Moving on to Part III of my Know Excuses is the ever popular catch-all "I'm too..." excuse. As in "I'm too old to start a fitness program" or "I'm too fat to work out" or "I'm too weak." Let me hereby clear you of such nonsense.
Too old to start taking care of yourself and making your health a priority? Did you hear about the 71 year old woman who set the Guinness Book of World Record for holding plank position? Or how about the 100 year old man who recently ran a full marathon- and who hadn't even started running until the age of 89. 89! Why bother, you figure? The answer to that question is all around you- it's in the mirror as you face your reflection, the faces of those you love and who love you. You could not only add years to your life, but also quality to those years. So, why not?
Too fat or too weak to start? I hear you and I felt EXACTLY the same way years ago. My path to transformation came not from an urge to even make a transformation (at 240 pounds and in my early 30s, any sort of transformation seemed ridiculously out-of-reach and, therefore pointless), but rather to help my sister out in her quest to stick to Atkins. I was one of those who would have simply thrown up my hands and said, "what's the point?" One of my greatest regrets during my year-long Atkins experiment was that I didn't start up a fitness regimen while I was dieting. I could have been gaining muscle while I was losing weight. I would have gotten stronger as I was getting smaller. Now that I've learned how wonderful it is to be able to run and play with my kids, how beautiful muscle looks, how awesome it is to be able to discover just how much my body is capable of doing, I wish I could go back in time and shake some sense into myself and started on the path to health sooner! All those years spent huffing and puffing on stairs, all the times I said I was too tired when my then toddler son Spencer (now almost a teenager!) wanted me to play with him or take him to the park...it makes me very sad to think back to those times.
One of the motivational pictures I've recently come across pretty powerfully stuck with me, inspiring these "Know Excuses" pieces. It was a clearly obese woman in workout gear, lying on her back on the floor looking utterly spent with the words "You don't have to be great to start but you have to start to be great." I wish I had the good sense to realize that back when I was obese...that I had been that woman lying on the floor after pushing my limits- then slowly becoming amazed at just how limitless my body's potential was rather than waiting until I was smaller to even try to push those limits.
Before throwing your hands up in the air and saying "I'm too old/too fat/too weak/too whatever" to work out, check with your doctor. Chances are you're not too old, too fat or too weak to start out. And that's my last dose of tough love- unless of course you've got another excuse floating around. If so, post in the comments and I'll do a piece debunking it for you.
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