Do you like Scattergories? I love it. If you aren’t familiar with the game, the point is to come up with words or phrases that begin with a certain letter (as determined by a die roll) and that fit into various categories on a list. One of my favorite categories is “reasons to be late for school or work,” because there are a million reasons—from “attacked by rabid squirrels” to “zephyr carried me away”—to be running late.
Another category I think I’d excel at, if it existed, is “reasons to skip the gym in the morning.” Once upon a time, I was almost machinelike in my adherence to the six-a-week workout schedule. But these days, despite knowing that exercise is an important part of staying healthy, even (or perhaps especially) for us chronic types, I truly manage to find an excuse for every letter of the alphabet.
Like so:
- After all, tomorrow is another day
- Bed’s too warm
- Can’t find sneakers
- Dreamed about going (close enough)
- Eating breakfast sounds better
- Fitness is overrated
- Gotta write a blog post
- Have a chronic disease
- It’s [snowing/raining/sleeting/windy/dark/cold/hot] outside
- Just don’t wanna
- Kept hitting snooze; now it’s too late
- Lots to do
- My stomach hurts
- No energy
- Over it
- Playlist is stale
- Quit caffeine
- Rest days are important, too
- Sick (see: H)
- Toe cramp (see: J)
- Up too late on Twitter
- Vile thing, that elliptical
- Whatever, I look fine
- Xercise, schmXercise
- Yeah, yeah, I’ll go in a minute
- Zzzzzzzzzzz…
Every morning, one must win.
Photos © Allie Holzman & Joint Base Lewis McChord (Flickr)
Do you make excuses? What’s your favorite? Let me know in the comments.
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Based on a Sprue Story 
I went last week…is my favorite line I tell myself. Then realize that really, it was about four weeks ago that I last moved…oops! I also tell myself that I’m giving my arms a workout by drinking heavy glasses of wine.
Oh, and getting plenty of antioxidants, too! So healthy! 🙂
Exactly!
I mostly go with O: OVER IT. Which is why my gym membership is over.
I do like Pilates, but I have some weeks where the excuses win, even still.
My insurance will pay for a gym membership if I go a certain amount of times in a six-month period, which is a strong inducement to keep it up. I’ve heard most gym memberships go unused (and I’ve had my fair share of long stretches not going and wondering why I was wasting my money), so good for you for letting it drop.
I’ve never tried Pilates! I really should though. I went to hot yoga a few times and can’t decide if I like it or not.
My insurance will, too, but it’s a per month requirement, and my rule was if I had to pay for it two months in a row (because I didn’t go enough), it got cancelled. I made it over a year this time. I could definitely average it out over a few months, and the one month I missed it last year, a blizzard at the end of the month kind of screwed me.
This post pinged into my inbox this morning just after I had found my always-packed, somewhat dusty gym bag and lugged it down to the door, vowing to head straight to the gym directly after work. I didn’t read your post till tonight so I wouldn’t talk myself out of it using any of your excuses!
Haha! Good strategy! Although none of my excuses are all that persuasive (except if you’re in bed trying to decide whether or not to get up).
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