Can I Have a Word With You??

I just had a great conversation today with my wife Mary in regards to the horrific excuses people make as to why they can never get into good physical shape and why all of “those” programs don’t work for them. In the 23 years I‘ve been coaching people I have the chance to see the many typical patterns of behavior (i.e.- Bull sh*t) that never seems to change over time, from generation to generation, political landscapes or social changes.

Here they are in no particular order:

• I tried that diet and it didn’t work for me. (I did it for 2 days)

• I read that book and it didn’t help me at all. (I never applied the principles of the book.)

• I bought those exercise DVD’s and they didn’t work for me. (the DVD’s are covered with dust)

• I joined that gym and it didn’t work for me. (I went once or twice and got bored.)

• I tried Boxing and it didn’t work. (I went for a month and it was too hard.)

• I tried martial arts and it didn’t work. (I went to a month but was afraid of failing the test.)

• I tried that spin class and it didn’t work. (I went for almost a week, but I didn’t want to get up that early.)

You get the idea, yes? You see the pattern of behavior here?

Look, I know that change is hard. Getting up early, staying disciplined with food, being consistent with training every day, training when you’re tired….I get it! I go through all of that all the time. So what’s the difference between my wife and I and those other folks? We do the work. That’s the only difference.

We’re not better than anyone else or smarter (OK, Mary actually is, but certainly NOT ME!!). We don’t come from a childhood background of healthy eating that our parents taught us. We never learned it in high school or college. We never had someone else in our lives that was super healthy and physically fit. At some point we decided we wanted to live a better, healthier life and on our own learned as much as we could about healthy food intake and proper exercise.

So the answer to the assumption most people have is: no, this is not easier for Mary and I than for others. It’s not. We get tired from work. We have long days. We get injuries. We want to eat junk food. We want to stay on the couch and watch TV. We want to take a nap instead of training.

The difference? We don’t make BS excuses…we get it done. That's the ONLY difference.