Excuses – surely, you’ve had enough of making them?

As a personal trainer for more than 25 years, I have heard every excuse under the sun as to why people don’t exercise.

It has been my job to help people find an excuse to not only exercise but to find health as a priority in their lives.

My success rate is proving to be very good but what I continually see among the wider community is people constantly finding excuses to not make their health, fitness and wellbeing a priority. Choosing to smoke, vape, do drugs, drink to excess, fill themselves with poor food choices and then to top it off, not choose regular exercise? How could you?

Now I don’t want to put you off reading this and, in fact, I hope that if you are an “excuse maker”, that you please take some steps to change your behaviours surrounding your health and wellness – before it is too late.

Here is a list of the top WORST excuses for not exercising …

• Too busy ... doing what? What is more important than looking after your body and your mind? Too busy is most often the result of accidentally poor priority choices and, therefore, a lack of self-discipline.
• I don’t feel like it ... of course you don’t. Who (always) feels like going from sedentary or comfortable to effort? Waiting for “feeling like it” is a game of chance, not a game of design.
• I don’t feel motivated ... it’s about “motive” not feeling motivated. They are different! Motive is about health, fitness, longevity, weight, stress management. Feeling motivated is about emotion.
• I’ll do it tomorrow or later ... since when has procrastination ever been a successful strategy … for anything in life? Tomorrow or later never comes.
• I don’t enjoy exercise … whoever said exercise has to be enjoyable? That is a flawed notion. Exercise will be enjoyable on occasions and thoroughly unenjoyable on others. If you want the benefits of exercise, suck it up. And it’s not the feeling during exercise that matters, it’s the feeling at the end you should consider, and that’s always satisfying.

The top BEST ways to get yourself to exercise

• Just do it!
• Reread the previous point!

Expanding on the notion of being too busy always brings me back to the fact that there are 168 hours in a week and therefore 1.68 hours per week is merely one per cent of your week. So, if you cannot devote at the very minimum two per cent of your week to exercise then you have a massive problem and I urge you to take steps to change that!

I will save you a personal training consultation with me and share with you my simplest of strategies. Buy yourself a calendar and literally start with a five-minute walk per day and write that in on each day until five minutes becomes 10 minutes which then becomes 15 minutes.

Over time you have set up a positive behaviour that you can build from. You will feel better after about a week and soon realise that when you are out and about that you can actually find more time and you are now part of a positive cycle. You will feel better, fitter, have more energy and have a clearer mind.

As a result, you will likely sleep and eat better. Your life can change from as simple as a commitment to a five minute walk every day. The key component though is that it must be daily. Habits become behaviours, and soon, excuses become a thing of the past … don’t do me a favour but do yourself a favour and quit with your excuses … it’s time! •

For more information, exercise guidance or if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at justintimept.com