Why your reasons for not losing weight, even though you want to, are absolutely justified
In the health and weight loss industry, we talk a lot about excuses. We talk about how excuses are keeping people from living their best lives. And to be honest, that’s true. We all use excuses to keep ourselves comfortable, but that being said, that doesn’t mean our excuses aren’t justified.
Now, mama, I know that you’re not using excuses to “get out” of working out or eating well. You’re using totally valid excuses!
Your excuses are along the lines of, “I was going to work out but I was awoken at 4 a.m. by a sick kid and I had to spend the morning taking care of her.” Or something like, “I was on my way to the gym but then I got a call from the school and my son forgot his math book, so I had to go all the way back home. Drop the book off at the school and then I ran out of time to go to the gym.” Sometimes your excuse is simply, “I’m too tired.” and mama, that one is completely justified too.
Although you have good, valid excuses, that doesn’t mean that you’re destined to live like this for the rest of your life.
You get to choose to overcome your excuses.
Life is all about choices. When you’re at a point where you want something, but you can’t seem to make it happen, what’s really going on is that you’re at a crossroads.
You’re at a point where you get to make a choice.
Stay stuck and let your excuses run the show.
Understand that your excuses are valid but they don’t have to dictate your health and life.
That might feel like an oversimplification of what’s going on in your life. But I promise you mama that no matter what your excuses are, it all boils down to these two options.
And let me say, that if you choose option one today, that’s fine!! We are all juggling everything that life throws at us and today might not be the day that you can tackle your health. That’s ok. My one plea is that you don’t put it off forever. Because it catches up to you one way or another.
On the other hand, if you’re ready to choose option two, then congrats mama! This is huge. Simply choosing option two, to stop letting your excuses stand in your way, is huge. This is the first step in becoming the mama, wife and woman that you want to be!
Here are the next few steps you can take to stop letting your excuses run your life.
Aim to be 1% better
I will never, ever tell you that you need to drop every unhealthy habit you’ve picked up over your life and start eating 100% healthy, going to the gym, getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking a gallon of water, and journaling/meditating tomorrow.
Because that’s absolutely unrealistic.
And if you did do that, how long would it last? Could you keep that up for a lifetime? I couldn’t!
Instead, I want you to think small. What could you do tomorrow that would be 1% better than today?
Could you drink an extra cup of water? Could you fit in more protein at a snack or meal? Could you take a walk around the block? Could you make a plan for dinner?
Every little choice makes a difference when you’re starting to live a healthier life. Big leaps sound great, but nine times out of ten they fail because we can’t sustain big changes. But little changes are less intimidating, and therefore; easier to implement long-term.
If you decided to plan your dinner the night before, how big of a difference would that make in your life?
Would it stop you from going out to eat a couple of times a week? Would it prompt you to choose higher-quality meals?
Then, what if instead of planning one dinner at a time, you planned three or five? Would that save you money on groceries since you knew what ingredients you needed for the week? I know it’s done that for me!
Mama, building up small habits is the best way to start living a healthy life where excuses don’t run the show!
Make a plan
Planning. It’s a hot topic for mamas. But planning is essential to living a healthy life, especially if you’re used to letting your excuses run the show.
If you want to eat healthily, then you need to plan healthy meals.
If you want to work out, you need a training program.
If you want to drink more water, then you need to know how much you need.
Healthy living isn’t done by winging it! It’s done by understanding where you’re starting and where you’re headed, AKA planning.
If you’re feeling resistance to planning, it’s because your toddler brain is running the show. Your toddler brain, or your primitive brain, has one focus: enjoy everything. Just like an actual toddler, she believes life is supposed to be 100% fun and make you happy every second of every day.
Toddlers rely on cravings and impulse ideas to survive. They eat what they want when they want. They don’t care about how their choices will affect them long-term as long as it feels good now.
But eventually, all toddlers turn into adults - including the ones in our brains. After the toddler brain makes a mess of things, the adult brain has to come in and clean it all up. She’s the one who lectures you for eating a whole tub of ice cream when you know milk makes you feel horrible.
Your adult brain, or your logical brain, understands actions and consequences. Her goal isn’t to feel good every second of the day, but to make choices that will lead to the most good. She understands that even though planning ahead of time might be a little bit uncomfortable, it’s also going to make life so much easier down the road.
You need to plan from your adult brain, and then, and this is the biggie to listen up, you need to learn how to talk your toddler brain off the edge when she doesn’t want to stick to the plan.
Because your toddler brain is the excuse master! She will give you every reason to not stick to the plan. She will make it sound so good to give in to your excuses but if you can explain to her why you’re going to stick to the plan, and how important the plan is, she’ll quiet down.
And as you keep telling her no, she’ll start to pop up less and less, which is how you start living the healthy life you want without giving in to excuses.
We are led to believe that healthy living is just about eating well and exercising but it’s not. Most healthy living is unlearning our excuses and learning how to talk to ourselves so that we want to make the healthy choices. And that’s what I help busy mamas do inside of my Macros Made Easy program.
Yes, we address food and exercise because those are important but equally important is how you think and feel about food, exercise and yourself. And sometimes that part is hard to do on your own.
Don’t keep struggling with your excuses. I can help you work through them and find ways to be 1% better so that you can finally reach your goals. Schedule a free discovery call to get started today. (Because that’s one small move you can make towards your goal!)
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