A few years later, most are overweight and totally out of shape. How does this happen?

RELATED: The Police Physical Ability Test: Would You Meet the Requirements? 

Learn to Beat the Excuses

Recently, I found myself sitting at bustling LAX airport heading back to the San Francisco Bay Area. I suddenly got a text from my lieutenant. “Unless you made other arrangements, we have no one to cover the second half of your shift tonight. You’ll have to work the entire shift and then go to your Emergency Vehicle Operations Course immediately afterward.”

“I went to the gym later that day and got in a killer training session. The rest of the week was rough, but I got in my gym time.”

Oh, joy. Prior to receiving that message, I thought that a few hours after landing, I would be going in to work at 6:40pm and getting off at midnight. The midnight quit time would leave me plenty of time to go home and catch some zzz’s before heading out to my training course the following morning. Instead, I was sitting in the airport having just finished chugging a thirty-ounce iced coffee and realizing I was likely going to be awake for forty hours before I got to go to sleep again.

I immediately start reassessing my training plans for the week. I had the perfect excuse to not train. I needed to go to sleep. Go home from the airport and try and climb into bed for a bit, I thought. Unfortunately, I knew that going home and trying to sleep was not going to happen because of the coffee. Plus, I work a twelve-hour shift three days a week.

RELATED: The Thin Blue Line Must Be Strong 

During those three days, I plan on one solid training day (ninety-plus minutes) and one less intensive day. If I skipped training after landing back in the Bay Area, I knew the plan would be shot. No good days of training. I’d be lucky to get in one mediocre day by my third workday. I squelched the excuses playing around in my head. I went to the gym later that day and got in a killer training session. The rest of the week was rough, but I got in my gym time.

The Excuses Snowball Effect

This story is typical of any police officers working any shift, but even more so for you guys and gals working the off-hour shifts of swing and graveyard. The unknown and unknowable of time management can wreak havoc on your training plans. Throw in family responsibilities and commute time to work, and there is an excuses snowball effect.

• “I’ll take today off and train tomorrow for sure.”
• “I’ll take this week off and hit it hard again next week.”
• “I’ll take the next two weeks off and start the first of next month.”
• “My New Year’s resolution is to start training again.”
• “Oh man, my uniform pants split when I tried to pick up my ink pen that I dropped.”

Avalanche! The snowball has rolled right over you. The next thing you know some new rookies start at the department and you are telling tales about how great of shape you were in when you got out of the academy. It’s a sad story that has played out millions of times at police departments across the country.

RELATED: The 10 Best Exercises for Police Officers

Admit the Real Reason for Skipping Training

How do you avoid getting bowled over by the snowball? How about you stop making excuses? It sounds so simple and something we’ve all heard over and over and over again. But unfortunately, the advice is not so easy to follow.

“Anything I tell you, you’ve likely already heard and you already know. Are you skipping training because you can’t or because you don’t want to?”

The other night I was talking to a fellow officer in the break room. We were talking about how he had not been training of late. He went through the laundry list of excuses.

• “My daughters are playing soccer, so that has been taking up a lot of my off time.”
• “My wife is pissed that I’m working so much so she doesn’t want me to go to the gym on my off days.”
• “I have so much work to do around the house.”
• “My commute has been taking extra long with my new hours at work.”

Finally, he just looked at me and said, “Damn, I’ve just been lazy.”

Take Accountability for Your Actions

Does it sound familiar? How many of those excuses have you used yourself? The reality is excuses are just you being lazy. You weren’t lazy when you prepared yourself to get hired as a police officer. You weren’t lazy when you attended the academy. You weren’t lazy when you went through your agency’s field training program. You weren’t lazy when you made it through your agency’s probationary period. What happened?

RELATED: 3 Unhealthy Habits of Police and Fire Shift Work

I can write an article called “5 Tips To Avoid Being Lazy.” But unfortunately, lazy is on you, my brothers and sisters in blue. Anything I tell you, you’ve likely already heard and you already know. Are you skipping training because you can’t or because you don’t want to?

Look in the mirror and take some accountability for yourself.

Photo 1 “101020-N-7062A-002” by isafmedia Attribution 2.0 Generic License

Photo 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photo 3 “NYPD Post Up Game” by Gulan Bollsay Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

The post From Cream of the Crop to Fat Cop: You Are Just Being Lazy appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Physics metaphors aside, I sincerely thought I was impervious to excuses now that I live and breathe fitness. I didn’t even think I could still make up excuses, especially when it came to maintaining my health and progressing in my fitness. I suppose I felt that once I was in an environment where my focus was always on moving my body and clean eating I would no longer craft reasons to weasel out of workouts or eating well. Wrong. I’m not sure why I thought that excuse-making ability would magically disappear when, like most people, I had learned it at a young age.

In mid-December I was on a great roll. My workouts were regular and going well. My diet was on point. The holidays started creeping up and I specifically acknowledged it as a time to not let my routine and diet go to hell. The intention and awareness started out well. I was also expending a lot of time and energy working my new job as a full-time fitness coach and figuring out how to fit in all the components of my life in a balanced way.

But juggling my new responsibilities and staying on top of everything became trickier than I anticipated. I was cracking just a little under my own busy-ness and stressing about keeping it all together. And the only thing I thought to let go was my personal routine. I let a workout slip through the cracks here and there. One cheat meal turned into a few. Then I went on vacation over the holidays and allowed myself a little break, which in of itself was not the problem. All the little excuses I made to extend the break were. One little excuse led to another, and suddenly I felt buried in them.

Not only did I feel stuck, but then I allowed myself to feel like I was out of control. I bombarded myself with accusations of self-sabotage. Dark and ugly questions surfaced regarding self-worth, and somehow making excuses to slip a little off track spiraled into an emotional self-beat down. Quite honestly, not working out as much and not eating as clean as I usually do only compounded the bad feelings. That’s some bullshit, too, because never have I moved forward by beating myself up. I had to stop the internal noise and I decided to write myself a letter, a letter that would act as my new force to get me in motion again. The letter was also written to replace all the inside noise. Anytime I felt badly or had a hard time restarting my engines, I read the letter:

Dear Danette,

• I forgive you for making excuses
• I forgive you for slipping off track.
• Own up.
• Take responsibility.
• Make it public (Which is what I’m doing now because nothing will stop the slippery slope of excuses faster than putting them out there publically. Also, I don’t want to give off the illusion that coaches or athletes never grapple with their own excuses and slip-ups.)
• Move on.
• You are capable of anything you decide to do.
• Now, stop all the internal talk. Seriously, stop all the beat downs and rationalizations and the excuses for making excuses – just be quiet.
• Get back to what makes you feel best.

Sincerely,

Danette

I don’t like excuses. They tend to be glaring neon arrows that point out our issues hiding beneath the surface. That said, I don’t judge people for making them – except myself apparently – only because I know they can be an automatic mechanism when we don’t feel in control of our lives. I know, too, that it sometimes takes a minute to recognize when we are making excuses.

Over time and with much awareness we can get better at recognizing when we are creating excuses. I had to come to terms with the fact that maybe we don’t ever stop trying to sneak them in now and again. Frankly, I was embarrassed I had let myself fall prey to them. Luckily for me, it didn’t take me long to realize what I was doing and only a couple weeks passed when I caught myself. I’m now back to doing what makes me feel best.

Do you have go-to excuses? Do you recognize quickly when you use them? How do you combat this and move on?

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Dear Self: Let Go of Excuses and Move Forward appeared first on Breaking Muscle.