Are there any excuses?
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Its one of the reasons i don't keep friends on my profile.
Get that all the time, people suggesting i do this or that. I need my rest time too.. i used to go to the gym only on some of my days off when i worked there, I had 14 days off per month and i used 4 of those as rest days, when i first met Dustin he wanted me to go every single day, i actually grew to hate the gym as it was no longer me wanting to go, it became some kind of obligation.
I need days where i sit in my pajamas after sleeping until noon and not getting off this couch. I don't care how many people tell me i should at least go out and do something.. go for a walk, whatever, i know what i need to maintain my own mental health.9 -
There is the side of weight loss/fitness where many feel they need to live up to some ideal of perfect dieter or impress people with progress. That might lead to some excuses because you are not at that level of fitness acheivement, losing big and fast then you might feel you are not doing enough.
I don't feel the need to defend or explain my eating habits, activity level or goals to others at this point. I think I did feel the need to do that at one point and it led to some pretty unhealthy thinking and behaviors.
If I don't get to my goal weight as fast as possible it is fine with me. I have no deadline. I'm not competing. I don't need attention. I am doing better than I was at weight management and feel pretty good.
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My excuse for not working out? I don't *kitten* want to. I haven't worked out at all during my weight loss and I'm doing just fine. People make it more difficult then it has to be. Get your calorie goal, meet it. That's it. Anybody CAN do it.
Edit: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.
How would any of these things force you to eat more than you need? Because that's all it comes down to. These are excuses.
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HellYeahItsKriss wrote: »"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.
Wow. I never thought of it this way but YES!0 -
eliciaobrien1 wrote: »My excuse for not working out? I don't *kitten* want to. I haven't worked out at all during my weight loss and I'm doing just fine. People make it more difficult then it has to be. Get your calorie goal, meet it. That's it. Anybody CAN do it.
Edit: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.
How would any of these things force you to eat more than you need? Because that's all it comes down to. These are excuses.
Nobody's forced to eat more than they need. Lots of people have reasons that they do. Those reasons are none of my business unless they ask my advice. Losing weight is hard. If it were easy then there wouldn't be so many weight loss scams, so much money in the weight loss industry and so many people who are over-weight.
In the end I figure it's as easy to be kind as it is to be judgemental.5 -
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.
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counting_kilojoules wrote: »eliciaobrien1 wrote: »My excuse for not working out? I don't *kitten* want to. I haven't worked out at all during my weight loss and I'm doing just fine. People make it more difficult then it has to be. Get your calorie goal, meet it. That's it. Anybody CAN do it.
Edit: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.
How would any of these things force you to eat more than you need? Because that's all it comes down to. These are excuses.
Nobody's forced to eat more than they need. Lots of people have reasons that they do. Those reasons are none of my business unless they ask my advice. Losing weight is hard. If it were easy then there wouldn't be so many weight loss scams, so much money in the weight loss industry and so many people who are over-weight.
In the end I figure it's as easy to be kind as it is to be judgemental.
I definitely agree you should be kind, of course. I said in an earlier post that some people just don't know about calories. This is definitely a valid reason. But if you know about counting calories then everything after that becomes an excuse. I think it all boils down to "I don't want to" which is absolutely fine. I don't think there's a problem telling someone that their reason is actually an excuse. If you're close with them tho! I would never tell a complete stranger that.0 -
I didn't have excuses when I was overweight/obese. I enjoyed eating anything I wanted when I wanted. My health and self-esteem was good. I didn't feel the best, but on the outside I worked with my weight and kept myself up.
Finding the clothes I wanted to wear was my biggest issue, but I compensated by wearing cute accessories and shoes.
One day I knew something had to change. I was getting older and I didn't want to have health issues. Plus I knew there was a fit girl underneath the excess weight and I wanted her to shine...
I really didn't know what to do though. I thought you had to eat salads all day and workout really hard (Biggest Loser style) to get the weight off. But I decided to start walking, researching and trying different things and my life changed.
Then I started doing Leslie Sansone workouts where she had much older and/or heavier people working out and that made me think if they can do it, why can't I? That really gave me the push to keep moving forward.
I lost 80+ pounds and heading towards year 5 of keeping the weight off. All the sweat, tears and hard work really paid off and was worth it.15 -
I've never felt I needed an excuse for gaining weight or not losing weight. My weight and the reasons for it being whatever it is are my business and I owe no explanation to anyone else.
