excuses

ms_smartypants wrote: »

I use to talk myself out of things in the past ....but my determination over rules that now ....I hope you can find a balance ...wishing you much success

SideSteel wrote: »

Habit forming is really challenging.

One thing you can consider doing is breaking a habit down into simpler components and tracking it so that you can build from that point.

I'll give you one example that is going to sound kind of ridiculous at the surface but hopefully it will make sense. I've had clients struggle with fruit and vegetable intake because of food availability. They run out of fruits and vegetables so they don't end up eating adequate servings of fruits and vegetables and the overall quality of their diet diminishes and calories go up as a result.

In some cases, setting the goal to eat 5 servings of vegetables and 2 fruits per day didn't work because of this availability issue.

Setting a goal to get to the grocery story twice per week on a specific day of the week, greatly helped this issue because it was a requisite habit to build prior to accomplishing the fruit/vegetable consumption habit, for these people in this situation.

I don't know if this information is helpful to you at all but if you can find a way to simplify your habits and build them one at a time in a manner that it's easy to execute (select simpler habits at first) you might find that process useful.

shadowfax_c11 wrote: »

Yup. I used to have all kinds of reasons why I could not lose weight. My metabolism is too slow, I am just energy efficient. There must be some underlying health issue. After all I get tons of exercise and eat reasonably so it can't be just calories. I'm tired, my knees hurt, my back hurts, it's too hot outside, today is a special day I deserve this (insert huge high calorie food of the moment). I work hard I should have a break or a treat or a reward or...

Yup. Turned out that facing the truth that I simply was eating far more than I was burning was the key. I don't accept excuses anymore. My weight loss slowed down last month... wanted to blame it on hormones and salt. Nope. I needed to take a harder look at my fitness settings and pay more attention to my daily net calories.

Sometimes people view being honest as negativity. People like to hear nice things, compliments and platitudes rather than truths that might be uncomfortable. Facing up to your own flaws and mistakes and admitting our own bad habits is a huge step in being able to change things.

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

I used to do this regularly! I'd say to myself "It's too cold to go to the gym today" or "I'm tired from work so I deserve a rest tonight". Pretty soon, I was skipping the gym constantly and at the same time, relaxed my eating habits drastically and gained 28lbs, eek! I'm not saying it's not okay to skip the gym and make an excuse every now and again - we are only human and sometimes we do have to give ourselves a break! But I think it's important to dig deep and find that willpower of steel and use it! Because we'll thank ourselves for it after :]

DB4444 wrote: »

Hi all. Just wanted to comment that this thread was super motivating! I'm coming off a summer where I completely fell off the wagon. Workouts cut due to a torn calf and diet suffered because I was bummed, on vacation and a bunch of the excuses listed already. I just weighed in this morning (eek!) and am ready to commit again. My short term goal is to log everyday for 30 days starting today. I was reading the boards for motivation and this post was great - I will revisit when the inevitable excuses pop up. Thanks again and please feel free to add me (friend me?) if you'd like - I haven't been active in the boards before and don't have many contacts on here.