There is an old saying that tomorrow holds the promise of a new start. However, you have to start for that saying to hold true.
As a 300 pound woman, tomorrow was my favorite time to restart my diet. I frequently told my friends, family, and myself, “I will start my diet tomorrow.” The sad reality was that hundreds of tomorrows came and went without me taking the steps necessary to drop the 150 pounds that I needed to lose.
Putting off your diet until tomorrow is a common behavior. You may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of starting a new weight loss program and make excuses as to why waiting for another day to begin is better.
I’m going to be really honest with you and share my three go-to excuses for not starting a diet. I used these for over a decade until I finally quit waiting until tomorrow to start. I wonder if you can identify with any of them.
1. A Holiday is Near
Holidays were one of my favorite excuses for putting off my diet. My rationale for waiting until after the holiday had passed is that I did not want to watch what I ate during the celebration. So instead of starting my diet near or on the holiday, I waited until the holiday is over.
Well, I was supposed to start once the holiday was over. Instead, I kept right on eating because another holiday was coming up.
The rebuttal to this excuse is simple. Holidays occur regularly whether it is Christmas, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, or Memorial Day. And your birthday? It comes every year on the same day!
If you do not learn how to control your food choices over a holiday while you are successfully losing weight, you will never be able to control you food choices once you reach your goal weight.
Believe me, I know.
2. I Was Tired of Trying
If you have tried to lose weight before but failed, putting off your diet is understandable. I often felt burned out, frustrated by my utter lack of progress, or just tired of being different than my friends.
I can understand this excuse because I had tried to lose weight hundreds of times before I finally had success. The key to putting this excuse to rest and starting your diet today is to honestly review your reasons for losing weight.
Ask yourself these questions:
· Do you feel good about yourself at your current weight?
· Has your doctor told you to lose weight?
· Do you have the energy required to do the physical things in your life? (ie: chase after your young children, walk for long periods of time, get things accomplished in your professional life.)
And the most important question:
Are you are more tired of trying or more tired of carrying around extra weight?
Examining your reasons for losing weight can help you get motivated to begin your diet today. Make a list of 10 reasons you want to lose weight and refer to it frequently.
3. Money As an Issue
We never had much money when we were first married. I often used the money excuse as a reason to put off my diet because I wanted to join Weight Watchers or try a commercial program but could not come up with the funds.
Funny how I did not have money for a $9.00 Weight Watcher meeting but I spent the same amount or more each week at McDonald’s. Kinda telling of where my priorities were and that lack of money was an imagined excuse, not a legitimate reason.
Money can be an excuse for not beginning your diet today if you think the only way to lose weight is to pay a program fee or join a group. While those are legitimate ways to lose weight, you do not have to do either. You can lose weight on your own, for free, using information from the Internet, borrowing books from the library, or joining a free program in your community.
Take money out of the equation and you have lost that excuse for putting off your diet until tomorrow. Websites that offer healthy and free weight loss plans include Sparkpeople, MyFitnessPal, and ChooseMyPlate from the United States Department of Agriculture.
For me, it was always tomorrow until the moment when I finally declared that tomorrow was too far away. I started my final weight loss effort in 1997 and lost 158 pounds by the following year. Put your excuses aside and begin your weight loss effort today.