Noble Excuses

If you are overweight, chances are good that you are pretty darn good at making excuses for overeating or eating poorly.  However, some of us have this uncanny skill to take our excuses and put a little extra weight behind them.  These excuses are not just justification for unhealthy behavior, but rather, they become mandates to do so; not following them means going against our societal norms altogether and putting yourself at risk of becoming an outcast.  I call these great rationales “Noble Excuses”.

What makes an excuse noble is the selflessness that comes along with it.  When you choose a noble excuse, you choose to put your own personal needs aside while you attend to the needs of others even if that excuse means a little weight gain.  Below are just a few examples of excuses that go that extra mile and therefore become NOBLE...


A Friend In Need

Everyone has friends (well, most everyone); and those friends have needs, both physical and emotional.  When you are trying to eat healthy, a friend in need is the perfect opportunity to create a Noble Excuse…

What’s that, your best friend just broke up with her boyfriend?  You need to do the right thing and march right over to her house and help her fight through the tears with a couple gallons of ice cream!  To do anything else would be unworthy of BFF status.

Your buddy’s brother just lost his job? Time to man up, put on your big boy pants, and get ready for a night of heavy duty drinking.  Afterall, it’s your buddy’s brother, it’s your duty!


Will Someone Please Think of the Children!

Ah yes, the wee Children.  Parents’ perfect generator for noble excuses.  There are so many different ways we parents can use our kids for rationalization…

Little Suzie has to go to karate class and Johnny has gymnastics 3 times a week.  There’s no time to cook a healthy meal, but my kids need these activities.  We’ll just have to suffer through some pizza for the good of the kids!

My kids won’t eat healthy food.  I can’t let them starve so we’ll be eating hot dogs tonight in order to make sure they don’t go hungry!

If I eat this candy bar, maybe I’ll stop being so cranky.  I need to do it or I might say something that scars my kids for life!


For the Greater Good

No discussion about nobility comes without talking about the greater good.  History is filled with heinous acts that were done with “the greater good” in mind, why would unhealthy eating be any different…

I’ve eaten so well for the last week, but if I don’t go out for Chinese buffet now, I’ll surely lose control next week and end up eating out multiple times.  I better go out now in order to help stay in control later.

Should I eat Aunt May’s cherry cobbler or Uncle Ralph’s pumpkin pie?  Making a choice will certainly create a rift that will rival the Hatfields and the McCoys.  I better do the right thing and have both, you know, to keep the peace.


What's Your Excuse?

Life happens and we can’t just hide out in a low calorie bubble.  Friends will have problems, kids will be kids, and it’s impossible to keep family peace for more than about 5 seconds at any family event.  At the end of the day noble excuses are nothing more than excuses with a lot of thought behind them.  Instead of putting your energy into making your excuses noble, why not instead try to put that energy into not needing excuses in the first place.  Life is all about making a lot of small choices; you need excuses for the bad ones, but you gain true satisfaction from the good ones.

What about you, what’s your most Noble Excuse?

 

 

[Photo: Flickr / Jarapet]