Excuses Excuses....

Come on people, lets here them. I know you have them. You have a million excuse about why you just can't lose weight, or why you can't eat healthy, or why you can't work out. I think in my lifetime I have used every freaking excuse in the book (seriously I  have). "But I have kids, I work, I don't like vegetables, it's too hot to work out, it's too cold to work out, I don't have a gym membership, I was on vacation, it's a holiday, it was someones birthday, my kids won't eat that stuff, I was up late, I'm too tired today" etc. etc. etc. Seriously the list goes on and on.

I teach my children that they are responsible of their choices. I hate when they make excuses for their bad behavior. I want them to understand that we all have choices in life and our actions and consequences are a reflection of those choices. We choose to be mad, we choose to not work out, we choose to watch TV all day, we choose to have children, we choose to eat crappy food, we choose to eat the entire pan of brownies (oh yeah, I have totally done that more than once).

No one is making the choices for you, and so there is no to blame for your bad choices but yourself.

So why do we make all these elaborate excuses? Well number one, we are lazy plain and simple. We don't want to put in the effort that day, or week, or month or year. We feel justified in our excuses. I mean come on, having kids does make working out a challenge, it's true... and working makes it hard to find the time to fit in a work out. When something is hard we have learned to make up reasons why it simply will not work.

We also love to give other people excuses for why it will work for them but not us. Well she has a nanny so of course she has time to work out, well her husband makes plenty of money so she doesn't have to work of course she has time to look amazing. Well she isn't single having a spouse makes it all easier (which is total BS not all spouses are supportive or available). She obviously has a faster metabolism than I do, I bet she has never been fat in her life. She has more time, money, resources bla bla bla.

And then to top that off we find negative comments to make about people who are being active "look at that over achiever, oh brother," or "look at super mom over there making us all look bad" or "what does she spend her life at the gym? I 'm sorry I would rather spend quality time with my children than being selfish." She's too skinny, she needs to eat a sandwich, she must be high maintainince, she obviously cares too much about her appearance. We minimize others efforts and find ways to make them negative so we feel better about our choice not to be like them.

But here's the thing... you are responsible for your choices. YOU are making the choice every day to eat crap, to not work out, to not care. YOU make the choice to eat cake, to eat McDonalds, to sit on your butt. YOU are choosing to be fat. No one makes that choice for you and YOU are perfectly capable of making a different choice. I know it's hard to hear, but sometimes the truth hurts. You are choosing to make excuses.

So today choose not to make excuses. Make the choice to change.