Are there any excuses?
Replies
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NorthCascades wrote: »The critical aspect is how you deal with ignorance. Do you learn, adapt, change, and overcome? If not, why not?
There's a great deal of misinformation out there. People can try to educate themselves and wind up addicted to sugar and needing to do a one footed keto detox while listening to hippies signing about the devil's gluten.
I agree and truth is a tremendous threat to those providing the misinformation. The diet industry would take a serious hit if people simply ate less and moved more.
It is very challenging to find truth. It is relatively easy to find what is not true however.
The allure of quick and easy will often override slow and disciplined.2 -
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I think we all have "excuses". I think for me mine has always been mental. I have always been petite and curvy and no matter what I did the weight would not come off, then I got to a point where I wasn't eating at all and hiding it from my family. I got married and "settled" into married life and gained the majority of my weight there and got to a point within myself that I gave up on life and myself due to being in a horrible marriage. Life will always happen and we have a choice of wanting to stay stagnant, feel miserable or wanting to make a change. I want to live my best life and enjoy it.2
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This is my line of thinking as well. Some people need to get over their excuses. Others just need to admit that it's not important enough to them at that particular moment... and that's fine.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Not so much excuses, but there can be many reasons why someone chooses not to make focusing on their weight a priority.
<snip>
It becomes my business only if and when they come whining on the forums about it.
Sometimes you have to prioritize your priorities.
That's a great expression!GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Not my circus, not my monkeys.
As for me personally... I've always had pretty good luck making progress when I stick to what I know I'm supposed to be doing. And when I'm not, it's pretty obvious I'm not, so there aren't really any excuses for me to hide behind. I've said, "eff it, I don't care" for months at a time, but I've never really blamed my lack of progress or growing waistline on some external factor. Sure, there are things in my life or about my environment that make it harder for me... but everyone has those. They may be different person to person, but we all have challenges to overcome. But those challenges aren't excuses. They are life. Welcome to adulthood.
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NorthCascades wrote: »The critical aspect is how you deal with ignorance. Do you learn, adapt, change, and overcome? If not, why not?
There's a great deal of misinformation out there. People can try to educate themselves and wind up addicted to sugar and needing to do a one footed keto detox while listening to hippies signing about the devil's gluten.
I agree and truth is a tremendous threat to those providing the misinformation. The diet industry would take a serious hit if people simply ate less and moved more.
It is very challenging to find truth. It is relatively easy to find what is not true however.
The allure of quick and easy will often override slow and disciplined.
I think this is part of the key issue with the preponderance and perpetuation of misinformation. It feeds into what people want to believe.
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So for me the difference between a reason and an excuse is that an excuse is something you use to hold you back, but a reason is a problem you need to figure out how to solve or work around.
In my case, the excuse was that I was always too tired to work out, the family is too picky too eat healthy, I can't afford/don't have the time to eat well.
Turns out the reason was that fibro and a sleep disorder, on top of ADD and depression caused me to be in pain most of the time, and exhausted all the time. But since mostly of my Dr.s were too busy telling me I was fat and lazy instead of helping me figure out WHY I was having so much trouble, I had pretty much given up on myself.
It was only after my husband kept nagging me to try different Dr.s and I insisted on and fought for being referred to neurologist and BEGGED for Provogil (which had worked well years ago, but due to insurance was canceled) that I realized HOW MUCH everything else was affected. A few days after I startwd Provovil in the morning and 5htp at night, it was like I was suddenly removed from all the layeres of blankets and fog thathad been holding me down. A few days later I started bring able to take my eating seriously, and was even able ti do things like work, AND cook dinner, AND clean the kitchen ON THE SAME DAY.
Of course now that I know that's the reason, I have the choice to fix it by taking meds and staying educated, or I can let it be an excuse to hold me back. "Not my fault, I'm sick". Knowing that there are tools that I can actually accsess has made all the difference in helping me stop letting my reasons be excuses.13 -
The_Enginerd wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »The critical aspect is how you deal with ignorance. Do you learn, adapt, change, and overcome? If not, why not?
There's a great deal of misinformation out there. People can try to educate themselves and wind up addicted to sugar and needing to do a one footed keto detox while listening to hippies signing about the devil's gluten.
I agree and truth is a tremendous threat to those providing the misinformation. The diet industry would take a serious hit if people simply ate less and moved more.
It is very challenging to find truth. It is relatively easy to find what is not true however.
The allure of quick and easy will often override slow and disciplined.
I think this is part of the key issue with the preponderance and perpetuation of misinformation. It feeds into what people want to believe.
If I told you cutting your arm off would make you should and muscular, even if you believed me you wouldn't do it. But if I said people get fat because they don't eat enough and potato chips and iced cream are the answer to take you out of starvation mode, well, people already believe that.
And it's not even just weight loss. My brother died and I need money to get to his funeral, want to buy his Rolex for $50? People fall for things that are too good to be true.0 -
I think my issue is I except and want results faster than they come. I start losing weight and say that i "can't lose" but the truth is, I can't lose twenty pounds in a month and it overwhelms me and I give up because going slow sucks.
