Making A Commitment To Lose Weight

I'm sharing with you an article I wrote for the weight loss team that I manage.  

I was forced to write the article after noticing that they all from time to time gave "excuses" as to why they didn't do the workout I wrote for them or why they only did three days instead of the required five. In my group I have a nice mix of people with varying ages, stages of life and obligations.  They have tried other ways and have now landed on my doorstep because they felt like their back was against the wall and the weight wasn't coming off.  I train for free, until I get my PT certification but I give no quarter and I focus on the traditional ways of losing weight by building muscle.  Needless to say, my home routine and gym routines are challenging, but I make sure to keep it fun, at least in my eyes.

After I've  profiled each client, the common thread of "last resort" and being "fed up" are heard with basically everyone.  So you'd think they would be hitting the ground running with a customised routine that only takes 30 minutes right?  No. The mind and it's old ways are like an old rich grandmother who is looking for the slightest excuse to cut you out of the Will if you try to change your lifestyle.

Everyone in the group reports their "numbers" every Sunday morning and even in the first week, the excuses started pouring in.  I realized, it wasn't the previous diets or programs that failed, it was them that failed.  After a few weeks of noticing the trend, reporting 2 days worked out, 3 or 4 days worked out, stating that 'something came up,' 'I came home tired' or 'I never got the time,' I felt it was time to address the issue. People fantasize a goal but don't know what it takes to bring that goal into real time success, especially when it comes to weight loss where you answer only to yourself.  

As a PT hopeful (and I'm sure other PT's share this view), my hands are tied if the person doesn't make the time nor puts in the grunt work nor follows the eating guidelines.  So I wrote the following article and posted it in the private Facebook group for them to read: THE EXCUSE Look up the word though various resources you will see a common thread word/term "justify" and "to Justify" used in explaining the word "excuse". So yes the word exists and it serves its purpose and it is there for all of us to use. Awesome.

Let's look at why you are here, in this team. Whether you have tried or not, obviously you want to give yourself this chance to take charge of your body and make it into something you can be proud of, whether for personal or medical reasons.

Everything in life has its requirements, strict or not so strict but there will be some amount of adherence required. Your job, has rules, your home has rules, even if you run your own business, you took the time to come up with a set of rules. And once engagement starts, whether to be at work or to do the dishes, there is some amount of expectation based on those rules. That same canon follows right and true over to almost every facet of life and living in this world. Your job has a rule to be at work at 8 a.m., so you are expected to be at work by 8 a.m. You chose the job and hence the rules that follow and you executed your morning drive to get to work by 8 a.m. Think on any other field and these simple rules will follow. Mind you, the severity of the rules and expectations will vary as some are more serious than others but its just the same horse with a different saddle.  

Now weight loss/gain is a transaction with none other than...YOURSELF. The path to either end has rules and thus an expectation to adhere to those rules. So you have to look at yourself as two people and since I'm using work as a running scenario, think of yourself as a boss and a new employee. So you the boss says, I'm fat, I need to lose weight". So you hire someone, you, to get the job done. So one the first day you hand them a book of rules and information about the job, keys, a desk and you say " I delegate this task to you to complete in 3 months" and your employee, you, says yes sir, will do!" What is now set in motion is the expectation of adherence and execution. The agreement signals the commencement of this transaction.  

If you are a boss and your employee shows up late for work, dressed improperly, wasting time, playing games on the computer, and fakes being busy when you walk by in the office, I'm sure very quickly you will be frustrated enough that the work isn't getting done and possibly fire that person, right? Problem is, you can't fire yourself! So when you decide to break your own expectation to workout today or eat something that you should not, why don't you get angry with yourself?

This program has rules and by you simply being in thie team means that you have agreed to the rules and expectations, as customized. Your only job at this point is to EXECUTE.  Now our lives will not just make way and provide time and energy for you to make changes to your body, BECAUSE it is that very same life that clouded you to this point. Your challenge is to mentally take that space back. You will have to interrupt almost everything about your lives at this point to take charge.

This will never be easy. Why? Because it's been winning and you have kept quiet. You have let your "employee" come to work late everyday for a year, wearing jeans instead of slacks, playing games and never completing any task you ask them to do! That employee will never respect that boss because all the boss does is sit in their office staring through the window thinking that this is too hard or thinking that certain things are important when they really aren't.  So let's look at how excuses work. Let's say for example today you woke up and said, " I'm gonna workout later". But by the end of the day, work was stressful, and you ended up having to go somewhere and you never made dinner and anything you want to fill in. So, I come and ask, "did you workout today?" Your natural response is to tell me about all the things that stopped you from working out.

Here's your problem: You never took charge of your day with a positive mindset, you never planned your meals ahead of time, you never scheduled your workout to be a part of your day rather than something to do if you ended up with time. Emergencies and short notice obligations should be the only things that steer your boat off course. So what if something came up, plan to deal with it, don't just get caught up in it's stress, set it for when you can focus on it and attack it with a clear head. So in essence you've "excused" your way here to my team, so why let it "excuse" you away from it and sending you back to thinking that you can never lose/gain the weight?

Next is the I'm busy, I just don't have time excuse. "How can you ever HAVE time if you never TAKE time?" Every single day at some point, 30 minutes or more got wasted doing something that was not beneficial. TV is bad for you anyway but if you can't record the program that you "must" watch...here's a nice tip..DO THE WORKOUT DURING THE COMMERCIAL BREAKS!!!! Lastly is the the always tired excuse. I won't waste much time on this because if you are eating healthy foods and keeping healthy foods around you to snack on then you wouldn't be tired all the time. Being tired can also be caused by lack of sleep and bad time management.

So once again, take control of your life's daily activities, plan your meals, plan what you have to do for the week/month and space them out so you have time for yourself to go to bed early and to workout. If there are too many things on your plate then you need to decide if those things that you are tending to are benefiting you and weed them out. If your plate must remain full then a calendar and a daily planner must become your go-to guide. We all have smart phones, the calendar and alarms features are very useful. We all spend time on the computer and all the email providers have a calendar program...USE THEM and pace out your life. Living with a disorganised life most times lead to stress and loss of sleep, which has multiple medical ramifications. Diabetes, early onset of heart problems, hair loss, ulcers, tumors, mental destabilization, hormone imbalances and more. Many of these stress induced illnesses are irreversible, all because you couldn't take a pen and paper on a Sunday afternoon to organize your week.

My suggestion is to haul in your employee for a meeting and say that you are going to sit beside him from now on in the same office and you are going to watch and help him do his work, THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE DONE.

The only thing that can negate everything I am saying is if you realize that this desire to lose/gain weight is best kept that way and you really don't want to make this type of achievement. Some things are better enjoyed as a happy thought, never to see the light of day and that's quite fine, just let me know so that I can take you out the group and delete your file. But if you want to EXECUTE that thought into real time physical results, then I am presenting THIS way, which has real rules and real expectations.

Being in this team, means you execute your agreement to the fullest extent and adhere to the expectations set. If you need help or you decide this is not for you then you know where to find me.