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After a gazillion years of doing this health and fitness stuff, you end up hearing lots of reasons people never lose that weight they’ve been battling with for years.
The typical “I don’t have time or money excuses” are really, I think, excuses for excuses.
So I wanted to dig a little deeper into what might be holding you back.
3 Reasons You Haven’t Found Success
1. You don’t want to be a party pooper: You’re out with your friends and everyone is ordering all the yummy stuff on the menu and buying rounds of cocktails. You on the other hand meekly whisper in your breathiest voice,
“I would like a small salad with grilled chicken, dressing on the side, and lemon with my water.”
*crickets*
What a freakin’ drag you are. Are you trying to make us all feel guilty or something? C’mon it’s the weekend!!
Ah, peer pressure. And we all thought it ended in high school. Or maybe you’re at dinner with the same people you went to high school with and that’s a whole other problem.
If you’re someone that often goes to restaurants on business or meets up with friends after work every weekend, this is your battleground. I’m here to tell you that you’ll never hit that goal doing your three or four days a week at the gym if you can’t win this.
Once you stand your ground a few times, they’ll get over it. In fact, you might find them inspired by your tenacity. And once they see your success they may be asking you for advice!
2. You’re the lone healthy person in the family: You’ve made a commitment to eating healthier but the rest of the family is not having it. They’re not giving up the ho-ho’s, soda, and greasy pizza. You feel a mutiny a-brewing so you continue to buy what they want and desperately attempt to not eat it as you cook and serve it.
If you can stick to an eating plan while under that kind of assault, you don’t need to read any further. In fact I would love to have you guest post and share your iron will secrets!
Maybe this is an opportunity to get the whole family involved. I found that when I involve the kids in creating meals they are much more cooperative. We have a rule in our house: no sweets till the weekend. We try to choose goodies that are made with high quality ingredients and not processed garbage. Better yet, make your own so you know exactly what’s in it!
3. You can’t say no: You’re running around taking kids to all the events, cleaning your house, cooking meals, helping with homework, volunteering at school, working your job, and taking care of the family budget; the idea of throwing in another to-do during the week is overwhelming. So of course you don’t want to ask for help so you can selfishly invest in your health! What kind of person does that?!
Excuse the snark but seriously, as an extreme supporter of women, this saddens me. I’ve experienced all these feelings of guilt mentioned in “Exercising Your Need Muscle” and see it way too often in friends and family. Investing in your health — physical, mental, emotional, are actually the most self-less things you can do. That’s because when you are your healthiest you become an enormous influence on those around you, especially family members. By cooking healthier meals and modeling an active lifestyle, you are setting kids up for a healthier future and based on studies about health and school performance, setting them up for a greater chance of success.
My thoughts here are that we can have access to all the workouts and healthy eating plans in the world, but first we have to get past the emotional and circumstantial obstacles in front of us.
But what do you think? Do you find some of these issues impact your decisions and choices about being healthy?
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