I've recently changed my mindset though. Instead of 8-10 pounds a month for 3-5 months, I've made my goal 3-4 lbs a month for 9-12 months (depending on how I feel as I approach goal. May not want to be as light as originally planned). It's easier to manage and gives me room to breathe and *kitten* up here and there LIKE A HUMAN BEING and not freak out on myself over it.5 -
my "excuse/reason" was always very simple, I didn't like myself enough to take care of myself, I still don't, though I try to convince myself that if I eat well and exercise- that is the bigger helper- I'll feel better over all.3
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I have been putting a lot of thought into my own journey lately.
I seem to always have to be in the process of out smarting myself. I never create forum threads about my own issues.. simply because I have been here long enough to know the consequences of all my own actions be it struggling with my eating disorder or not counting calories for days or weeks.. etc.
I am always trying to find a way to get out of the spinning in circles I keep doing. I just can never figure out if it's not working cause it doesn't work or if I'm just not trying hard enough to make it work. In the end my excuse is always just "me" .. regardless of its the binge eating disorder or emotional eating or just plain old not caring the excuse is just me. I know I'm strong enough to fight harder. I know I'm capable of losing weight. I just need to allow myself to do that again.3 -
"I'm not really fat, just thick and curvy" was the way I rationalized my weight gain. And to be honest, the only real thing that got me serious about losing weight was my age (38) and not wanting to slowly put weight on and get fat. I've lost 20 "vanity" pounds and I must say that "looking better" honestly supersedes the "health" aspect of my weight. Totally a mental thing in my own head.0
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"I'm not really fat, just thick and curvy" was the way I rationalized my weight gain. And to be honest, the only real thing that got me serious about losing weight was my age (38) and not wanting to slowly put weight on and get fat. I've lost 20 "vanity" pounds and I must say that "looking better" honestly supersedes the "health" aspect of my weight. Totally a mental thing in my own head.
Vanity pounds are a perfectly legitimate reason to lose weight
I think any reason is legitimate, as long as it's your reason and not something imposed on you from outside. Health and fitness, vanity, want to fit in the cute clothes again, all the reasons are equal in my mind. I hate posts that preach that "you should be losing weight for health reasons" when someone posts they want to rock a bikini on vacation. 3 -
Knowing what you know now, by cruising these forums and trying CICO for yourself, In the end, are there any excuses you will accept for someone who WANTS to lose weight, but just "can't"?
I've pretty much read them all on these forums from thyroid to injury, and for every excuse made I see about 10 responses of people who suffered the same or worse circumstance and still made it work.
That being said, let's lay it all out here. What's your excuse?
Mine have been in the past, depression, ignorance, bum ankle, sugar addiction, impoverished, asthma, history of obesity in my family, too much work, too much stress, just had a kid, just got married, it's the holidays, blah blah blah blah blaaaahhhhhh.
The only one I really accept about my past now is ignorance. I didn't realize how much I was eating and how poorly I was eating until I started plugging in my meals to MFP.
Even now in the holiday season I see myself slacking, forgetting to add, or giving in to the office snacks that seem to flow like Immortal Technique into the break room, but I know I'm struggling and I know how to fix it, and I'll be back on track come January. 45 pounds down, 45 to go!
I don't think I ever said I couldn't lose weight at all. I did lose weight many times following different diets. I did find it uncomfortable, difficult to lose consistantly and maintain my loss though. I got frustrated and hated myself because I did not know what I was doing wrong.
I guess ignorance is my excuse.
I was ignorant of how many calories I needed for my activity level. I was ignorant in believing that because I wasn't eating what I considered large quantities of food that I wasn't overeating. I overestimated my activity. I resisted logging food and counting calories for years. I thought that was too hard core or something. I was in denial about my size and actual physical condition. I felt pretty stupid after I started logging and losing regularly because it was so easy in comparison.6 -
Hmm.. I had thousands of excuses. I was never taught about calories and I guess I never bothered to look for real answers until I was actually ready. It took me a while to find MFP. Googling "losing weight" doesn't always come up with the best results, you get fads, and "quick fixes" but not a lot of people are talking about the true way, or shall I say, the way that doesn't make them any money.
If someone doesn't actually know about calories they're going to have tons of excuses. It's easy to blame weight gain on hormones or medication when you don't know how it actually works.
But if someone has all the tools then I can't really accept their excuse. Especially now. I'm the laziest person ever lol and I did it just fine.
I have a friend who is getting close to 300lbs that uses the excuse "I don't have the time", "it's too much work", etc even tho I have shown with my 79lb weight loss that it's possible and so so easy. I worry for her, she's my family. I'm not sure when it'll click for her. I have given her all the tools and now it's up to her but it's really hard to almost be at my goal and have her complain about her weight every time we see each other. Almost like she's mad at me.
