Your girlfriend might be right; maybe you are afraid of commitment!

On any day, there are hundreds of potential reasons not to get to the gym and train;

 That report needs writing up before tomorrow

 Your wrist is a bit sore

 It’s a nice day outside

 It’s not a nice day outside

 You don’t feel like it

 You’ve got a bit of a headache

 You’re going on holiday next week

 You’re on holiday this week

 Your training partner isn’t going today

Forget it, if you’re entertaining these kinds of thoughts you’re already losing the battle. Turning up day in day out is the toughest part for many people fitting working and training into a busy lifestyle. Once you get in the gym, you’ll find that training comes easily. If you have minor injuries, aches or pains train through them, or train around them. If your wrist hurts, do legs. If you did legs the other day, so what?! Do them again.

Make no mistake, changing your body – whether that means getting bigger, getting smaller, getting stronger or any combination of the three – takes time. More than that, though, it takes effort: consistent effort. It takes day after day of turning up at the gym, working hard, eating right, resting, getting up the next day and throwing yourself at it all over again. Look around you on your way to work tomorrow, if getting a badass physique was easy everyone would have one. However, 1 in 4 UK adults are obese and many more are overweight.

If that includes you, it’s up to you to make a decision to do something about it. Don’t wait until January 1st, do it now. It’s going to take a while so the sooner you start the sooner you’ll feel and see the benefits.

There are a couple of tricks you can use to keep you on the straight and narrow;

 Plan your workouts in advance. This doesn’t have to be down to every weight and every rep, but know what you intend to do, at what time, on which day for the next month, the next week at the very least. Reschedule less important things around your training, not vice versa. Keep everything written in a workout diary. That way you will always keep track of what weights you are using for what exercises and avoid rehashing the same sessions week after week, killing your progress.

 Take photos. On the 1st of every month, take a picture and stick it to your calendar. Tell yourself that you will put in whatever effort it takes to look better than that in 30 days time. Repeat this every month.

 Set quantifiable targets. What can you squat now? How about in a month? Another 5kg? Again, write it down. Commit to your targets.

Every session should be hard, every week should be hard, every month on the way to your dream physique should be hard! Only by putting in the hard hours in and out of the gym will you be rewarded in time.

So the only question that remains is, are you in?