What are your excuses?

I have spent the last 8 years of my life excusing myself out of a healthy body and into 240lbs. The sad part is I never realized it.

It's just not ok to say yeah I'm a bit overweight but I'll do something about it. Plus, I am not that fat, really! Knowing that you're overweight and actually acknowledging it are so vastly different.

My biggest excuse used to be .... I'll start it tomorrow! lol (I guess I never listened to the old adage - tomorrow never comes)

When proposed with joining a gym I told myself that it was too far from my apartment and I needed one closer. Yet, I have no problems driving 15-20 extra miles to go eat at my favorite Mexican or Thai restaurant. See a pattern here? :p

Since I am so good at excuses - I have decided if I can excuse myself out of it, I can definitely find a way to excuse myself right back in! I also made myself start my healthy routine on a Monday meaning my weigh-ins will be Mondays.

There are several days that I really don't want to workout ... I just think to myself, once I hop on the treadmill before I know it the workout will be over. If I can sit on my butt and watch 30 mins of a sitcom. I can just as easily hop on the treadmill for 30 mins and watch that sitcom.

What are your excuses?

i did the "i'm not that big" long enough to get to 167 (about 40 pounds heavier than my mid-20s weight).  i put in a few half-assed attempts to change, but it wasn't until i took a health psychology class that i started to make real efforts.  the major assignment in the class was a "personal health project" - kind of an experiment.  i didn't focus on weight in my project: instead, i took up a begin-to-run program and i tracked several variables: sleep, appetite, productivity...there may have been more - i can't remember. 

not surprisingly, the experiment worked.  i lost a little weight; i felt a lot better.  i've gradually lost enough to be well within the "normal" range, but i still have my off days.

my most potent excuse now is mud.  my exercise plan mostly consists of walking, hiking, and running in the woods with my dog, but the ground here is an incredibly dense clay, and it seems to hold the moisture forever.  the mud is sticky and slippery at the same time, and it just isn't fun.  it's really hard to convince myself to go out after a wet day or two. 

but the dog - she doesn't take no for an answer ;)

"Well, I'm not as fat as *that* person." This is especially effective when in water parks. It makes me feel better about my weight, to the point where I'm simply complacent.

Also, I got a school with a 90% male population, 10% female. With those odds, it doesn't really matter what you look like. Well, I'm about to go out into the real world in a year, where people do care about how you look. =/ Sucks.

And the "I have a boyfriend" excuse is probably the best of all. Nothing like complacency....

I use the weather. Right now all is well, but it's going to be tough for wild horses to drive me out of the house for a walk come wintertime when "It's too cold!" or July when "It's too hot!" [ insert whiny tone for each quoted excuse.]

Like Pgeorgian, my dog's enthusiasm is unaffected by the weather. He is very much uninterested in my excuses.

It's always too something- whether I'm too tired, too busy, or the weather's too hot, too rainy...

Cause I'll just do it later.  Or tommorrow.  Or over the weekend...

Best thing for me to do is to just do it before I ca think about it.  :)

i completely agree with all of you! there are just too many excuses for us to find. its just a matter of giving in to them or not.

Yep, I still make excuses on occasion but not enough to derail me anymore. Let's see..."I don't look too bad..." "I splurge one more time and start my diet FRESH..." "Running is too hard..." goes on and on really.

Finally, I was talking to one of my best friends from high school about how fat I've gotten, she's gained weight too, although she has the excuse of having had a baby! She mentioned our upcoming high school reunion, which I wasn't planning on going to. Well, she's making me and I just had the horrifying thought that I didn't want to be "the girl that got fat." Sounds a bit shallow, but my high school years weren't so fabulous and I was very insecure about myself and my body, I got over that in college, but those insecurities are back now that I've gained weight. I don't want to feel that way anymore.

I have trouble with the "all or nothing" mentality.  If I mess up at breakfast, then lunch I might go, "whatever, I already ate waffles at breakfast, I may as well eat this soft pretzel with a cup of cheese sauce for lunch."

"Too tired" gets me sometimes.. I'll go "My body needs a break!" Who knows, maybe sometimes it really does.

Oh and the hardest is when food is FREE.  Especially at the workplace.  I'll be like, well.. I could eat my lunch that I packed (always something healthy), or I could save that for tomorrow and eat the Moe's mexican taco bar that my work paid for, and eat my lunch tomorrow.. I mean, I'm saving money!

LOL.

my excuse is always: well, eating just this one thing won't matter. i don't want to deprive myself! hellooooo - a little deprivation is not a bad thing! haha.

something i noticed about working out, about 60% of the time, i don't feel like going over to the gym and working out... but once i'm finished my work out, 100% of the time, i feel great and i'm glad i did it. so try to remember that next time you're stalling on working out. it helps me everytime :)