Is It Grace or Excuses? How to Know the Difference [Ep. 158]

0:00 This is the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast. I am Lisa Salisbury and this is episode 158. Is it grace or excuses How to know the difference? Welcome to eat well. Well, the podcast for busy women who want to lose weight without constantly counting, tracking, or stressing over every bite. I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certified health weight loss and life coach, and most importantly, a recovered chronic dieter here. You'll learn to listen to your body and uncover the reasons you're reaching for food. When you're not truly hungry, freeing you to focus on a healthier, more fulfilling approach to eating.

0:40 Hi friends. Welcome back to the podcast if you're new here. Hello. Hello, I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury, and today's episode comes right outta my own life. These past few weeks, I have skipped publishing the podcast twice recently, and that's for the first time in three years. It was a combination of reasons like trying to do all the summer things and also a lot of stress with some personal family issues. Also, I missed because I was heading out of town and I didn't get it done beforehand, and then I didn't bother to do it when I got back, and it got me thinking about something I frequently coach on. Was I giving myself grace?

1:20 Or was I just making excuses? This is something we all face, not just with work or creative projects, but with our health goals, our eating habits, our workouts, or really anything we've committed to. Sometimes we genuinely need rest or space. Other times we're letting ourselves off the hook in a way that slowly erodes our progress. So today I wanna talk about the difference between giving yourself grace and making excuses. How to know when to lean into rest and when to recommit, and why. The justice once or it's a special occasion, can be a slippery slope depending on the frequency.

2:04 Okay, so let's start with grace versus excuses. Giving yourself grace is acknowledging your humanity. I wanna repeat that. Grace is acknowledging your humanity. It's recognizing that you can't be perfect and that life will sometimes get in the way. It comes from a place of self-compassion and respect and love making excuses. On the other hand, is when you use a reason to avoid doing what you've committed to. Over and over again. It's when the reason starts showing up more often than the action itself.

2:46 Sometimes making excuses are usually not coming from that place of self love. So we wanna kind of really delve into when you're, you know, working on this, where is this coming from? Because if you know it's self-respect and compassion. It's probably Grace. So my example that I started with, when I look at those skipping of the two episodes, um, I can see that the first one when I was stressed and dealing with some personal life was honestly probably grace. I needed the bandwidth for other things, but the second time.

3:26 I had time before my trip. I just chose not to prioritize recording. That's leaning into excuse territory. And the major difference here is that because I had done it once, I no longer had my streak. I no longer could say I've published 156 weeks in a row. And looking back, I can see how that really let the excuse of not having time before or honestly after the trip, I could have done it after. Also, I let that excuse sneak in. Um, a client of mine once told me that whenever she went out to a restaurant, she ordered soda and often dessert because it was a special occasion.

4:09 I'm putting that in quotes. So we got into it. Her and I and I started asking questions, and you know what We discovered she was eating out two or three times a week. If almost half of your week is a special occasion, how special is it? Really, it's just your normal routine, which is fine, but just. We got honest, right? She and I got honest about it. She felt it was special because it wasn't at home and she didn't have to do the planning or the cleaning up, and so it all felt like a break, and that told her brain she needed to order food. That also felt like a break. The same thing happens when we say it's just one time, or I don't normally do this about treats or skipping workouts or ignoring hunger cues when just this once turns into almost every day.

5:01 It's no longer grace. It's a pattern. So we don't want to be so rigid that we can't enjoy a birthday dinner or skip a workout when we're sick. But we also don't want to use balance as a cover for never fully committing to our goals. If you constantly say, well, if it works out. When you're thinking about those healthy habits you want to form, you might be leaning too far to the balance side. James Clear in Atomic Habits said missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout, or a bad day at work, but when successful people fail, they rebound quickly.

5:47 The breaking of a habit doesn't matter if the reclaiming of it. Is fast. I think this principle is so important that I'll stick to it even if I can't do a habit as well or as completely as I would like. Too often we fall into an all or nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up. The problem is thinking that if you can't do something perfectly, then you shouldn't do it at all. I love that quote and um. The only thing that's kind of weird about it, just to be clear, I don't consider myself a loser for skipping things. So that language at the beginning, like this is the distinguishing feature between winners and losers. I think he's mostly talking about like in, in a sports reference there, like when you win or lose a game.

6:31 But, um, I, I. Yeah, so that feels a little harsh, but overall it's a good concept about the way new habits, those habits of skipping out those new habits, um, on how they form. So let's talk about a few questions I use with clients and myself to check which side I'm on. So number one. Is this reason a rare exception or a frequent habit? And this is really what I delved into with my client, with the, uh, restaurant example. Like what's the frequency here? This is where we need some data.

