Barriers To Losing Weight: Excuse 3

In my 'Barriers To Losing Weight' posts, I will outline some of the biggest obstacles (some self-imposed and some not) that previously prevented me from getting in shape. I will also describe how I overcame these obstacles, in the hope I aid someone else in doing the same.

3) I just don't have time to exercise.

Haven't done one of these posts in a while, despite having a list of them all ready. I think that once I started to shift the pounds, my old excuses seemed lame and pathetic (which they often were), so I stopped trying to reason them out. I've already talked about putting it off until tomorrow and feeling like you don't deserve to be slim, but the excuse above is one I also made, and one some people will still use, and feel its justified. I don't claim to have any universal answers - all I can do is explain how I overcame the barrier myself.

People are always busy. I don't know anyone who can truly claim to have completely free time. We fill our days with various jobs and chores and activities, and they then expand to fill the time allotted for them (Parkinson's Law in effect!). Heck, I even plan my free time - if I decide to watch a DVD in a spare couple of hours, that is then on the to-do list, and that time is filled.

I guess the first thing to do is to evaluate your day, and count up all those 'dead' hours doing things like watching TV, or putting your feet up, or browsing the internet. I can spend full days doing nothing BUT that, and by the end of the day I will feel I've not had a spare moment...but I won't have achieved anything. People will say they need to rest, that their jobs are hectic and stressful and they need those few hours in front of the TV to unwind. Well, exercise is a great stress-reliever too, once you get into it, so one just has to make the decision to work out. You have to decide what you want more - one more episode of that favourite TV show, or one more pound dropped this week.

And that's another thing people with genuinely busy lives will have to do - decide what they really want. Its all very well saying you would like to lose weight, but just don't have the time for it. The problem is, that's passive - you are placing yourself in a hopeless position, a victim of your own schedule. You have to be active in your decision to lose weight. Those pounds aren't going to burn themselves. The whole point is to get out of your comfort zone - obviously things can't stay as they are, as the way they are has caused you to gain weight. You have to put weight-loss on an equal footing with your other commitments, not allow exercise to be the first thing you cancel when your day fills up. It should be the one thing you NEVER cancel!

It can be a very difficult decision though. You might have to cancel some of your after-work activities, or wake up an hour earlier each day, or say no to your friends if they want to meet up for that weekly coffee catch-up. You'll feel like you're letting other people down (when really you're letting yourself down by avoiding exercise). You'll feel tired and grouchy (but losing weight is never going to be as easy as gaining it). You'll feel like you're missing out on things you like, and then the diet becomes the enemy, something you resent (in which case, you have to remind yourself that the diet is your friend, only its a 'tough-love' friend trying to help you shift the pounds you hate).

I guess for me, I just had to switch the argument around. I couldn't go on saying "I have too much stuff to do, so I can't exercise". That's never going to change. You'll NEVER have time to exercise using that argument, so you will NEVER lose the weight. Instead, you have to bite the bullet, and say "I HAVE to make some time for exercise, so that I can lose weight". By all means, say you are only putting things on the back-burner for a while, rather than cutting them from your life completely. You can go back to that book club, rejoin that amateur dramatic society etc etc AFTER you've lost the weight. But for now, you have to decide what you really want - do you WANT to get slim, or do you want things to stay as they are?

This was a hard post to write, since as I don't really have any answers (because everyone's circumstances are different), it sounds like I'm having a go at people who still make this excuse. Some people will have commitments which don't feature for me at all, notably children who need taking care of. That's obviously a difficult one, but I guess getting fit and being healthy will allow you to spend better quality time with your family, and MORE time, once the health dangers of obesity no longer apply. Its going to be a heck of a transition, trying to fit in exercise around school pick-ups and dinners etc etc, but if you have the support of family etc, that might make it easier. Not easy, but easier - losing weight is never going to be easy...there is always going to be something that gets in the way, and we all have to make sacrifices in order to realise our goal weight...

