Simply Healthy: Common excuses for giving up on healthy eating

Setbacks gives us a chance to step back and reassess the situation. What went wrong? Was I prepared for this problem? Could I have prevented it? And how?

Why is all this important? Well I assume many of you are still working hard on your resolutions and might be experiencing a few setbacks. The major setbacks tends to occur when getting back into the work routine while trying to maintain new changes which you have introduced (healthy eating and/or being consistently active). So how do you prepare for these possible setbacks?

Think about what’s stopping your progress, is it situational or is it your willpower that’s running low?

Some common excuses are:

- Work starts to pile up and you’re too busy to do anything else

- Your feeling too tired to even think about working out or cooking

Some may say that these are valid reasons but if you truly want to stick to your resolutions you need to find solutions not excuses. A good approach towards dealing with ‘busyness’ is to view the situations (excuses) as mini setbacks and find a balance.

For example if you know that you going to have a busy week then prepare for it. Take healthy snacks and packed lunch to work. You’ve brought it with you so you can make time to eat and avoid reaching for the usual fatty and sugary foods when work gets stressful.

You can take a similar approach towards being active:

- Making sure that you eat regularly to avoid feeling ‘too tired’ to exercise.

- Pay upfront for a fitness class

- Plan to workout with someone who is likely to rely on you

- Take your gym gear to work to prompt you to continue the action what you prepared for (and maybe get into the habit of changing before you leave work to really mentally prepare for a workout).

Some of these ideas may seem a bit silly or obvious but if they work then great. Be creative and make it work for you. It’s up to you to have excuses or see opportunities, failure or setbacks, the choice really is yours.

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