7:11 You can use a habit tracker or even your food journal. That's what we used with this client to see how many times you're going out to eat are going over your. Say your added sugar goal or you are undereating your protein. Look at your sleep tracker to see how often you stay up past what you have set as a bedtime. Right? We wanna look and see are these rare exceptions or is this happening time and time again in a week? Um, it's tricky because if your teenager comes in and wants to talk at 10 30, which. Is usually the time that they do right? You're getting ready for bed. Um, by all means chat away. That's important. But if it's the only time that anyone in your family wants to chat, then you need to start having.

7:56 You know, some boundaries set and going and seeking out those kids earlier in the day so we can maybe make those conversations happen at a different time. So if you're like, there's just nothing I can do, we, when we feel the victim of like, there's nothing I can do, this is when these things happen. I don't have, you know, I don't have control over these situations. Use your habit trackers, use some data and see where, how often it's happening and where you might be able to make some changes. So frequency, that's like the, that's one of the big things to, to first look at. Okay. Number two, if I look back over the past two weeks, which has happened, more following through or making this same exception.

8:43 So you can really choose any time period here. I think two weeks is usually a good, um, frame of reference, but it depends, depends on what the goal is. But what you're saying is if it's just this, once we wanna look at how often it's happening closely related to the first question. But what we're looking for here is how often we're calling something a special occasion. Right. Get really clear on what that is. Like your birthday. Yeah. For me that counts. That's a special occasion. Going out to pizza on a Saturday night'cause you don't feel like cooking. Probably not a special occasion and you know, so probably not gonna deviate from your goals if you're just trying to avoid doing dishes, right? So if you don't normally include soda on your plan, then don't order soda.

9:24 That's all. It doesn't mean you shouldn't eat pizza, it just means pay attention to your hunger scale. Let the fact that you don't have to do the dishes, be the celebration enough and order the water. Um, number three, am I still on track to reach my goals if I keep making this choice at this frequency? Okay, so here's the kicker. So you've looked at the frequency, you've looked at the last two weeks, like which is more true, following through or the exception. And then you have to look at if this continues, can I still reach my goals? Regardless of how often the skip is happening, will it. Your ability to get what you actually want missing two podcasts in three years is probably not going to keep me from reaching women that need to hear this message, missing two podcasts every month like I did in July.

10:15 That's not gonna cut it right. So that I have to get really honest and be like, that's not okay. If it was too, like over the course of a year, that might be different. But I gotta get really honest and say, get back on, get back on track, right? Because actually I love doing this. I love talking to you guys. I love my listeners and, and hearing from you and all of that. But you just get to decide for your health goals, what frequency feels like it will still keep you on track. Typically, what I say, if you're looking for a number here, if you're 80 to 90% on on track. You're going to reach your health goals, right? Um, so what feels like grace and what feels like an excuse is also going to be personal because like I said, you have to look at the emotion that's behind that.

11:02 But I think as you start to really look at these numbers and like kind of get into the data of it, I think you're gonna start to feel which way you're going. So here's the thing though. I think grace and staying consistent can actually coexist. I did go to ma Pizza with my husband Saturday night. That example was real life. I ate half my pizza, saved the rest for the next day, which I didn't even finish when I got it out. Um, and I ordered water. And I'm not telling you this to act like I'm better than you or that I have it all together. I'm not, and I don't. But I just wanna give you a real life example of what grace looks like combined with staying consistent.

11:45 I still followed my hunger scale. I didn't have a high sugar drink because that's not part of my standard protocol. I ate pizza, which I love, and I also put a lot of protein on it. I enjoyed not having to plan or to do dishes, and I also didn't. Get a good amount of fiber in that meal. So for me, this is the grace of not every meal needing to be perfect, combined with being as consistent as I can with the volume of food and the best I can do with my nutrition goals. I met my protein and my sugar intake guidelines that I've set for myself, but I let the fiber goal go for that meal. See how that's like a grace and consistency married into one.

12:27 Grace keeps you in the game long term because it prevents burnout and shame. Commitment keeps you moving forward because it builds consistency and trust in yourself. That piece is so huge, the trust that you are going to continue on, you really need both, but they need to be in balance. Too much grace without accountability leads to stagnation. Too much commitment without compassion leads to burnout. So this week, pay attention to the stories you're telling yourself about why you're making a certain choice. Is it genuine grace or a well-worn excuse?

13:09 And if you're not sure, really get into the data. Start tracking how often it's happening. The frequency often tells the truth. If you need help finding that balance so you can enjoy your life while also seeing real results. Let's talk book a free consult call with me through the link in the show notes and we'll map out a plan that works for both your goals and your reality. If you need some help today, you can download one of my freebies. I've got a GLP one Success guide. If you are on a GLP one that's like ozempic or zet bound, or if you're even just thinking about it, that guide is gonna be great for you. I've also got a what to do when you overeat. If you find yourself overeating too many times in a week to see lasting success, this one is for you.

13:54 Both guides are extremely thorough. They are not just little one pagers. Remember, what you eat matters, but what you believe about yourself matters more. Thanks for listening and sharing the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.