Barriers To Losing Weight: Excuse 2

In the 'Barriers To Losing Weight' series, I will outline some of the biggest obstacles (some self-imposed and some not) that previously prevented me from getting in shape. I will also describe how I overcame these obstacles, in the hope I aid someone else in doing the same.

2) I don't want / deserve to lose weight anyway.

Although these could be seen as two quite different barriers, they both boil down to an issue of denial. I have suffered from both these views in the past, so I will tackle them one at a time, and try to work out how I got around them.

In terms of not wanting to lose weight...sometimes I wouldn't. I'd try to convince myself that I was happy with my weight, and that I didn't need to lose any. Most difficult for me, especially when I was younger, was the feeling that I was being vain if I wanted to lose weight. To get quite personal for a moment, I was always fairly popular with girls, but only in the 'cuddly best friend' kind of way. I would regularly fall in love, only to see the girls then head off with guys who seemed the exact opposite of me - slim, muscular, hair waxed, eyebrows plucked etc etc (to say nothing of their personalities). It seemed to me that if these girls were going to like me, I would have to change my appearance, and become more like these other guys. But I didn't want to - I detested those other guys! So I became defensive, saying that 'if a girl doesn't like me for who I am, then she's not worth it'. I was ignoring the fact that I didn't like me for who I was either! And that's a huge barrier in and of itself - if you don't like yourself, its going to be a lot harder for anyone else to.

I think it was recognition of this fact that got me out of that cycle. Rather than focussing on what I wanted from life/the world/other people, and getting depressed if I couldn't have it, I started to look at what I wanted from myself. No, I couldn't change the world to give me what I wanted - but I could certainly change myself! And when you do this, something amazing happens - you regain control. When you take charge of one aspect of your life (in my case, my eating), many other aspects start becoming manageable (my weight, my health, my self-confidence), and that sets the ball rolling for every other aspect of your life.

As for the second barrier above, the idea that I don't deserve to lose weight...this is a difficult one to analyse. I think many people feel like this, but perhaps for different reasons. Maybe someone has another person always putting them down, making them believe this is true. Maybe someone has a general depressive state of mind, and this is just an element of that. Or perhaps (as I believe in my case) it stems from a feeling of guilt about my weight. Sometimes I would look at myself, hate the way I looked, and realise I only had myself to blame. I looked this way because I had chosen to over-eat, and not to exercise, and so I was responsible. I had made my bed, and now I had to lie in it.

I guess you could say this translates as 'I deserve to be fat' rather than 'I don't deserve to be thin', but it was another mental barrier that had to be overcome. I very much looked at my weight as a just punishment for my laziness. But of course, that point of view offers no way out, no chance of redemption. You got fat, it was your fault, and now you deserve to be fat. That was all.

But eventally I managed to turn it around, and it was with the idea that 'I got myself into this mess, so I'm going to get myself out'. Again, as with so many of the barriers, it was overcome with a feeling of empowerment. I read so many accounts, watched so many videos, and saw how people could turn their lives around, and start losing weight that had been around for years. If they could do it, why not me?

And, reader, if they can do it, then I can do it. And if I can do it - SO CAN YOU!

Barriers To Losing Weight: Excuse 1

In the 'Barriers To Losing Weight' series, I will outline some of the biggest obstacles (some self-imposed and some not) that previously prevented me from getting in shape. I will also describe how I overcame these obstacles, in the hope I aid someone else in doing the same.


1) I'm going to turn my life around...TOMORROW.


For me, this was the biggest hurdle. For about ten years, I seem to have been hovering on the cusp of getting in shape. I've wanted to get fit and lose weight since I was about 16 years old, and all I've really done is put ON weight. I am the ultimate put-offer. In all aspects of my life.

The reason this had such an impact on my weight was, as I was starting my new regime 'tomorrow', it meant that 'tonight' was my last night to 'enjoy myself'. If I was giving up ice-cream, chocolate, crisps, cakes, biscuits, energy drinks etc tomorrow, then tonight was my last chance to have them! So I'd better get to the shops right now, and buy one or two of everything, and have one last binge!

THIS WOULD HAPPEN EVERY NIGHT.

