Day 7 – –Welcome back to the series that is designed to help you stick to your weight loss plan by giving you tips and strategies you can use in your daily struggle to change your eating and lifestyle habits.

Today I want to talk about excuses.  Our brains are excuse making machines!  We want to justify and seek evidence for our positions, opinions and beliefs.  This is great if our life is giving us exactly what we want.  If not, it will be of great value to examine the way we operate when we want to do something different and find some really good excuses not to follow through.

Some common fears and excuses I hear from my clients just prior to the start of their weight loss journey:

• What if I’m too old?
• What if I fail?
• I’m afraid to be thin.
• I don't know how.
• What if I can't change?

What is an Excuse?

Excuses are rationalizations we make to ourselves about people, events and circumstances. In reality, excuses are thoughts we have running through our brain to justify the fact that we won't or did not follow through on what we planned to do. 

Our plan to change our eating habits and lose weight sounds like such a great idea, but implementing it creates a bit of discomfort.  We invent reasons defend our behavior, to neglect shopping or planning meals, staying up late and not getting enough sleep, bringing in that sugary treat for our mate, or our kids.  We end up placing blame for an internal problem on an external circumstance.

There are many reasons why people make excuses not to followa diet or weight-loss program.

• Fear of Failure
• Fear of Embarassment
• Fear of Success
• Fear of Being Thin
• Fear of Uncertainty
• Fear of Hunger
• Fear of Making Mistakes

Fear is the biggest destroyer of dreams.  Yet, fear is an emotion, created by our thoughts.  It is a vibration in our body and a thought in our head.

Can you imagine that you can feel the fear and act anyway?  Did you know you could analyze your thoughts that create fear?  Learning how to question all thoughts is a good way to start! 

Some people love the feeling of fear – creepy movies, haunted houses, rollercoaster rides.  People pay good money to experience fear in their bodies! 

The vibrational experience of fear is similar to the vibrational experience of excitement, but in our brains, the connection between the thought and the vibration creates what appears to be an insurmountable obstacle. 

So what if we fail?  Have you heard that failure is the way to discoveries?  Have you heard that failing big and fast is key to success?  So what if we are embarrassed?  So what if we make a mistake?

Ask better questions so your brain isn’t focused on the negative problems and emotions.

Instead of asking yourself, what if I fail and still don’t stick to my plan?  Ask yourself, how can I learn one new technique today to stick to my plan this week.  Just one.

To change your habit of letting your excuses run your life, awareness is crucial.  Can you see and identify that you are making excuses? 

Answer the following questions:

• What excuses do I tend to make?
• What am I giving up?
• Why am I making these excuses?
• What are the consequences of your excuses on your weight loss goal?
• How do these excuses prevent me from moving forward?
• How do they cripple my ability to get what I want?

When you discover you make excuses, like the rest of humanity, remember it is not because there is anything wrong with you.  It is the way your brain operates.

Those of us who challenge our brains, discover a great secret…. the only thing holding us back are sentences in our head and vibrations in our body.

Are you willing to become the CEO of your life and take on your primitive brain that believes your fears?

Just get your pen and paper and start looking at your excuses: sentences in your head.

You can re-write the sentences, put them in your head and create new results. 

You can stick to your plan, despite your excuse making brain.