Excuses

 

Excuses

Noun

/ikˈskyo͞os/  a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense.

 

Justify a fault- but hold on- I KNOW this will cause a lot of you to jump up in defense. Just have a seat and hear me out.

What is preventing you from starting a diet? I think I have heard every excuse under the sun- and I have a rebuttal for almost every single one. Caution- I do not mince words here. I do not sugar coat.

Here are the ones I see most frequently:

Eating healthy is too expensive. Bullshit. Eating healthy CAN be expensive but it does not have to be. You can certainly shop sales. You can eat seasonally when produce is cheaper. You can use frozen fruits and veggies which are generally cheaper than fresh. Now- I am only talking the US pricing here- of course there are places on the planet where fresh food costs more due to shipping, importing, etc. I get that. But for the lower 48 states of the US, it is not more expensive unless you want it to be.
You do not need to eat organic to lose weight. You do not need fancy foods like turkey bacon or deli meat to lose weight. I have a blog post with my tips and tricks on how to save money while doing FMD.

I don’t like to cook. Get over it. You can learn to cook. You do not need to make fancy gourmet meals every single day. Sometimes the simplest meals are the most delicious. Check out YouTube or the Cooking Channel or Food Network and learn how to do basic cooking.

I don’t have time. Nope. It is another thing that CAN take up a lot of time, if you want it to. Remember my post about Motivation? And how many of us are willing to take on part time jobs to save for a house or a car that we want. Prepping and cooking does not come anywhere close to equaling a part time job- if you don’t want it to. But why are you willing to take on a second job but not take a couple hours a week to prep to eat healthy to become healthy? Delegate… older kids can help prep and cook. Younger kids can help portion. Very young children can bang on pots and pans while you prep. Hire a trusted neighbor kid to play with your kids for a couple hours while you prep for the week. Offer a trade of some sort if money is a concern. You can spend 3-4 hours and prep a lot of things that could last a whole month. I have a blog post on how to save time and still eat healthy.

I do not like vegetables This one gets me every time. So- the master food list has dozens of veggies to choose from for every phase. Also, every known spice and herb is allowed, in any amount, fresh or dried, at any meal or snack. Every cooking method known to man is also available to you to use. Roasted carrots taste different than raw carrots, or boiled carrots. Throw in an herb or two, and BAM- a whole new flavor! I honestly do not believe that you have tried every veggie cooked with every method, using every herb and/spice or combinations thereof and you dislike them ALL. Not possible.

I don’t want to give up my wine (or Cookies or Cakes or Fast Foods) There are a million and one reasons why we consume these things. We like the taste, the social aspect of them, the ease, the comfort. There are many delicious foods on FMD, so taste is an excuse. You can still be social with your friends and not drink alcohol. Your true friends will get it and support you for going to a healthy lifestyle. If they don’t, are they really your friends? Sure, fast food is easy- someone else cooking, no dirty dishes, the kids love it. But what are you putting into your body every time you eat it? Is it ALL bad? Nah- not all of it. But a lot of it is. If fast food helped people be healthy, why are so many of us fat? The comfort… this one I totally get. Feel sad? Get the cheesecake. Depression knocking on the door? Get the Oreos. Heartbreak, stress, heck- even celebrations call for foods. This is a simple swap to something healthier. Yes, it can take a while to find healthy versions that you love- but once you do?

I will start on Monday/after XYZ social even/after the holiday(s). Why? What day is it? How many opportunities between now and then do you have to make poor choices with food? The very next meal or snack can be good for you and your health. Why wait?

I am scared. It is food. Just food. I will assume that if you have a medical condition that prevents you from eating certain foods, you would avoid them. Right? Ok, good. If not- what is there to be scared about food? Are you scared it is not going to work? Are you scared of messing up? I can assure you that if you follow Haylie’s plan, it will work. It may take you longer than most- it may not. You may lose more inches than pounds, and that is ok. It works. And messing up or making a mistake? Let me ask you this: When you were in kindergarten and learning to write, did you make mistakes? Or did you pick up a pencil and immediately wrote in perfect calligraphy every letter and number? Nope- you did not. You had to trace the letters, then write them a million times each. It took a long time to get used to holding the pencil, the form the letters and remember how they were drawn. You had to learn lower case and upper case and how they differ. You had to learn spacing of letters and spacing of words, when to capitalize, and which way the letters faced. What happened when you made a mistake? Did you stop writing altogether? Throw away the pencil to never pick it up again? No. You kept going, practicing. Over and over. Then you did it all with cursive a few years later. A mistake on a diet is not the end of the world. Your internal organs do not know what diet plan you are on- your stomach is not a gatekeeper and tells your fat cells to grow larger because you ate zucchini on phase 2. Your body does not know what time it is in the day, so if you eat after 7pm, you will get fat. The diet is not so precise that one bite too much will ruin everything you have done for weeks or months. A mistake will not kill you. So, let go of that fear.

I have kids/husband/wife/family. They won’t eat diet food. We all need to eat. You can make delicious, family friendly meals with just some simple swaps of ingredients that no one will even know about. Or you can make meals that you can eat, and they can add the non FMD condiments they like. For example- einkorn pasta looks and tastes just like regular semolina pasta-no one will know. You can make tacos and you skip the dairy and corn and let them have it. Use spices instead of a sugar laden spice packet. No one will know. Get the kids involved in this healthy journey. Have them look for and print out recipes for veggies they have never had. Make it a challenge for them- one new veggie a week. Have them help you prep and cook. Kids of all ages can be involved and you are teaching them good eating habits.

 

Bottom line is this: whatever line you are telling yourself to keep your next meal from being healthy is likely an excuse. Stop and analyze it for a moment. What is this perceived obstacle I have put in front of me and how can I break through it? I bet you will find the answer.

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