Hey, you.
STOP WITH THE LIES.
Yeah, the lies that are hindering your chances of making some progress, seeing results and actually dropping some dress sizes for once.
Yeah, the excuses, justifications and delusions you keep medicating yourself with, to try and rationalise why you haven’t made any headway into shedding some body fat.
Telling yourself fraudulent stories about your life isn’t getting you anywhere, and even if you’re convinced you don’t, you do.
As you’ll find out below.
Fat Loss Is Just Like a Game of Poker
Let’s start with a cool analogy. Don’t analogies just make everything in life seem so wonderful?
Just like in poker, we often get dealt good hands and bad hands when it comes to trying to lose body fat.
The ‘pocket aces’ of fat loss? A free gym-membership just a two minute walk from your house, the perfect home set-up, with a personal chef and awesome genetics everyone curses you for having.
The ‘7/2’ of fat loss? Having to look after four food-fussy kids, a partner insistent on bringing back take-aways every evening, dealing with an unforgiving and stressful job, and only having to look at a piece of cake for you to put on five pounds.
But while it’s easy to get fixated on the cards we’re dealt, the trick lies in the choices we make with those cards. After all, it’s still possible to win a hand if you’re dealt a 7 and a 2.
As Mark Manson states in his book ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck’:
‘We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond’.
And there’s the kicker.
For every fat loss obstacle, difficulty and hurdle we have to overcome, we can either sit in a huff, shrug our shoulders and say it’s not our fault, or we can take responsibility for the situation and fashion plans to conquer the shit life throws at us.
So, while you may find yourself thinking up a few of the following lies, you can either go along with these delusions of grandeur, or admit you’re lying to yourself and stop selling yourself these falsehoods.
While you may be dealt with some ‘7, 2’s’ every once in a while, it’s time roll your sleeves up and start winning with them…
‘I’ll Start When…’
The kids go back to school? Things quieten down at home and you’re less busy? You find the right training programme to follow? The clouds align, your pet unicorn is spotting you on the bench press, and Donald Trump is serenading you with your favourite love song?
The belief in the ‘right time’ is nothing but an illusion.
It will never come. There will always be something else stopping you from starting, changing, and progressing. All that postponing is just clocking up as wasted time.
Whatever obstacle is holding you back – whether it’s the kids, your partner, work, a messy home situation, or a lack of motivation – you need to start yesterday. No matter how small that start is, over the course of a week, a month, and a year, those small starts will add up to something much greater.
If this is something you really want, you need to start. Start now, and the sooner you’ll be able to reap the rewards of your successes.
‘I Haven’t Got The Time…’
Alex Viada said it best:
‘If you can only find an hour so a week total to train, the best type of exercise I would recommend is a brisk march down to the local community college to take a damn course or two on time management, because nobody is that damn busy’.
Fat loss isn’t about being too busy to do things. It’s about prioritising the right things.
Yes we’ve all got work, social events, kids to look after, TV shows to watch, and naps to be having, but all you’re doing is prioritising these activities over the requirements for fat loss – whether that’s training, cooking, planning, or staying on track.
It’s never about not having the time.
So the next time you find yourself plaguing yourself with these words, take a step back, and ask yourself: ‘what am I prioritising over the gym/cooking/planning etc.?’
Once you’ve figured out what that thing is, you’ll be able to make a better decision as to whether you can turn things around.
‘I’m Going Out So I’ll Be Eating Badly…’
Eating out, whether it’s at friends, restaurants, or work events, is hard.
You don’t know what’s going to be available, how things are going to be cooked, how much is going to be on hand, and whether there’ll be a chocolate and fudge brownie based dessert on offer.
There is, however, a common misconception that just because you’re going out to eat, you don’t have a choice over what you can put in your mouth.
Stop lying to yourself and remember this:
You are still in control of the choices you make, no matter where you are, what you’re doing, and what you’re having.
Yes the food selection may not be great, and you probably don’t want to piss off your friends by ordering something completely different to them, but giving up before you’ve even started is a recipe for disaster.
I’ve seen people time and time again assume that because they’re out, their usual well-planned and sensible food selections have to automatically go out the window.
You always have the power over what you eat. No one forces alcohol, extra potatoes, or the sticky toffee pudding down your throat. No one. You’re still in control over how much you eat, what you choose to have, and whether you decline the invitation for dessert.
Stop using the ‘I’m going out, so sorry but I just can’t eat well’ excuse.
‘One Won’t Hurt…’
Let me preface this section by saying that no, one won’t hurt. But…
It’s never one. It’s never just one biscuit. It’s never just one meal out. It’s never just one day. If you were to add up all the times you said ‘this one time won’t hurt’ over the course of the week, or month, you’d notice that all those ‘one times’ are actually hurting.
If you’re not happy with your physique, then those seemingly infrequent lapses aren’t actually so infrequent at all. Similarly, people often say:
‘I don’t usually eat… [Insert food item]’, or ‘I don’t usually drink… [Insert drink], or ‘I’m usually quite healthy…’
These words are then inexplicably followed by: ‘But I did have… [Insert drink or food item]… the other day’.
