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By Christopher McCombs

Strange as it may sound, the number one obstacle that most people encounter on the road to fitness is their own friends and family. Though they may mean well, friends and family can steal time away from when you are supposed to be exercising, force you to eat terrible food, and just generally slow down your fitness progress, particularly if they don’t like exercise themselves.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, you it’s possible to use your family and friends as a way to help you get the body that you want.

Don’t Assume The Worst - Usually your family and friends genuinely don’t mean to frustrate your fitness goals, they just don’t quite understand what its like to try to eat right and do exercise regularly. Many people don’t even quite understand the benefits until they try it themselves. So don’t let diet and exercise become a point of friction in your personal relationships.

Don’t Let Little Comments Get to You - Sometimes even those are close to us can be condescending in ways that they don’t intend. When you tell people that you are working to get fit, even something as seemingly innocent as “Oh, well I hope that works out for you” can seem a bit like an insult when given the wrong tone. Just don’t let it bother you, and know that you can do it if you stick to it.

Compromise - Sometimes the absolute best thing that you can do is just meet your friends halfway. If your friends are trying to pull you to a movie when it is your scheduled exercise time, try and convince them to go see a later showing. If everyone at work is called into the conference room to eat pizza, you might try pulling the cheese off to just have the sauce and bread.

Leading a fit lifestyle doesn’t have to turn you into a hermit. In fact, you might even try to bring your family and friends into fitness with you. You might go for a walk around the park and chat, or check out a healthy restaurant together. Who knows? Maybe you will become a positive influence on their lifestyle rather than they becoming a negative influence on yours

Know that You Deserve It - Sabotage might be initiated by outside forces, but it is usually validated from within. Feeling like you aren’t making any progress with you fitness regimen can cause you to be more inclined to cheat and skip workouts. After all, if it doesn’t make any difference anyway, what does it matter? Don’t fall into this line of thinking.

It is important for you to understand that fitness and the body you want is within your grasp if you just keep pushing. You should also make certain that you have goals, so that you have an inner fire that keeps you going.

Orange County resident Christopher McCombs is a Orange County Bodybuilding expert. He is also a sought after personal trainer marketing coach.

Tags: lose weight, obstacles to losing weight, negativity