Are you having problems with your weight loss? Are you doing everything right, and still can’t seem to lose weight?
How does that happen? Who can you blame?
Well, too often people like to blame external factors for a situation they’re in that they’re not particularly happy with. Could be financial, marital, employment, or anything else. Given what I do, the situation I hear about most often is people’s struggles with weight loss, and how they feel they can’t get control over it.
Warning: Tough love ahead.
The underlying truth is that you are in the situation you’re in with your weight because of the choices you have made and the priorities that you’ve set.
If you can’t admit that to yourself or are unable to bring yourself to accept that it’s true, you can stop reading now, because I won’t be able to help you. Game over, thanks for playing. End of story.
As long as you continue to deny responsibility for your situation, you will continue to be unable to change your situation. This is one of the core concepts around which my weight loss philosophy and strategies are based.
We live in a society of victims now. People love to be the victim, because when a person is a victim, then the situation they’re in isn’t their fault. If you can find an enemy, someone or something to label as the cause of your troubles, then you don’t have to worry about trying to fix those troubles, right?
You can’t fix it. After all, you’re just the helpless victim here, aren’t you? These troubles certainly aren’t your fault, or the result of anything that you’ve done.
- If my boss wasn’t such a jerk, I’d have a much better job.
- If it wasn’t for those dumb democrats, I’d be much better off.
- If those stupid republicans would get their act together, I’d be happier.
- If only the economy didn’t suck, I’d be able to take a vacation.
- The news reported on a study that says people like me gain weight easier, so I guess I can’t help it that I’m fat.
- My parents never had healthy food in the house, so that’s why I’m overweight as an adult.
- I don’t have time to exercise because I’m always taking care of my kids. School, ballet, soccer, hockey…
- I can’t lose weight because I was born with a slow metabolism.
- I think I have a thyroid problem.
- I can’t lose weight because I just have bad genes.
For the love of all that is good, please stop it now!
Just shut up.
The only bad jeans you have are the acid-washed ones you’ve hid in the back of your closet since the 80’s, and as long as you keep blaming everybody and everything else, whether it’s your boss, the democrats, republicans, the economy, your parents, your kids, your metabolism or your genes, you will never lose weight.
And if you do, you will gain it back.
That’s as simple as I can say it.
Starting today, you must take personal responsibility for the situation you’re in.
It is your choices and nothing else that got you to where you are today, and you can make the choice to change where you go tomorrow if you want, but only if you stop blaming others.
None of those external factors are what’s causing your weight to be what it is. The fact that you choose to eat too much crap and exercise too little is what’s causing your weight to be what it is.
The fact that you’ve prioritized other things in life above your health, appearance, and well-being is what’s causing your weight to be what it is.
Sorry for the tough love, but the truth is the truth whether you want to hear it or not.
Now, I know there are a few of you with documented medical conditions who have weight problems. Frankly though, that is a tiny, tiny fraction of a percentage of people. If you are in that tiny percentage, then the tough love wasn’t necessarily targeted at you.
That doesn’t mean this doesn’t apply to you though.
In fact, it is probably even more important that you get these concepts due to the circumstances of your condition and the additional challenges that it can present.
But the reality is that we have an obesity epidemic and just about everybody who’s part of that epidemic is that way because of the choices they make.
Like I said, if you keep blaming others for your situation, your situation will not change.
“Until a person can say deeply and honestly, ‘I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,’ that person cannot say, ‘I choose otherwise.’”
- Stephen Covey
Similarly, in addition to being a society of victims, we’re a society that likes to harbor or hang on to old wounds. In this case, you’re still a victim, but instead of being a victim of a current circumstance, you blame events from your past for the way you are today.
- This event happened in my childhood, and because of that I’m this way today.
- This person treated me like a certain way in the past and now I’m fearful of that today.
- My parents never had good food in the house so I’m fat today.
- I was picked on in gym class in grade school, so you’ll never see me step foot in a gym again.
Well, these old wounds are not the cause of your situation today, okay? They are simply your excuses to explain away your current situation, which is really caused by the current choices you make.
This is going to sound harsh, but it’s time to just get over it.
Get over those old wounds. There’s a multibillion dollar therapy industry in this country that survives because people like to hold onto these old wounds, and it’s time for you to stop supporting this industry.
