Losing weight and keeping fit and healthy requires more than turning up at your local gym or health club. The ability to lose weight requires a state of mind and one that you have to maintain. Diet plans and exercise workouts are only a device which you can use to shed excess weight and become healthier, but by themselves, in the box, they don't achieve anything.

Predictably there is a big increase in the membership of health clubs and gyms, at the beginning of each year. It is so easy to start the New Year with a new resolution to get fit after over-eating over the holiday period. Each year the health clubs attempt to understand why they have such a hard time keeping members and then to make sure that they keep coming back after the novelty has worn off. The answer lies in understanding what drives a member to sign up to a fitness club in the first instance.

The answer is plain to see, you sign-up to a health club or gym to lose weight and make yourself healthier. You don't join the gym to purchase a diet, or to be sold any other fitness services or products. A healthy body is about people and their dreams and not about putting cash into the till.

Alright, you need some advice on what to do and you require a schedule of how to go about it. You may benefit from a particular diet type and you may benefit from vitamins and healthy food types, but it is all too easy to get blinded with all of the number-crunching planning of an exercise or diet program. It is possible that focusing excessively on the details can and will result in forgetting your original motivation andas a result, set you up for failure.

Instead of thinking positively about losing weight and getting fit, which is the reason that you began, you may begin to worry that all of the calorie counting, reps, and heart rate tracking are too much to cope with. The numbers take over and you begin to lose sight of your targets. Now it becomes more of a hassle than a hobby and instead of being a means of stress release the whole thing becomes very stressful! You may even be tempted to finish exercising and dieting as a result.

Yes, you are going to have some bad days, it would be silly to think that you won't. It's hard work losing weight. It takes determination and discipline. More importantly, you need to be able to look through those dark days when it all seems pointless, and remember why you started. Whatever you do, you should not get too worked up about meeting all the numbers on the charts all of the time.

The greatest challenge for anyone who is going to lose weight or get fit is to be able to follow through. In order to follow through, you have to be a Weight Loss LIFER!

The term 'lifer' comes from the military where it is a term for 'a person who has been in the military a long time or plans to stay in long enough to retire'. These are people who have the commitment to finish the course. If you are serious about losing weight or improving your fitness, then you have to be Weight Loss Lifer. Are you a Weight Loss Lifer?

A Weight Loss Lifer understands that there will be hard times to go through; that there may even be really bleak times up ahead, but they get through them or they go around them. It may need support from others, but whatever is required, it gets done. They know that losing weight is so much more than the result of a single day, or a single week. It is the total of everything that you have done to date.

You may not be a lifer at the moment, but you won't ever become one if you don't make changes now! New Year's Resolutions are good because they are a great trigger for initiating a lifestyle change. On the other hand they are bad because few people expect to stick to their resolutions for very long and quit at the first sign of failure. If you didn't quit on your weight loss promises to yourself then you would still be loosing weight. You would already be a Weight Loss Lifer.

We are all individual. We are all different. You cannot just purchase a diet plan or an exercise regime and "guarantee the results." It just doesn't work that way. Each one of us needs to adapt the diet or exercise plan to suit our own needs. You can purchase different diet types and plans or exercise plans but what you can't purchase, is the mindset of a Lifer.

Do not get trapped with the details of losing weight or getting fit. Make exercising and healthy eating a high priority in your life but make sure that it is not the only thing in your life. Be aware of the long term picture and make sure that you keep your eye on the ball. Bad days happen, but they are much easier to get over if you are a true Weight Loss Lifer.