But to answer your question, yes I believe there are reasonable reasons/excuses for not losing weight.2 -
I'm 5'11, and even in high school I weighed in the 170's and that was "average" for me. But as the years pasted the weight crept up. I had always told myself that even though I'm tall, I'd never let myself hit 200 lbs. At 193, I started making changes. When I got back into the 170's, I decided it wasn't good enough - for me - and kept going. At 193, I never, ever thought I COULD get into a size 4. I thought my body wasn't made that way, or I was just curvy. No, come to find out, I was fat. And look pretty good in a size 4. Or 6. Or even 8. At 193, I thought the best I could do was a 10. Now, a 10 is my OH HECK NO, size.
But I had every excuse in the book. It wasn't until I realized I HAD to do something, that I dropped the excuses and made the magic happen.
I see 98% of newbies on here have the same excuses. It all starts with a little education and a LOT of want.1 -
When someone decides they want to lose weight they aren't necessarily aware of the reality and nuances that go hand in hand with weight loss. Not straight out the gate anyway. For interest purposes lets assume they are aware of the ins and outs about weight loss but they still can't lose weight. If that's the case is likely to be an over consumption of food as the cause. Why would someone over consume if they knew under consumption leads to their goals? It can only be a mental issue they probably didn't know existed. Usually it's because they use food as a coping mechanism which went under the radar prior to dieting. Dieting has shined a light on their unconscious behaviour which is a blessing and a curse if you will.
For the unknowledable dieter, dieting isn't a priority because if it was they would be learned on the subject. You should never go into any new endeavour blind as you're likely to fail at it.
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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.
Yup, decent sleep makes a BIG difference. I recently had to fight for a medication that indirectly helps me sleep better and am so glad I did. Once a month I had days like your exhausted days where doing those three things on the same day just wasn't in the cards, but with this med, this last month was much better.3 -
That being said, let's lay it all out here. What's your excuse?
My excuse ....
I couldn't be bothered!! In fact, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to watch what I was eating. That wasn't the point of the months where I was gaining weight.
In early 2012, I had lost a bit of weight and was comfortably within my normal BMI range. Mid-2012, my husband and I started an 8-month round the world trip ... and we ate our way around the world trying any foods that looked good. We did have our bicycles with us and did quite a bit of cycling and walking ... but we ate more than we exercised and we weren't about to cut back!
In late December 2012, we stopped for a month in Canada with my family, joined a gym for that month, and over Christmas and into January, I lost 6 lbs.
Just a tiny moderation in what we were eating + a whole lot of exercise.
Then we continued travelling ...
When I was ready to lose weight, I did.
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For me, I'd say it was never an excuse so much as my choices at the time.
After my first child was born, just had a premature baby, so I chose to spend all my free time at the hospital visiting her instead of at the gym, I ate junk food from the hospital cafeteria bc it kept me closer to her, and honestly I didn't care what I weighed at the time bc I wasn't really the priority. Once she came home from the hospital and the premie issues stabilized, I started making losing the weight a priority and I was able to lose weight.
This was not my "excuse" for not losing weight. It was about the choices I made at the time.
Once we were having sort of a competition at work where everyone was trying to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. During the middle of the competition, I tore my ACL and had to stop all the vigorous activity I was doing prior due to the restrictions after surgery. I could have still lost a few pounds by tweaking the CI side of the equation, but I didn't want to... So I maintained and made my rehab my priority at the time. Also, not an excuse, but just the choice I made at the time.
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As one of those who has experienced challenges with weight loss that many (even on these forums) do not even understand or even believe, I really try to keep an open mind. It took many years to even begin to lose weight - which only started after an insight from my endocrinologist. Even after I started losing, it was slow going. It's been 4 years now and I'm not even down 60 lbs. Meanwhile, I see others here who are losing that much in a matter of months.
