In my fitness consulting business, I get the opportunity to talk with people from all walks of life about their health, fitness, and weight loss goals. Whether their goal is to lose weight, gain muscle, stick to a diet plan or program, improve their cardiovascular health, or simply to maintain their current fitness level they all have one common enemy---TIME. For most of us, the #1 challenge in the quest to stay in shape and/or lose weight is not exercising itself but being able to actually fit an exercise program into our busy schedules. So how do you do it? How do you balance the demands of family, career, important errands, relationships, organizational responsibilities, and working out? I have found that there are five keys that will help you to be able to fit a consistent workout plan into your already hectic life.

1. Commit to a specific schedule When you fail to plan you plan to fail. Don't try to haphazardly fit your workouts into your schedule without any rhyme or reason. Don't think you're guilty? If you've ever told yourself "I'll workout as soon as I get some time", you were in direct violation of this key principle. In order to set yourself up for success, you will need to take the time to literally write your workouts into your weekly schedule. In order to be effective, you will want to be following your exercise program at least 3 days per week. Anything less would be kidding yourself. Therefore, right in the midst of all of your appointments, "to-do" lists, etc., should be a written plan for your weekly workout routine, so that you will never be in the dark as to when you committed to yourself to go.
2. Utilize the weekend Take advantage of the fact that it only takes 3-5 days per week to put together an effective, results-producing workout. One trick to help you pull it all off is to workout on the weekends. One of the benefits to this course of action is that your schedule is more flexible and under your control during this time. What is also means is that when the hectic weekdays roll back around, you will only be responsible for working out 1-3 days during the work week.
3. Keep your workouts as a high priority One of the biggest mistakes that even many people who have scheduled a workout program into their schedule make is allowing it to be bumped off of their schedule to easily. Although things will occassionally come up that will cause you to have to reschedule the workout you had planned, you must be vigilant in making sure that only the most important emergencies are allowed to temporarily take you off of your plan. In the event that one of those important emergencies does happen and you can't make it to your workout, reschedule with yourself to make it up on the next possible day that you are available to do so. If your own health, fitness, and efforts to lose weight are not a priority to you, they certainly won't be so to anyone else.
4. Enroll others in your goals Don't go at this alone. Let the important people in your life know what you are up to. Your spouse or love interest, parents, children, co-workers, and close friends will often pitch in and help you to meet your fitness or weight loss commitment to yourself if you make them aware and ask for their support. Leverage these relationships to delegate some of your normal responsibilities or even allow you to shift appointments that you have with them as you restructure your schedule for your workout. If any of them are into exercise or trying to lose weight themselves, don't hesitate to form a buddy system with them as you move forward with your program.
5. Don't beat yourself up No matter who you are, there will be times in your workout program that you just aren't able to keep it up as you would like due to outside demands. Don't be too tough on yourself when that happens. Remember that it is what you do consistently over a long period of time, not what you do in spurts, that truly counts. Just make sure that you get back on the horse full force as soon as you can and continue to press forward, doing your best to avoid slacking off again.

No matter what goals you have for health, fitness, or weight loss, you CAN fit an effective exercise program into that hectic schedule of yours and be amazingly successful at getting the exact results that you want! To Your Best Body, Lawrence Cole
Your Lifestyle and Fitness Coach
YourbestbodyNOW.com