Posted by Steve in weight loss tips | 13 Comments
Accepting Personal Responsibility
I have read a lot of weight loss sites, blogs and self improvement sites that use the tagline “it’s not your fault“. Meaning that whatever your problem is that some how you are not responsible for the consequences. I personally think that is a load of BS.
The more I explore the reasonings behind my weight gain and the weight gain of others, the more I realize how much of a role our thinking and mindset has to do with it all.
Our culture is centered around blame. We blame our boss for us not earning enough money, our government for not providing enough services and taxing us too much and more specifically towards weight gain; we blame people, situations, food and drug companies etc..
This Applies To 90% Of Overweight People
The fact is that you alone are responsible for your weight gain. No one else forced that unhealthy food (either in content or quantity) into your mouth. No one else made you sit on the couch in front of the TV instead of exercising. And no one else should or will care about you regaining your health and losing the weight as much as you.
No matter what your current situation there were choices that you had to make to get where you are today. Everyday choices like eating out instead of making your lunches at home, skipping breakfast, skipping workouts and not paying attention to what you’re eating over time add up.
Accepting Responsibility Is Empowering
Accepting Responsibility is NOT blaming yourself. It’s understanding that this is the situation I have gotten myself into and now I have to get myself out of it.
Once you stop blaming other people and less than ideal situations for your weight gain and understand that ultimately you were the one that got yourself into this situation, you can start to make some real progress towards losing the weight.
Now that you know the cause you can explore the options to correct it. The good news is that you are not alone in trying to fix the problem. There are many great online weight loss sites that offer great advice, tips and support to help you reach your goals and keep you motivated along the way.
Here are a few to help you get started.
Iowa Avenue
Weight Loss Forum
Andrew is getting fit
John is Fit
Fatmanunleashed
The Menu Coach Chronicles
Weight Loss Weapons
Another great way to keep you on the right track is to start your own blog and make yourself accountable to not stop until you reach your goal.
Free Blogging programs
If you’re really serious and want to make a commitment to keeping track of your weight loss journey you can sign up and get your blog hosted by a hosting company. I use PowWeb for this site and wordpress as my blogging platform. It costs $5.77 a month and a you get a FREE domain name.
Nothing against the free sites but I’ve found that if I’m paying for a service I am sure as hell going to use it. Here is a perfect example, my first free site I started that I never used.
The Diet Starts Monday
What are your thoughts on this? Have you accepted responsibility for your choices?
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Thanks for the plug Steve. I’m rather flattered!
And I so agree with the sentiment you expressed. The time to change is now.
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No problem Andrew. You have lost more than 100 pounds and have many lessons to share.
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Thanks for those great resources, personally I like fatmanunleashed and andrewisgettingfit. Quite inspiring.
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Great article. If we don’t take responsibility, how are we supposed to take action? Excellent stuff.
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I definitely agree. I mentioned a similar sentiment in a recent article on ways to avoid fast food – basically, if we all took responsibility for our own health we can effectively improve the system as a whole. It starts with recognizing that for most of us, our choices determine a good portion of our health consequences. Medicine should be able to focus on the consequences and causes that we don’t know how to prevent yet.
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So many people don’t take responsibility for their actions. This girl that lives down the street from me would be cute if she didn’t have a monstrous pot belly. So I bring her to kickboxing and she quits after like the third class. Don’t talk to me about how you want to lose weight then, lazy.
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Various things can cause weight gain, but many live in denial of their own situation. Whatever the reason for the weight gain, only you are responsible for improving your health.
Great post Steve
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@waytolosefat – Fatmanunleashed and Andrewisfit are 2 of my personal favs, but there are a ton of great blogs out there. I keep finding more everyday.
@Mckenna – It would seem like common sense but I’m surprised how many people don’t get it.
@Metroknow – I really enjoyed that three part series you wrote. There are many useful suggestions for quiting the fast food addiction.
@Project Swole – I know many guys and girls in that same situation. Could be great looking but the extra weight hides most of that. The worst thing is they talk so much about losing weight, instead of taking any real action towards achieving it.
I found the best thing is to point them in the right direction and leave them to it. For all of us I think the key question is how bad do we want it?
@Nashville SEO Zombie – (great name)
Some people just need to hit rock bottom before realizing that.
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It’s not your fault seems to have worked for the people who sued the tobacco companies. Sure it is a fact that we blame others so that we can feel better about ourselves. Perhaps it is not understood when they say it’s not your fault that there might be a problem with addiction. Blaming someone else seems to have worked for smokers and the millions of dollars in revenue from lawsuits. Maybe eating should be like smoking tobacco, a legal venture where smokers/eaters are taxed for the privilege. It seems only right. We have banned smoking in public places, cigarette vending machines. Maybe we should put a scale at every candy machine and if you weigh so and so much, you will be taxed double of a normal eater. It’s not your fault might be a copout for not accepting responsibility for your actions, but when one considers the addiction to alcohol when it is in your blood stream as a sugar, wouldn’t it be the same if you are addicted to chocolate?
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Good advice about starting a fitness blog. There’s something about sharing a goal publicly that really make one take action rather than keeping it all inside your head.
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That was a good post. I agree to that it is necessary that we should learn to accept personal responsibility in every aspect.
It we know how to do this it will be much easier for us to do decisions on our and accept its results
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Great Post! Keep up the good work. And thanks for the mention.
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Its also about excuses IMO, people will blame others to as why they are unfit and eat crappy foods, but will often not do anything to change their way because they are lazy. Some people also just lack the education in nutrition and training TBH, the number of people I have come across who know so little about nutrition is alarming.
Andy
Fitness Uncovered
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