Because you only consider these one offs in the moment, it’s incredibly easy to forget about all the other times you said and did exactly the same thing.
Every time you find yourself regurgitating this all too familiar line, make a note of it. You’ll soon find that these incidents happen more often than you think.
‘I’ve Been Good, So I Deserve This…’
Have you ever whispered these words to yourself?
‘After the stressful day I’ve had I deserve a nice glass of wine with dinner’
‘I worked so hard at the gym earlier so I’m allowed to have dessert later’
You have? Don’t worry, so has everyone else, myself included. This is something called the ‘moral licensing loophole’ and it’s a dangerous place to be.
This get-out clause we use is when we give ourselves permission to do something ‘bad’ because we’ve been ‘good’. We reason that we earned it or deserve it, or that a particular ‘good’ behaviour has offset something ‘bad’.
The most prominent one being that because we crushed it at the gym earlier that day or throughout the week, we deserve to treat ourselves to ALL the cake.
This is a shit excuse and it’s ruining your progress.
Every time you have a great workout, ask yourself whether your nutritional choices later on will get you closer to your goal or further away from it, rather than trying to justify your selection by telling yourself you ‘earned it’ or ‘deserve it’.
‘I’ll Burn This Off Later…’
Oh no. Someone’s just put a work lunch in your diary and you know it spells trouble. Oh well, even if you go over on your calories for the day you’ll burn it off later right?
Unfortunately not.
Just because you threw some weights around and sweated like a dog doesn’t mean you’ve burned off the ten chicken wings, half chicken, peri-peri chips, and gooey caramel cheesecake you had earlier at Nando’s.
It’s important to remember that the amount of calories you burn during a session doesn’t equate to anywhere near the amount you can consume in one frantic lunch sitting.
I know you’re constantly trying to do the maths in your head. But sorry, you’re just not very good at it.
As Aadam Ali at Physiqonomics says:
‘You shouldn’t be “exercising for fat loss”, because you can’t out train your diet – rather, you want to train for muscle and strength gain and retention, while letting your calorie deficit handle the “fat burning”.’
It’s time to stop using the excuse of a tough gym session to justify your poor food choices. Those food choices should be your number one priority when it comes to fat loss, regardless of whether it’s a work lunch, birthday party, or because you can’t be bothered to cook anything at home.
‘I Don’t Want To Get Too Muscly, Or Too Strong…’
The ‘I don’t want to get too muscly, or too strong’ is a common proclamation from people who start lifting weights. And the funny thing is, people would actually love to be too muscly or too strong. Nobody would say ‘damn I hate being the strongest person in the gym’. Nobody.
All people are doing when they repeat this excuse is lowering their standards to match their lack of patience and work ethic in order to grind away at trying to build muscle and strength.
Building muscle and getting stronger doesn’t happen overnight. And so when people say they don’t want to get too strong, they’re just fashioning an excuse as a defence mechanism.
Just so if they do fail, they can say they didn’t want the ultimate goal to happen anyway.
To Conclude
It’s quite easy to fall into the trap of selling yourself lies as to why you can’t do this, or that, or why you’re not making any progress.
Recognising and quashing these falsehoods is a big step in ensuring you don’t succumb to the same excuses everyone else does.
We all get dealt bad hands when it comes to training, nutrition, and trying to lose body fat. But conjuring up excuses and lies to protect ourselves is a sure-fire way of failing. You must hold yourself accountable and stop allowing your shortcomings as permanent.
This Article Was Too Long And I Didn’t Read It; Can You Summarise It Please
– Life will throw shit at you. Your fat loss success depends on how you respond and react to these situations.
– Telling yourself fraudulent stories about your life isn’t getting you anywhere. They’re just excuses you’re using.
– Whatever obstacle is holding you back – whether it’s the kids, your partner, work, a messy home situation, or a lack of motivation – you need to start yesterday.
– Fat loss isn’t about being too busy to do things. It’s about prioritising the right things.
– You are still in control of the choices you make, no matter where you are, what you’re doing, and what you’re having.
– It’s never just ‘one’. If you were to add up all the times you said ‘this one time won’t hurt’ over the course of the week, or month, you’d notice that all those ‘one times’ are actually hurting.
– The moral licensing loophole is when we give ourselves permission to do something ‘bad’ because we’ve been ‘good’.
– It’s important to remember that the amount of calories you burn during a session doesn’t equate to anywhere near the amount you can consume in one frantic lunch sitting.
– All people are doing when they say ‘I don’t want to get too muscly or too strong’ is lowering their standards to match their lack of patience and work ethic in order to grind away at trying to build muscle and strength.
How To Win At Fat Loss
Download my FREE eBook on How To Win At Fat Loss and you’ll learn…
- Why everyone usually fails when it comes to trying to shed body fat
- Why you should be lifting weights
- Why calories are so important
- Why weighing yourself is a no-no
- Why mastering nutritional habits are the key to success
All so you can…
- Finally stop failing and start winning at fat loss
- Finally shed inches, drop dress sizes, and actually see a change for once
- Finally transform your body and mind so you’re not constantly battling those dieting demons
- Finally figure out how to lose the fat, keep it off, and flaunt the figure you’ve always dreamt of displaying