Health & Wellness - India Herbs Blog

Reach your goal by giving these top healthy eating and exercise cop-outs the boot.

Stop All Silly Excuses

Losing weight isn’t as easy as pie—or even a piece of cake. We’ve all heard (and invented) plenty of reasons why slimming down just isn’t possible right now. We’re short on time to prep our own healthy meals, extra cash to spend on high-end “health foods,” and besides, it’s way too cold to work out. Sound familiar?

The reality is that healthy eating and regular exercise are not as labor intensive—or wallet busting—as we make them out to be. Here, 6 of the most common excuses that get you off track.

1. "I'm too busy."

You have work deadlines this week, sick kids, and your husband is out of town on business—you eat what’s handy; you can barely bring home takeout, nevermind gathering enough veggies for a decent salad, right?

Wrong. Sticking to healthy behaviors—like making time for meals and squeezing in exercise throughout the day, even when your life feels like it’s going 100 miles a minute, is actually the key to long-term success.

Set an alarm to eat on your phone or computer so you don’t forget and overindulge later; keep certain foods in your freezer for go-to makeshift meals, like a frozen turkey burger you can microwave or grill and frozen veggies; and try to always keep healthy food on hand, like apples and a good-for-you bar containing fruit and nuts such as Kind.

2. "Healthy food is expensive."

Sure, it’s often cheaper to purchase three items for lunch off the Dollar Menu at McDonald’s than to buy a big salad with healthy add-ins, but new research shows that getting your daily recommended allowance of fruits and veggies may be less expensive than you think. The Economic Research Service used 2008 Nielsen Homescan data and found that an adult on a 2,000-calorie diet could satisfy recommendations for vegetable and fruit consumption in the new 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans at an average price of $2 to $2.50 per day, or approximately 50 cents per cup equivalent. That’s probably less than your afternoon skinny latte!

There are plenty of ways to make healthy food—and your budget—go further. Frozen vegetables and fruits are cheaper and just as healthy as fresh because they’re picked at the peak of ripeness, She recommends buying seasonal produce from farmers’ markets, purchasing whole grains in bulk, and not buying food in individual packages.

3. "Diets make me hungry."

If your diet is making you hungry, it’s probably not a good diet—or sustainable in the long term. Cutting calories the healthy way—trimming portions from meals, skipping caloric beverages, and putting the brakes on mindless eating—should not leave your belly rumbling. Learn to listen to your body’s hunger signals to determine if you really need to eat or are just bored, and eat approximately every 3 to 4 hours so you never become ravenous.

Alexander recommends stocking your fridge with low-calorie healthy foods—like celery and light dips—for when you just want to munch.

4. "I don't have time to cook."

It's not that people do not have time to cook. They don't have time to NOT cook. Twenty minutes of cooking healthy meals will save you excess calories you’d be taking in from oversized restaurant portions and time on the treadmill working that off.

Studies show that people who cook meals at home tend to eat more healthfully and weigh less than those who don’t. Use these healthy packaged foods to cut down on kitchen time and arm yourself with the proper resources.

5. "Exercise wipes me out."

No kidding—that’s why they call it a workout! “Jokes aside, exercise generates energy. The more energy you have, the more you’ll get done every day!” says Freytag.

“You recharge your body through food, sleep, and exercise. Movement creates energy. It gets your heart pumping, blood pumping, cleans out toxins, and gets your engine started. It also gets confidence levels up so you feel better about yourself,” she adds.

Squeeze in movement wherever you can to get an energy boost. Even light stretching throughout the day will help your body feel more energized.

6. "I always gain back the weight."

Starting a new weight loss plan can be daunting when you’ve dieted before, only to gain back the weight. The reason your prior plan didn’t work was because it wasn’t a diet you could sustain and enjoy for life.

Only make the changes that you can stick with. You have to really sit down and analyze your diet. Figure out, ‘What are your cravings, what do you really love, what are you not willing to give up?’” Then build your meals around that and cut calories from other places—like skipping butter on your bread at dinner so you can have a 100-calorie treat that you truly want. Even if you give up only 200 calories a day, you’ll lose 20 pounds a year.

Keep track of the habits that make you successful and kick your weaknesses up a notch. Be consistent with your strongest healthy habits, like always having a nutritious breakfast, and be prepared for your weaknesses, like having healthy foods at the ready for when you know you’ll want to pick in the afternoon.


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