When I was living at home, I would need to keep my own roll of binbags in my room, as I produced such a volume of wrappers, boxes and tubs. I KNEW it was ridiculous, and even became embarrassed going into the small village shop to buy such a bulk of junk food EVERY DAY. Every night I would intend to start afresh with a healthy diet plan, and every day there would be some slip, some reason to have ANOTHER binge. I would 'accidentally' have a chocolate bar during the day. I would find a bag of crisps I'd forgotten to eat the previous night. I would go out with friends to the cinema, and HAVE to buy some chocolates. I would be really tired, and NEED a Red Bull. I'd do really well all day, and DESERVE a treat. I'd do really well all day, but it was a Thursday - surely a new program was best started on a Monday morning?

Any of this sound familiar?

But how did I overcome it? I wish there was a magic, fix-all answer. What worked for ME was the following.

- Call a general strike. Don't worry about the date, or the time, or how your day has gone so far. Just look at your watch and say, from right this minute, you will stop eating and drinking all the crap you do. If you're here, reading this blog, you're already so close to starting the change. All you're waiting for is an 'opportune moment', to quote Jack Sparrow (Captain). But that wait - for a birthday, or New Year, or start of the month - will never end, so just do it. Right now. It may not seem like an especially significant or memorable date or time to start, but believe me, if you make the change now, it soon will be!

- Find what you enjoy, and is allowed. Yes, I love junk food, but I also love my mother's cooking. She doesn't use additives, or preservatives, but honest, natural ingredients. So why not just eat them? It's easy for me to say perhaps, as my biggest Achilles heel (and the thing I've had to give up in this initial stage) is carbs, but I love meat too. So although I'm not allowed to indulge my love of bread, pasta and roast potatoes at the moment, I am allowed to indulge my love of bacon, chicken breasts, poached eggs and burgers. So I'm holding on to that - and by giving in to the acceptable cravings, it makes the other pangs more bearable.

- Set mini-targets.* This one appears everywhere, but it works. When I started I was 21.2 stone, so I said that when I reached 20 stone, I was allowed one day of eating whatever I wanted. I could have a stack of bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast, then head into town, work my way through Burger King, McDonald's and KFC, before renting a DVD and sitting on my bed surrounded by ice-creams, chocolates, crisps etc. Sounds pretty decadent? Well it should. Every time you feel like letting go, just add what you fancy to the menu on that special day. It allows you to fantasize about what you want (rather than punishing yourself for having greedy thoughts), and uses your cravings for your own benefit - you want that Ben & Jerry's? Then lose that weight! (It's also worth mentioning that, over time, your cravings for these things become less. I'm only a few pounds away from my 20 stone mini-target today, and you know what? I DON'T WANT to give in to my cravings, I'd rather drop the pounds - I've become addicted to losing weight instead!)

- Release the pressure. I'm wary of including this one here, but as I've done it, I can't tell you not to. Sometimes, if you crave a chocolate bar, its better to just have one, rather than resist and resist until that craving has grown (into one for three chocolate bars and a cream cake), and THEN give in. The PR folks all say that these bad foods are allowed 'in moderation' or 'as part of a healthy balanced diet' or whatever. And you've seen slim people eating chips and drinking Coke before, haven't you? The difference is that we couldn't control how much of these things we consumed before. Now, you've been on your diet for a few days, you haven't had anything bad - treat yourself. And DO treat yourself - don't feel too guilty about it. Enjoy it. We used to eat this terrible stuff because we felt bad about ourselves, then we felt worse when we did, and the vicious cycle just went on and on. Now, you've been healthy for a few days (feel good about it) and are giving yourself a treat now (enjoy it). See? Best of both worlds! (For myself, I am tracking my weight every day in a spreadsheet, and comparing it with my target weight loss for that day - I'll explain more in another post. But basically, I only give in to these little desires if I'm more than 5 lbs ahead of schedule.) 

So there you are! I'm sure there are other methods out there, but this is what works for me. I hope at least some of the above can help you too!


*I have since amended this piece of advice, so please here click to read why!