IRL, I have a co-worker who was struck by lightning. I don't understand the issue, but he says it screwed with his metabolism. He is very heavy (probably close to 400 lbs.), but there is a lot of muscle under there. He is fit - runs fairly quickly, has muscle under the fat, etc. He talks about how much he exercises and doesn't lose weight... I won't offer advice because he hasn't asked and I don't think he wants it, but I personally don't think it is about exercise in his case. I think he just eats too much and can't outrun a bad diet. Then again, maybe there is something to his metabolism where the diet he needs would be scary low (like 500 calories or something). I'm not going to call his lightning issue an "excuse," though.3 -
I'll gladly share my "excuse". I'm 5'6. Was close to 200 pounds and a size 12 in 2013. Lost around 70 pounds and was 117-121 and a size 0-2 by 2015. Coincidentally, I also began experiencing some minor digestive issues but thought nothing of it so I continued on with my routine of exercise, diet, college, hobbies, and so on. Fast forward to 2016 and I weighed close to 140. Was getting worried but also confused considering my routine didn't change at all and was still the same exact size and wore my same clothes comfortably. Additionally, my digestive issues were getting worse so I began seeing doctors. (Some gym heads assumed I was eating too much or that my "diet" was failing). Fast forward to 2017; I weighed 152 pounds yet was still the same size (slightly smaller in fact). Everyone still looked at me and assumed I was in the 115-125 range. Even my doctors were shocked when I stepped on the scale. Also, my digestive issues were at their worst. Not even gonna list the symptoms... Anyways, I received multiple tests, scans, bloodwork, mini-procedures, etc. Thyroid was normal, A1C normal (slightly low, actually), but I had a list of nutrient deficiencies. The main problem they found was my large intestine stopped working. It spontaneously burnt out. All of my weight was basically undigested solid food weight that had to be medically flushed out. I literally dropped nearly all the weight within 2 days (because it wasn't REAL weight). Now, I'm on a liquid/pureed diet until my total colectomy. What I learned was how much weight the intestines can truly hold. What I didn't appreciate were the assumptions I got during my weight increase "you're not burning enough calories", "you need to eat less", um....SUURRREEE LOL.6
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moosmum1972 wrote: »KrazyKrissyy wrote: »I'll gladly share my "excuse". I'm 5'6. Was close to 200 pounds and a size 12 in 2013. Lost around 70 pounds and was 117-121 and a size 0-2 by 2015. Coincidentally, I also began experiencing some minor digestive issues but thought nothing of it so I continued on with my routine of exercise, diet, college, hobbies, and so on. Fast forward to 2016 and I weighed close to 140. Was getting worried but also confused considering my routine didn't change at all and was still the same exact size and wore my same clothes comfortably. Additionally, my digestive issues were getting worse so I began seeing doctors. (Some gym heads assumed I was eating too much or that my "diet" was failing). Fast forward to 2017; I weighed 152 pounds yet was still the same size (slightly smaller in fact). Everyone still looked at me and assumed I was in the 115-125 range. Even my doctors were shocked when I stepped on the scale. Also, my digestive issues were at their worst. Not even gonna list the symptoms... Anyways, I received multiple tests, scans, bloodwork, mini-procedures, etc. Thyroid was normal, A1C normal (slightly low, actually), but I had a list of nutrient deficiencies. The main problem they found was my large intestine stopped working. It spontaneously burnt out. All of my weight was basically undigested solid food weight that had to be medically flushed out. I literally dropped nearly all the weight within 2 days (because it wasn't REAL weight). Now, I'm on a liquid/pureed diet until my total colectomy. What I learned was how much weight the intestines can truly hold. What I didn't appreciate were the assumptions I got during my weight increase "you're not burning enough calories", "you need to eat less", um....SUURRREEE LOL.
That's not an excuse that's a valid medical condition.
Yes, and all the up until diagnosis, the assumption was that she's eating too many calories. I've been bombarded with such logic myself when tracking meticulously and not seeing results. Just because the reason why is unknown doesn't automatically mean that she isn't logging properly. It doesn't mean she is eating at a surplus either.8 -
Well, my excuse was that my world was falling to pieces around me, all my worst nightmares werw coming true. I developed situational depression and didn't realize how bad it was. Slowly, I began to learn how to deal with horrible situations that may never go away. Once I realized that it is possible to continue living, and that I wasn't abandoned by God and that those telling me I was thoroughly worthless were wrong, I began to feel that maybe I was worth taking care of. I didn't know quite how to do it, and then I found MFP, which has been a godsend.4
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Excuses are for hall monitors. Like others here, I prefer reasons. I started to get control when I began owning my decisions (something I learned in my eating therapy group).4
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