meals.
No access to a gym or workout equipment? You don’t need it; use your body weight and the sofa/chair/table, bottles of water/cans of beans.
No peer support? Not needed. If you want it, find an online forum or free support network.
Tired? Sleep more. Do your workout anyway and you’ll sleep better that night too. Have a coffee 15 minutes prior to exercising if it gets you through, but do the workout.
Make a note of your barriers, then get over them.
Can’t resist biscuits when they’re in the house but the rest of the family like to eat them?
I dislike the theory that you shouldn’t have ‘naughty’ foods in the house. How will you ever learn to resist them if you are never faced with that challenge? Will power is like a muscle – it can be exercised and strengthened. Focus on your goals (weight loss, fat loss, increased health) and think about whether that biscuit is going to push you further towards or away from your goals.
Don’t want to waste leftover food?
Neither do I, not a mouthful. Eat leftovers as snacks, or the next day, or freeze them, or mix and match them with other leftovers to create a meal, or make something new out of them. You are not a human dustbin and do not have to put every scrap in your mouth.
Don’t want to spend long shopping for and cooking food?
You don’t’ have to. In fact some simple healthy, fat loss meals are easier than many things most people cook. You can’t get more convenient than tinned tuna and salad or an omelette. Ok so they’re not the most adventurous of meals but you can easily bulk cook then freeze portions, and just heat one of your ‘ready meals’ up when you need one.
Motivation Making
If you wait to be motivated, you might never get going. Motivation often comes later, as a result of seeing positive progress. Start, keep going, and feel motivated later. Motivation isn’t a little person on your shoulder ordering you around. You can choose to work out and eat well, whether you feel like it or not.
Read this afterwards too: Fallen off the Wagon? 7 Tips to get back on the Diet
Is your glass half full or half empty?
If you are perpetually positive, you will ignore when real negatives need addressing. If you are perpetually negative, you will never see the potential in a situation. Negativity is fine; it’s observation of facts about things that are not right. The trick is to turn this into a positive by learning from the negatives and changing them, so that they then deliver positive results.
Are you on the right programme?
The correct exercise and nutrition programme does two things. It’s the one you can stick to indefinitely, but is easily adaptable to your changing needs. And it is the one that delivers you the results you want. Those results don’t have to come overnight, in fact small, long term changes can be more effective in that there is less risk of injury, and negative hormonal and metabolic adaptations that your body might do in rebellion to a drastic lifestyle change. That being said, ‘it’s not working for me’ can be just another excuse to stop you from doing anything towards your fitness or weight loss goals.
Can you be too good?
When I say good I don’t actually mean good, just to confuse you. What I mean is can you over-train and under eat in your pursuit of fitness or weight loss? Of course you can, and consequences can include injuries, water retention, metabolic adaptation (a slowed metabolism), poor immunity, problems regulating insulin and appetite hormones, stress and depression, reproductive problems and even stalled weight loss and fatloss. You can have too much of a good thing.
If it is important to you, find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.
Need some accountability and someone to give you a kick up the backside every time you start justifying poor choices?
Find out more about my coaching programmes Here and I’ll keep you accountable so you don’t fall off track.