If this stings a little to read because it sounds like you, it is time to accept that your current situation is not created by these old wounds.
It’s created by the choices you are making in the present.
It’s time to live in the present. You’re hanging on to an old, worn out excuse to explain away your current situation.
Your past doesn’t have to dictate your future. It only will if you let it.
Let me use the following example that I heard from an influential mentor of mine, Dr. Wayne Dyer, the noted psychotherapist and best-selling author and speaker.
Picture a boat cruising across a still lake. The water in front of the boat is as smooth as glass and there’s not a ripple in the lake except for the wake created behind the boat.
What is that wake? It is nothing more than what the boat leaves behind. It has zero impact on the direction the boat goes in the future. The boat can go wherever it wants, the wake is behind it, and it has no control over where the boat goes.
You are that boat, your past is your wake, and your future is dependent upon where you steer the boat today, not on the wake you’ve left behind.
Your future is dependent on the choices you make now and where you want to go with them. Don’t let your past ruin your future.
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely…”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Another thing people pretend to be is a victim of time.
“I don’t have enough time to exercise. I’ve got to work, take the kids to school, then to soccer practice, then to their game, then to dance class. I’ve got to cook, clean, manage the house, do the dishes, mow the lawn…”
Blah, blah, blah.
I know some of you are thinking that I just gave a pretty accurate description of your life and just validated your time excuse.
Well, not so fast, Sparky.
You know who some other people whose lives I just described are? Lots of fit, healthy people who were able to lose weight and keep it off.
Surprise! Other people who are just as busy as you can succeed with weight loss.
Guess what? We all have the same amount of time.
There are 24 hours in the day. I have 24 hours, you have 24 hours, Einstein had 24 hours, Thomas Edison had 24 hours, Mother Teresa had 24 hours, and the President of the United States has 24 hours.
These are people who accomplished quite a bit of stuff, and remarkably, you have the same amount of time in the day as them.
So, stop saying you don’t have time. Everybody has time.
If you don’t believe that you do, then what you don’t have is control.
You’ve given up control over your priorities in life. You’re making a conscious choice to prioritize other things above your health, your appearance, and your weight. You have time to eat right and exercise, but you are simply making the choice to place a greater emphasis on other pursuits, whether those pursuits deserve the emphasis or not.
The good news is that this means your time issue is easily correctable.
I have never found a client whose nose-to-the-grindstone schedule was such that they did not have time to fit in a workout a few days per week. Hell, I can show you how to work out in 20 minutes.
Can you honestly tell me that you don’t have 20 minutes in your day?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
If you have time to watch any reality TV shows, read a magazine from the grocery store checkout line, or burn up the keyboard reading mindless updates on your friends’ Facebook pages, you have more than enough time to lose weight. So stop using time as an excuse.
What happens when you fall back on these false excuses is that you give up control. You need to take control back. It’s easy to give up control because then you can blame your failures on these and other external forces.
It is time to look inside yourself, because these external forces are really not the reason for your weight problem.
The choices you make are the reasons for your weight problem.
All of these external forces act as a crutch, as an excuse to explain away the things that you don’t like in your life. Face it, your boss will always be a jerk, democrats and republicans are always going to fight, and the economy could go into another tailspin tomorrow.
The fact that your parents never had healthy food in the house as you were growing up has zero impact on your life today (unless you’re still living in their basement and letting them shop for you). Your kids are always going to be busy, just like the kids of people who have successfully lost weight. You’re not the victim of your metabolism. You’re really the creator of your metabolism.
Stop giving up control of your life to these external forces. They are not the reason you have a weight problem. Take control back.
You make choices every single day, and each day is a new opportunity to choose which direction you’re heading in.
If you don’t take this control back you will never be successful with weight loss.
If you don’t take this control back you will never have the body of your dreams.
If you continue to blame external forces, the way you look today and the way you feel today about your weight is the way you will look and feel about your weight tomorrow.
So if you want to change, start accepting personal responsibility for your situation and the steps needed to change it.
“Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.”
- Buddha
Okay. Off my soapbox for now. I’d love to hear what you think. Leave your comments below.
~Dave
(6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)About the Author
Dave Soucy is a coach, trainer, motivator, husband, dad, and former fat guy. His goal is to teach as many people as possible how to achieve a life of health, fitness, and wellness through simply eating right and exercising. Click here to learn more about Dave.
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