Excuses for wasting time

Today at my weight watchers meeting (yes I am still trying to lose more weight), we discussed excuses for not exercising.  As much as the leader tried to phrase it to get people to agree that if they looked at it in a different  way, like a night out, or time to themselves etc they may tend to do it more, I had to disagree.  The toss up between going and running and laying around reading, being lazy wins every time for me.

I came to realization that the only thing that keeps me running is fear.  Fear of gaining the weight back, fear of looking like an idiot when I do my run at the end of April, at this point even the fear of failure can motivate me.  I guess that means in the bribery vs punishment system I am a punishment girl.  I will do what needs to be done, not for the reward but to avoid the pain at the end.

The thing is, it is so easy to have other things to do, a good book to finish, the housework that needs doing (who am I  kidding, I think I may even prefer running to housework - but its a close call), dinner to be cooked, shopping to be done, even that long lost friend who you have not spoken to in ages, its definitely time to call them rather than run.

I have been running long enough now that it is a habit, I do feel bad if I don't get at least 3 runs a week in.  My body knows and feels like crap if I am lazy.  Also I love the feeling after the run, that feeling of accomplishment, of knowing I did my best time, or furthest distance, or even that I got the run done and worked up a sweat.  However all this does not help to make it any easier to get my butt out for a run.  We all know I have no issue with putting on my running  clothes, I can get as far as being dressed, having my iPod in and then spend the day on the couch listening to music rather than take those extra few steps of lacing up my shoes and heading out.  

I am easily distracted and easily unmotivated, in fact I just took a 30 minute distraction break from typing this out to half complete a form I need to for my brother.  Notice how I said half complete, I got distracted from my distraction by my original task...pretty lame!  Of course I could just say I am a multi-tasker and using my great organization abilities.

Sometimes excuses work in your favor, I mean it is great that doing the taxes seems like more fun than running right?  They need to get done, you get money back. Again, who am I kidding?!?  taxes vs running, I am off for a run! I hate doing the taxes! But you get my meaning, sometimes the excuse may mean you get something else that has been sitting there done since it is the lesser of the two evils.

My excuse for today is I am sitting here waiting for a phone call from the place the kids want to have their birthday party at.  I don't want to miss the call as I need to book it and get the invitations out this week.  Maybe if they call me back soon I will get my ass  into my running clothes and.....well we wont hold our breath, time is ticking away and its nearly lunch time.