Don't wait, start now

Just wondering why people postpone their "start" date? Since a healthy eating plan and exercise plan need to be for the rest of your life, why put that you are starting 2 weeks from now, or when the kids return to school or after Thanksgiving or wahtever? You are losing the opportunity to change your life now. So unless there is not one healthy thing to eat in your house start now. Clean out the bad stuff in the frig and pantry tomorrow, grocery shop for the healthy food asap (today or tomorrow). Don't wait, your life (or at least the quality of it) depends on it.

Aunt Keeks, My number one excuse was always, "I will start tomorrow". Or by the end of the year I will be this much less. Of course it was an empty promise no matter how good the intentions. All it does is give ourselves permission to continue to splurge instead of having to start. Having to start any plan means making changes. The longer we stall, the longer we remain stuck in our ways. Eat today as if you are already at goal and when you take the pounds off, they will stay off! We can enjoy any holiday, occasion and not gain. When New Years rolls around I will not be saying I gained. Thin feels better! Thanks for the reminder to do it now not later. : )

I definitely agree. I read a great quote somewhere that said "a year ago you'll wish you'd started today." I'd guess people do that because it's not easy to make a change, so a future date is a way to rationalize not doing anything today. It's much easier to SAY you're going to do it than to actually do it! But while easier, it doesn't actually yield any results, either. You have to take the first step!

In their defense, if they are not ready to fully commit today - then they will not likely succeed. Maybe right now is too stressful to implement major life changes. Maybe they need time to prepare mentally - one step at a time. Personally, I used every excuse in the book, until I was finally ready. Smokers do the same thing - I'll do it next week... If you can just weigh less in December than you did in January, that is progress!

For those who are wavering - just commit to making one change at a time. Maybe try seeing what you are eating every day by logging it in for a week. Then see what changes you can make and choose to eat healthier. Then once you get a handle on that, implement exercise. Then add more water, veggies, or whatever you need to do to stay on the weight loss train!

Shewlett75, I do consider the tiny changes "starting". More water, a short walk, more veggies etc....It is the heavy indulgence of the favorite foods ahead of the start date in anticipation of suffering that bugs me....people need to realize that things must change forever so they do not have the roller coaster of up and down. Sure it might derail on extremely special occasions....but for the most part they new to embrace the new changes as the way it will need to be. I realized at one point that there was a holiday or a reason for (food) celebration just about every week....I had to redefine what events really qualified for celebration (for me) and which ones would be celebrated but not cause a major breach in my healthy eating plan.

I have asked the exact same question before. Why do some folks need a 'start' date. What about September 1st is going to be different that today?
To me, thats a procrastination excuse. When September 1 comes, nothing changes except for the start day, which now becomes Ocober 1, or heck, lets just start taking care of ourselves January 1st, you know...after the holidays.

Some people may want to get all the "bad" habits out of their system and make a clean slate.

When you're ready to start, you will start. I had many years of start-and-stop dieting before I was really ready to JUST DO IT and quit my all-or-nothing thinking.

..."I'll start tomorrow...no can't start tomorrow it's Weds...and everyone knows diets start on Monday after a weekend of binging"--ok..I'm done harping. You don't have to start everything at once...in fact I think improving 1 bad habit at a time is so much easier than all or nothing....so here's to 1 simple change to a healthier self...right now.

Really I think people make things more complicated than they need to be. They look at a 'diet' as a life altering event that needs planning, budget and a management team to pull off Really it's not that complicated. Eat the foods you like within the caloric requirements your body has. Drop cals when you want to lose weight, raise cals when you want to gain weight and keep cals steady when you are happy. Easy peazy.

One reason is planning.

When I decided to diet, I spent a week or two doing research and thinking about the things that I wanted to be eating. I collected sample recipes. I thought about what sorts of staples and snack foods I wanted to have around the house. I figured out when I would shop and when I would cook.

If I'd tried to diet before knowing those things, I would have failed. Taking time to do some prep work and planning meant that when the time came for me to make the change, it was easy to do.

A diet isn't just what you eat-- it's a change in your lifestyle. Delaying the start of your diet to figure out exactly how it will work for you just makes sense.

I think that most people get overwhelmed about the prospect of change. Most people who are overweight/obese have an emotional attachment to food; if they make changes, they may have to deal with the emotions tied to their habits.

I think it's different for everyone. Sure, for a lot of people (maybe even most) who say "I'll start tomorrow/on the 1st/[insert other random future date here]" that really is a form of procrastination, but not for everyone. Last year when I made the decision to lose weight, it was before a big family vacation we had already planned. I wasn't going to try to diet in paradise, but I had definitely made the decision to start when I got home. And when I got home, I started.

Every Christmas me and my friend used to joke about getting into diet thing and we always say on january we will "really" have to start with our diet,then when january comes,some of our friends will say "hey,you guys told us that you are going to start with your diet on january" and then we answered,yes,we said january but we didnt mention any year...

Still hoping that one day I wake up motivated to start lossing weight.

@julz83, I can guarantee that once you start DOING it & being consistent for a few weeks, you WILL find that some days you'll wake up & be motivated to keep going. But thinking that one day you'll magically be all psyched to do it is idealistic.

There's no easy way around starting. And it can be very difficult at first, for a while. But it's not that way forever if you stick to it, I promise!!