Goodbye, Excuses: My "Aha" Moment!

"Excuses are like male nipples.  They are completely useless."
-Don Calame

So, I wrote the other day about my two diet / exercise realizations.  In order to be successful at making healthy lifestyle changes, in my opinion, you have to have an aha! moment and you have to find something that you love. 

This is the story of my aha moment.  Don't get all excited and mushy though.  It's kind of a pathetic one.

I have always been full of excuses when it comes to exercise.  Well, not always.  Since I had Moosey though, I have been brimming with great reasons why I just cannot exercise.  The kicker is that many of them were true, so it was like constant reassurance for my laziness.

Family hike in September 2012.  I don't mind exercise

that doesn't feel like exercise (skiing, walking, hiking, etc).

My top excuses were:

*I don't have time.

*The trainer is too expensive and that is the only thing that I like to do.

*I don't want to take time away from Myra to workout.
*I hate group workouts because they humiliate me.

Josh would say things like, "why don't you wake up early and go to the gym?"  My excuse was that it took too long to get there, workout, get home, shower, and make it to work.  I am not a morning person.  Kind of weak sauce, but kind of true.

He would say, "workout at night."  I would say, "no way.  I worked my ass off all day and I want to relax at night, not workout.  I am too tired."  That one is still pretty understandable in my opinion.  I can barely stand at night, let alone workout.

Workout at lunch?  Kind of hard to take a lunch break from work when you only work 21 hours a week to begin with...

Workout at naptime?  No dice.  I cook, clean, do laundry, pay bills, and maybe do a teensy bit of Internet surfing.  Plus, that is my only alone time.  

Honestly, those things are all true.  I am sure that they are true for most of you.  The problem is that those excuses still left me waking up every single day feeling dissatisfied and frustrated.

So...here comes my aha moment.  Ready?  Drum roll...

I ran out of excuses.  

Yes, seriously.  How anti-climatic was that?  For real though, read on.  It gets better.

My friend started a program called T25 and was raving about it.  She liked it so much that she became a coach.  T25 is a series of workout videos that you do once a day for 25 minutes, 6 days a week.  That's it.  She invited me to try it through one of her challenged groups and I decided to go for it.  Because I had no excuses not to.

Me, post-T25, yesterday.  Exhausted, but loving it!

I mean, it is 25 minutes per day and can be done from my house, which means no added commute time.        25 minutes.  There goes the no time excuse.  Since it is only 25 minutes and I can do it in the morning, it is done before Moosey wakes up, so that excuse was also gone.

It is so much cheaper than the gym (have you checked lately...gyms are expensive!), so that excuse was  also null and void.

AND...you get to do it at your home, which means that you save the discouragement and humiliation that can come from going to the gym.  I know that sounds silly, but going to the gym makes me feel SO self-conscious (group class are the worst).

So, guess what?  Since I no longer had an excuse, I tried it and I liked it.  Loved it, in fact!  I have been doing it for 5 weeks now and am totally hooked.  I have noticed a few physical changes, but the most important thing for me is how much better I feel mentally.  I am a whole new person from the one who wrote the previous post in September.

And...there is more!  I am such a believer in this program that I am now coaching!  Unreal, right?!  I am going to be hosting Facebook challenge groups starting in January, so please message me if you want more info.  I would LOVE to have you on my team!