It’s harder to lose weight when you get older. Your metabolism slows down with age. Eating healthy costs too much. There’s not enough time to exercise.
All the above are reasons I have heard people give about not being able to lose weight and get in shape. In reality, they are excuses. Honestly ask yourself, “Is there absolutely nothing I can ever do to lose weight and get fit at age 35, 50, or 80?” You probably won’t be able to say yes.
Yes, our bodies change over time, stress levels change, our environments change, our diets change, even food changes over time. Despite all this, I realized that I have no real reason to why I have been struggling with my weight. Everything I do is a choice. I can choose clean, healthy food, or I can choose junk food and mindless snacking. I can choose to sit at my desk or on the couch, or I can get up and move.
This goes for anything in life. Excuses are stories, whether it’s about weight, exercise, relationships, or health. It’s not empowering to sit back and tell the same story over and over, and end up with the same, or very similar, unwanted, or mediocre, results.
Like every other situation in life, we have choices. Are you a victim, or do you find lessons from every situation, good or challenging? There are actually no real excuses because you chose EVERYTHING you said or did in the past, and you will keep choosing every action you take from now on. Knowing this is a big responsibility, and sometimes a burden.
Once we accept responsibility for our decisions, we can move forward, and make even better decisions for ourselves. For me, the weight started moving because I got a dog, and the dog requires daily walks and a routine schedule that hindered my snacking. I could choose to neglect the dog, and put snacking and relaxing as a higher priority, but I am choosing to put the dog higher up on the list.
What choices can you make differently? What choices are you making that make parts of your life awesome? As long as you’re alive, you have opportunities everyday to make choices to better your life, or to place an obstacle in reaching a goal. In this life, I personally, choose to learn and grow.
Our guest blogger this week is Erin Ushijima. She is a Happiness Officer at Happiness U, as well as a virtual assistant to myself and other clients, at Erin Ushijima Creative Assistance.
