People will blame anyone and anything for their failures and shortcomings before accepting that it was their fault. This is true almost everywhere…

The gym is the one place where personal responsibility still reigns. Your maximum amount of pull-ups isn’t decided for you by a higher power, or because your cat hated you growing up, it’s determined by how strong and determined you are, how hard you train at it and how bad you want it. Sure others can help in your success, thru coaching, encouragement and cheering on but they don’t get you over the bar, that’s all you. I don’t want to imagine a day where I start blaming others for missing a lift and putting an asterisk in my workout log because I missed a new personal record and “it was Steve’s fault”.

There is one area in the gym that responsibility takes a turn to the cosmos and that’s in the weight loss area. A lot of people seem to think that it’s impossible for them to lose weight, they’ve tried and failed, it just doesn’t work. Well… it may be true that they tried and failed, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It is hard work; it requires a lifestyle change and paradigm shift for it to be successful. I don’t just mean hard work physically to shed the pounds, but also hard work in sticking to better food choices, dedication to getting the workouts done. It really is as “easy” as diet and exercise, but the shift that has to happen in your life for those to work is immensely hard and takes time.

So many people expect the world in weeks, or they will compare their results to another person and get discouraged and quit. This is normal and completely pointless. You are not that other person so your results will be personal, and the fact that it simply wasn’t working fast enough was enough to make you quit and revert to the old ways is ludicrous! Think about it, it was working! How many decades of inactivity and poor food choices got you in the shape you are today, why would you expect that to be reversed in any less time?

Wait! I do make good choices, and I work hard, but it still doesn’t work. It’s genetics. Bull crap! That just means you aren’t working hard enough or you aren’t making as good of choices as you think. You can’t keep comparing how hard you’re working to your friends and think, “well this program worked for them but it doesn’t work for me, it must be genetics.” You’re an individual, you might need to work harder then they do to see the same result.

Listen up and listen good, there is no one to drop the blame on here, there is no one forcing you to make the choices you make. Time to step up and take responsibility for what you do to yourself.

I will leave you with this workout or task. If that sounds like you, or you’ve given those or similar excuses it’s time to step up and take responsibility. Go to your kitchen and look thru your food, how much is in the cupboards in the form of snacks and how much is in the crisper? If the fridge is not full of fresh fruit, meat, vegetables and dairy and the cupboard is full of snacks (“healthy” or other) then you know who’s to blame. Sorry. Time to take charge of your life and clean that crap out.

If you look in there and you do have all the nice fresh real food, and no crap in the cupboards then kudos! You just won a burpee sandwich. (That’s where you sandwich 50 burpees between mile runs) You lucky dog you. 3, 2, 1… Go! And as always this is timed and done as fast ‘as you can’.

*a burpee is where you squat down, put your hands on the floor near your feet, kick your feet back and land in the bottom of a pushup (chest on the deck), push up, kick your feet back under you and jump up with your hands in the air.

Chris Walls is a Personal Trainer at the Crossfit Kelowna training centre.  For more information on Crossfit, please visit http://www.crossfitkelowna.com