Excuses

I want to talk about the reasons why we (myself included, obviously) neglect trying to lose our excess weight. I've used all of them at one time or another! Here are some of those excuses and the way I view them now.

1) I'm too busy to diet. I guess my answer to that one is, "Who isn't?" Honestly....we're all busy and at times I think being occupied with other things can be a blessing as far as keeping us from thinking about food 24/7. It DOES, however, take a little extra time to be prepared so you don't get in a food jam. In the morning, you need to have a convenient healthy breakfast on hand that you can just grab. (a few options: boiled eggs, a handful of roasted almonds, a whole wheat mini bagel-Pepperidge Farms makes good ones, a banana with some real peanut butter. a bowl of healthy cereal with skim or soy milk) While you're grabbing that healthy breakfast, pack yourself both a lunch AND a snack( baked chips, cut up veggies, fruit, mini bagel with some peanut butter). This will avoid the dreaded 'Drive Thru Syndrome' that results when you haven't planned ahead. If you will be out all day, throw something in the crockpot that will be ready when you get home. Be like the Boy Scouts....always prepared!

2) I hate diet food. My answer to that one is that you're dieting instead of changing your eating habits permanently. If what you eat is not the type of diet you can sustain for a lifetime, try being a little more well-rounded in your food choices. I don't like to dismiss whatever is working for someone else but I can tell you my personal experiences. I dropped a lot of weight in a hurry back in New York, using the Atkins diet. While I love meat and cheese, sometimes you need a little something else in your diet. I know that it's not ALL beef ALL of the time, but the minute I backed off the strict part of the Atkins diet, the old pounds piled back on with all of their new flabby little friends.

Take a look at what you like to eat. What do you have to eliminate? Start with sugar. Lose it except for special celebrations or treats once in a while. Eliminate empty calories. Chips are a great example of this. If you feel you need to keep chips around in some form, go ahead but always count out a portion ahead of time and eat them with some salsa to get some extra veggies in you. If you love italian food, don't give it up! Just eat less of it and modify it. Use half the amount of meat you used to in your sauce. Lighten up on the cheese. Use Healthy Harvest Blend Pasta. Just revamp some of your recipes and control your portions. If you start eating foods that you've never liked just to lose weight, your efforts will be short-lived.

3) I can't give up fat. Good! You shouldn't. Fat is necessary for proper brain function. Just don't be so mindless about how much you eat. Use fat sparingly and use good fats. Get rid of margarine, shortening, or other hydrogenated fats. Use healthy oils. You can even use a tiny bit of butter for flavor. Fats in fish are tremendous for you.

4) I can't give up carbs! Just give up white bread. Ditto for what they label as "wheat bread", which is usually just white bread with a tiny bit of whole wheat and a whole lot of carmel coloring. Look for 100% whole wheat on the label. Brownberry makes a great one and it's also available in a double fiber variety. There are whole wheat /low-fat tortillas made by The Tortilla Factory. Switch out your white rice for brown. Go grab a loaf of delicious whole grain bread from Great Harvest for a treat!

5) I'll start watching my weight after *insert event here*. Oh yeah! That is my very favorite excuse! I lost all that weight about three years ago and was going to get all the way to goal once my son's baseball season was over with. Didn't happen. Then it was going to be after the holidays. Again it didn't happen. Then it was going to be after things settled down in my husband's work situation. Ha! Then baseball again, or company coming, or an upcoming dinner at someone's house, an anniversary, etc. Guess what? It's NEVER the right time to get started so we just have to get Nike-fied and Just Do It! Now almost three years have passed and I never got near my goal. The time has passed anyway. I'm no less busy now than I was then. How I wish I had just DONE it. The fat seems to get more stubborn the longer it stays. I'm glad I started back in August. Now the time has been passing and so have the pounds. At the risk of sounding cliche, there truly is no time like the present.

6) I'm way too fat, it's too overwhelming. One pound is like a drop in the bucket and it won't make a difference. That was probably the biggest one for me.....especially when you're losing weight sensibly. Sensible dieting takes the weight off s-l-o-w-l-y and it's easy to get discouraged. I always have to remember, like in the last point, that the time is going to pass anyway. It will pass much more pleasantly with one pound coming off at a time than it will with a 5 pound gain every year. Imagine what will happen in one year's time if you even lose just five pounds per month (which is extremely do-able for pretty much everyone). That is SIXTY pounds GONE in one year. A year is nothing. Really. In the grand scheme of things, what is a lousy twelve months.

7) I like to go out to eat! First of all, you shouldn't be going out to eat if you can't afford it. Eating out is usually a huge hole in most people's wallets. Unless you don't owe any money on cars or credit cards, you'd be wise to save the money and eat at home anyway. (time to get off my no-debt soapbox) If you can well afford it, there are many ways to eat healthy at a restaurant. I've probably covered all this before, but here are some things we do when we go out. Applebees! Everything on their Weight Watchers menu is delicious. REALLY! If we're being 'el cheapo' we go to Wendy's and I have a side salad with either no dressing or fat-free french and a small chili. A plain baked potato with the chili dumped over it works, too. Subway. Jared was right. It's good. Lots of choices and a good way to load on some veggies. Don't forget to use the fat free dressing or just mustard. (lose the cheese)

8) Emotional baggage. Yep, that keeps our faces in the feed bags, doesn't it? Losing the excess weight, however, will lighten up some of that emotional baggage instead of increasing it....at least it has for me. It's not the end-all. Only the Lord truly heals our emotions but I think being a healthy size can help.

I can't think of anything else, but don't delay due to excuses. We need to be healthy. I realize that thin does not always equal healthy but having a lot of excess weight on is bad for our hearts, makes it hard for us to get exercise, increases our chances of getting certain types of cancer or diabetes. We have families that love us. I can't think of an excuse that would be legitimate enough to risk hurting our families by a premature death. That might sound dramatic but I think that is how we have to look at it.