Why Do People Try to Justify Every Reason Why They Can't Get Healthy?

I've noticed a curious phenomenon as I've been on my journey to Optimal (and soon, eventually, Ultra) Health. 

When I see people I haven't seen in a long while, they immediately (after the 'hey how are ya doing' formalities) begin to give me reasons why this or that or the other diet they just tried didn't work, or why they don't have time to exercise, or why they think they will just always be overweight, or why what I did utilizing Take Shape For Life just wouldn't work for them because such and so and the other thing and this and that.

It is like I am a priest and they are at confession.  And I'm no priest!  I have often been puzzled at this behavior, to either give me 10,000 reasons why they could never do what I did, or to tell me that the WAY I did it isn't sustainable and surely I'll gain the weight back, you know, because it was one of "those" diets. 

I was reading a book called "From Ultra Fat to Ultra Fit" and the man who wrote it had some interesting observations about this very thing.  He had lost over 100 pounds, and realized that some people want to justify their own inaction by minimizing yours.  Others want to excuse their choice to not do anything about their own obesity by giving you the million ways they have tried in the past and why they failed.  When someone is not willing to make a difficult change, the next best thing to do is to convince yourself and others that you tried your best to do so.

When someone is confronted by the presence of a person who has appeared to control or conquer a problem that they themselves have failed to deal with, they will likely employ one of these two methods.  Minimizing the effort it took you to accomplish it, or justify their past failed attempts at losing weight.  

"Oh I could never do that...." - OK then, never do it.
"Well it CAN'T be safe, not eating like that..." - Well I do eat, and 20,000 Physicians since 1980 disagree with you
"But don't you think starving yourself all the time is bad for you?" - I'm not starving myself, I'm utilizing a clinically proven, safe and effective method of portion controlled meal replacements, and let me tell you I'm pretty sure being massively overweight is a heck of  a lot more dangerous than just about any type of diet.
I just want to say that I am happier now than I have ever been in my entire, obese life.  I want this for everyone. 

But not everyone wants it for themselves.  The confusion that must come over my face when someone asks me how I did it, I BEGIN to tell them, only to be met by a diatribe about how they could never isn't safe can't afford tried in the past couldn't eat processed I'm afraid of loose skin I can't give up my fried chicken jumble of words that come out of their mouth as I'm trying to decipher if they actually WANT an honest answer to their question or they just WANT to feel better about themselves.

I'm a quick study, though, and I change the subject pretty quickly if I realize they don't REALLY want to know.  LOL.

So meanwhile I journey on, on my journey to optimal health.  I am not competing with anyone, the only person I want to be better than is the person I was yesterday. 

If you tell me you can't do it, I'll agree with you.  If you tell me you can do it, I'll agree with you too!  The challenge is that when we are obese, we absolutely have blinders on to the state of our own health.  Because if we truly saw what a ticking time bomb we are when our BMI is 40+ (mine was 47+), I'm telling you we would stop playing games with ourselves. 

I am going to talk straight because I appreciated it when people talked straight to me in that state at that time (thank you Mom, Dad, and Hubby for the intervention even when you knew I'd get mad and feel hurt).

If you are obese.  If your BMI is in the obese range of 30+, you have NOT arrived  at health yet.  If you believe that this coming holiday you may just indulge in a little something' something because you've "done so good these last few days/weeks" and you are still obese, I am begging you, BEGGING you to take a good, hard, honest look at your health and to continue on this path, continue on this journey, make the hard choices that you need to make because YOU ARE WORTH IT.  You are worth every "no thank you" you need to say this next Monday, this next summer.  Get healthy.  Please.  Your family needs you, they NEED you to step up and be the best version of yourself possible.  And the best version of yourself wants to emerge, too.  If you will just let it.

Stop playing games with your program, stop playing games with yourself.  Don't beat yourself or feel bad that you've been on and off the path more times than you can count in the last few months, just get ON the path NOW.  Make that decision.  You can turn this all around in ONE HEARTBEAT.  So what will it be?  Are YOU rationalizing as you read this why you've failed to stay on plan for whatever reason and how this is so HAAAAARRRRDDDD?  Are you thinking "Yes, but I'm not YOU."  No, you aren't.  You are YOU.

And if you WERE me, you would realize that you were of mediocre ability.  But guess what?  As George Allen said, "People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit.  Most men succeed because they are determined to."

Follow that with St. Francis of Assisi, "Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

True 'dat!

Rinse and Repeat!