Excuses are just that, excuses.1 -
"I'm not really fat, just thick and curvy" was the way I rationalized my weight gain. And to be honest, the only real thing that got me serious about losing weight was my age (38) and not wanting to slowly put weight on and get fat. I've lost 20 "vanity" pounds and I must say that "looking better" honestly supersedes the "health" aspect of my weight. Totally a mental thing in my own head.
I think a lot of that thinking is due to the constant need to say things like "Women are beautiful at every shape and size".. which is true, but i think it's context is lost. It's a common thing to treat bigger people like they are less then human. People of all sizes ARE beautiful in the sense that they should be treated the same as everyone else in the world. But i think people have taken it as it's fine to be over weight as long as i am healthy. Weight may not effect everyone right away but you could wake up tomorrow and that could change. Good health today as an over weight or obese person does not mean you are invincible or that that's who you are. It's not about the physical outer shell it's about the long term complications of that weight in the end. What good is being a beautiful person if you are shortening the time you can share being beautiful in this world.
There is also a lot of GIF images supporting such things like feeling beautiful but i also think most people take them entirely the wrong way.
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Knowing what you know now, by cruising these forums and trying CICO for yourself, In the end, are there any excuses you will accept for someone who WANTS to lose weight, but just "can't"?
I've pretty much read them all on these forums from thyroid to injury, and for every excuse made I see about 10 responses of people who suffered the same or worse circumstance and still made it work.
I have, absolutely, seen people making excuses for things that they can do.
But I'll be honest, I have a problem with the implication in how this question is phrased. If you assume that everyone can lose weight, no matter what, no matter the circumstance, then there is no such thing as a reason someone couldn't lose weight, only excuses.
And that attitude pretty much invalidates anyone who has legitimate problems that impact weight loss, whether due to health reasons, financial issues, lifestyle, or whatever. It presumes that because someone else had some similar circumstances in a few respects, that must mean everyone else should be able to do it, too. Basically, it makes the assumption that there is an absolute: everyone could lose weight if they really wanted to and really tried hard enough.
And hey, maybe that's even true, but only if you rephrase it to say 'everyone could lose weight if they were willing to sacrifice anything to do so, including their physical health, their mental health, their jobs, their families, and everything else important to them.'
I don't think everyone is willing to do that. I'd think most people who WERE willing to do that would be making the wrong decision, in fact, because there are many things more important than losing weight. And when people talk about having problems that impact their weight loss, treating them as reasons means we help support each other and help think of things that might be possible to do to work toward a goal of eventual weight loss.
When we think of people's problems as excuses, we're basically saying 'I know that's an excuse, because I know better than you do about your own life and what you are capable of.' And that's pretty condescending, when you think about it. I personally don't know jack about someone else's life and situation, so I don't tend to assume they are just making an excuse.11 -
Knowing what you know now, by cruising these forums and trying CICO for yourself, In the end, are there any excuses you will accept for someone who WANTS to lose weight, but just "can't"?
I've pretty much read them all on these forums from thyroid to injury, and for every excuse made I see about 10 responses of people who suffered the same or worse circumstance and still made it work.
I have, absolutely, seen people making excuses for things that they can do.
But I'll be honest, I have a problem with the implication in how this question is phrased. If you assume that everyone can lose weight, no matter what, no matter the circumstance, then there is no such thing as a reason someone couldn't lose weight, only excuses.
And that attitude pretty much invalidates anyone who has legitimate problems that impact weight loss, whether due to health reasons, financial issues, lifestyle, or whatever. It presumes that because someone else had some similar circumstances in a few respects, that must mean everyone else should be able to do it, too. Basically, it makes the assumption that there is an absolute: everyone could lose weight if they really wanted to and really tried hard enough.
And hey, maybe that's even true, but only if you rephrase it to say 'everyone could lose weight if they were willing to sacrifice anything to do so, including their physical health, their mental health, their jobs, their families, and everything else important to them.
I don't think everyone is willing to do that. I'd think most people who WERE willing to do that would be making the wrong decision, in fact, because there are many things more important than losing weight. And when people talk about having problems that impact their weight loss, treating them as reasons means we help support each other and help think of things that might be possible to do to work toward a goal of eventual weight loss.
When we think of people's problems as excuses, we're basically saying 'I know that's an excuse, because I know better than you do about your own life and what you are capable of.' And that's pretty condescending, when you think about it. I personally don't know jack about someone else's life and situation, so I don't tend to assume they are just making an excuse.
To the bold: Thank you. I'm tired of hearing people say that I should be getting up even earlier than my typical 5:30am after being up past 11 studying to go to the gym, otherwise I'm "making excuses." Or that my one free day a week I should be doing a bunch of food prep instead of resting and taking care of other needs. All the while, I am losing weight, just not as quickly as I'd like. That's okay though because I'm interested in whole health, not just weight. I need mental and emotional health and that comes largely from rest.
Edit: I seriously wish I could like this post a hundred times.
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