I saw @fitcheerldr‘s tweet with a post titled Excuses, Excuses…. How to Use Your Excuses to Create a Fitness Plan and just had to click over. Lately I have been offering myself excuse after excuse as to why I can’t and don’t exercise and even the grunting that accompanies me when I am attempting to walk up stairs and the pinch of my pants has not been enough to motivate me to move.
Fitcheerldr recommends writing out your excuses to help come up with the plan. Here are mine that I have been clinging on to for dear life:
1. Not enough time.
2. My DVD player is broke.
3. I don’t feel comfortable leaving The Bee alone.
4. I don’t have time or money to eat healthy.
5. My foot hurts
6. I don’t know where to start.
Now, to pick these excuses apart
1. Not enough time.
In the past I have found that I really like exercising in the morning. It gives me a sense of completion before the day begins. However I have been sabotaging myself by staying up too late therefore I am way to sleepy in the morning to get off of my butt and get moving. One thing I do is stay up late blogging, reading people’s comments, reading and messing about online. To combat THIS I am going to follow the suggestion of a fellow blogger who limits her time online to the battery life of her laptop.
Deb said:
I only allow myself to read & comment on blogs in the evening, after kids are in bed. I unplug my laptop and only give myself as much time as my battery allows. It keeps me under control 😉
Brilliant in its simplicity!
From now on, smart phone plugged and across the room for the night, laptop unplugged and I’ll have whatever power it gives. This way I can get in bed earlier, get up early and get my exercise in.
2. My DVD player is broken
My DVD player went kaput last week. I have a bunch of DVDs at home that I wasn’t doing anyway and now have more reason not to. I do have Netflix and while the pickings are slim (a lot of them really suck!) If I truly had to have an instructor, well instruct me I could select something that interested me. Also, my laptop plays DVDs so I could set THAT up and complete the abandoned Turbo Jam DVD if I really desired to.
3. I don’t feel comfortable leaving The Bee alone.
Ever since we moved I have not been running. (Really before but whateves.) I don’t feel comfortable leaving The Bee alone in the house; my mom would watch her as I hit the track in days of yore. Now I don’t have mom or a track. I could head over to nearby Clark Park but it seems really lazy to drive over there, run and then drive back (yes, yes, I recognize this for the lame way it sounds). I also feel tired THINKING about walking over to the park (another excuse!) but have tried to bribe myself with a walk and then perhaps breakfast at that yummy Green Line Cafe or one of the other places we peeped during the last Dollar Stroll. The Bee could come with and we can make a morning out of it. Especially on the weekends when I won’t feel like I am going to be late for work and her late for school. Or, until it gets dark and stinking cold, we can go after work and school. Perhaps do some homework in the park, I can crochet or read or we can people watch and hang with each other.
4. I don’t have time or money to eat healthy.
Yes, yes. This coming from a woman who smashed through a McDonald’s chicken sandwich the other day like a bear through the woods. I could have spent that money on some healthier option anywhere else. Its all about preparing. So I need to make sure I get up early enough to get myself ready so that I can cook the fresh food that I bought so that it won;t go to waste and that would make me feel like I was saving money. I would also shop better knowing that I would be using the fresher options and not relying on canned, easier to make less healthy options.
5. My foot hurts
I saw my doc and was injected with a cortisone shot. For the most part my foot feels really good, there is some soreness and stiffness in the morning but not like before when I had to hobble all around. I’ve got better sneakers, cushier socks and a list of exercises that my cat chewed up is supposed to help me stretch and feel better. Admittedly the last time I did all of the stretches and such I felt better but I have to DO them.
Which leads me to
6. I don’t know where to start
I used to have a fail safe workout that was a total body circuit. I did it for months and saw great results. Now…I am not sure how to get started again. I’ve borrowed books from work, I check out other people’s practices and noting really fits. I have a variety of weights and have tried to pyramid up and down (The Firm) lots of reps with smaller weights (laziness) and a few sets with the heavier weights (a friend who was a bodybuilder hipped em to this one). I got a free subscription to Shape Magazine (thank you Budget Savvy Diva!) but I swear the exercises they feature seem so exotic and foreign to me that I shy away. I found my Fit for Life book and was thumbing through the weight routine, It seems possible. We have some new books at work. I will check out ONE at a time and see if I can find something that speaks to me.
Here are my excuses for all the world to see. What say you peeps?
What’s YOUR excuses and how are you going to fight them?
Excuse me no more,
-r
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