Unpacking The Most Common Health & Fitness Excuses
As a species, we love to make excuses. Especially diet excuses. When you think about it, what other animal makes excuses to not do something? If a cat needs to hunt, it’ll go out and hunt. With humans, we’re constantly looking to find ways of not doing things. It’s a weird habit we have, and it needs to stop. Excuses are a barrier that will stop you from reaching a certain destination, especially your goals! This is especially true when talking about health and fitness.
Most people “want” to be healthy and fit, yet we’re an inherently unhealthy nation! Granted, there are instances where someone has medical problems or other issues that can prevent them from being fit and healthy. However, the majority of individuals that want to be healthy – and aren’t – will make a plethora of common diet excuses.
There are so many common diet excuses surrounding health and fitness, and we’re going to unpack them all today. The aim is to shine a light on these excuses and explain why they don’t hold up. Solutions will be provided that demonstrates just how easy it is to work around something that you see as a problem!
Without wasting any more time, let’s look at some common diet excuses:
I don’t have enough time to exercise
Probably the most common excuse used by people to justify not working out. True, you may be busy, but everyone can find time for a 15-30 minute bout of exercise at least five times a week. For starters, you have the weekends to exercise, so you instantly have two days ticked off. Then, it’s simply a case of managing your time and working out whenever possible. Think about setting your alarm 30 minutes earlier in the morning to go for a quick run or do some yoga.
You’ve even got things like HIIT workouts that take 10 minutes, so there isn’t really an excuse for not having enough time. When you actually try, you will always be able to find a bit of spare time during your days to do some sort of physical activity.
I don’t have enough money for a gym membership
Again, a seemingly valid reason to not be able to exercise and stay fit. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really hold up when you consider that a gym isn’t necessary at all. If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that you can certainly get fit and be healthy by staying at home. These days, there are so many online resources that you can use to fuel your fitness journey. Go on YouTube and find thousands of free workouts to try as you please. Or, for more structure, you have things like the Sophia Rose Bomb Bodyweight Blast program, which you can follow online. Programs like this are more and more popular as you basically get an entire workout schedule, plus tutorial videos, and sometimes even live classes.
Furthermore, consider that you can run outside, cycle, play a sport – there are dozens of other ways to stay fit. Stop assuming that you need a gym membership to get in shape and be healthy – it is simply not the case at all. In fact, some of you may prefer exercising away from the gym as you feel more confident and it’s more enjoyable.
Healthy food is too boring
An extremely frequent complaint amongst people who are trying to switch to a healthier diet. Honestly, there are a few things to say about this, so buckle up and get ready for a mini-rant!
Firstly, healthy food might only seem ‘boring’ to you because you’re used to eating foods that are packed full of additives and chemicals to make them taste nicer. Secondly, if you know how to cook healthy food and be creative with it, there’s no reason it needs to be boring at all. Saying that all healthy food is boring is just an excuse because you don’t want to change your dietary habits.
Moreover, your concept of ‘healthy food’ is probably completely wrong. Anyone that says it’s boring is most likely imagining a plate full of lettuce and other raw vegetables. In reality, healthy food includes a combination of different things across the whole nutritional spectrum. Many of the meals you eat now can be made a lot healthier by simply adjusting the cooking techniques as well. Basically, healthy food is definitely not boring, so you can’t use this as an excuse!
I get too hungry all the time to diet
So many people start going on diets, only to fall off within a week or two. Most of the time, the excuse is that they are too hungry to carry on. Again, there are a couple of key points to make here! The first of which is that hunger is natural, particularly if you have been living on an extremely calorific diet. Let’s say you’re eating 3,000 calories a day, and it’s the reason you’re putting on weight. You’re going to need to drop that down by a few hundred calories to start losing weight. So, it’s only natural that you will feel a bit hungry. However, if you stick with the diet, your body adjusts and you stop feeling hungry all the time.
Also, many people assume that dieting means you have to eat almost nothing. This isn’t the case – and it’s not healthy to go on a crash diet like this. With a healthy diet, your meals should be well-balanced enough to help you feel full for most of the day. Particularly if you eat a lot of protein and fiber, making you feel fuller for longer. Snacking on low-calorie foods that fill you up – like fruit – is also a very smart idea.
While hunger pains may be a genuine concern, they’re also a blatant excuse. There are ways to counter them, and you are going to go through a period of feeling hungry as you begin your healthy diet.
I don’t know where to begin
This excuse relates to both exercising and eating healthily. You might be in a position where you simply don’t know how to approach things. You’re unsure what sort of exercises you should be doing, or you don’t know the correct techniques when lifting weights, etc. Similarly, you have no idea what a healthy diet looks like, or how to count calories, and so on.
Don’t worry, everyone starts off like this at some point. We aren’t born with the knowledge of how to get fit and healthy, it’s something we learn! The problem is that people use a lack of knowledge as an excuse to just sit back and do nothing. ‘Oh, it’s too complicated for me to understand, so I won’t bother.’ Realistically, you should accept your lack of knowledge and find ways to rectify it. All you have to do is go online and spend some time researching these topics.
Alternatively, you can book sessions with a personal trainer or nutritionist. This way, you can have a plan designed for you, with expert guidance on what to do and why you should do it. So, now knowing where to begin is a very weak excuse!
I don’t have time to cook healthy meals so I need fast food
We had the time excuse earlier on, but this one is specifically targeted at your eating habits. Too many people use this excuse to justify ordering takeaways or buying microwave meals. There’s nothing wrong with fast food now and then, but it can’t be a regular occurrence. The problem with fast food and a lot of ready-made meals is that they’re always high in salt, sodium, fats, and who knows what else. It is simply much healthier to make food from scratch.
Admittedly, making food can take quite a long time. Unlike working out, it’s not something you can set a limit to and then cook for that long. Instead, the best approach is to cook your meals in bulk. Cook numerous portions of a meal, saving some to microwave the next few days. If possible, try cooking two meals at once, meaning you have two different options saved up. By doing this, you may only need to cook once or twice per week, then have enough food stored up to last you for a week.
Another alternative is to look into meal box services like Hello Fresh. Here, you get sent boxes full of fresh ingredients, where you then cook meals with the instructions provided. Again, you can do this in bulk, but it saves time as you don’t have to go shopping for ingredients or try to find recipes online.
At the end of the day, you can’t use all of these common diet excuses as a way of justifying your lack of health and fitness. You should try to be as healthy and fit as possible because it is good for your life! You will live longer and with fewer ailments, if you do this. After reading all of the common excuses above, you should be able to realize just how silly they are. In every situation, there is a way around this excuse, making it easier for you to be fit and healthy.