So you made resolutions this year and your intentions were amazing.  Maybe you stuck with it for a few days or even a couple of weeks.

But now it is getting easier to slip into your old clothes to disguise the winter pounds, skip the gym and lie on the couch with your ole’ comfort food and watch another episode of Friends even though it has been … what 10 years since it went off the air?  Heaven knows you’re not going to get back to the gym or keep up the new diet.

Here is the problem!  It’s a recipe for disaster and it guarantees future unhappiness.  Next thing you know summer is here and you are miserable.  You play the “If I had only done this or that” game and you spiral toward the abyss of despair.

But hey, isn’t it what you did last year?  And the year before that? The only way to get what you want in your near and not so near future is to make a little sacrifice, start paying your dues now and suck it up.

But how?  How do you get into the swing when it’s the last thing you really feel like?

1.  Skip joining a gym unless you really enjoy being there in the first place.

This probably sounds very weird coming from a gym owner.  But seriously, why spend the money if you are not going to go?  Especially if when you do go, you’re miserable and every one can tell.

Let’s be honest.  Did you join because you’re supposed to or because that’s what ‘everyone’ does?  (FACT: ‘Everyone’ drops out of their memberships within a month and is neither here nor there … apparently).

Only join a facility if it works for you.  If it is in your circle of travel, if you like the support system it brings to you, if you are motivated to actually show up, if you like the atmosphere and if you know you will go.  Otherwise, why bother?

2. Get in, workout as hard as you can, then get out!

Too many times the gym becomes a problem because people mull around and talk.  They ‘visit’ between sets, they walk all over trying to figure out what to do and they never really get on a roll.

Get a plan, go in, put your headphones on or join a class that works for you and get it done.  You will feel better, you will have structure and you will realize you made a good choice.

Think about it.  Do you really need to talk to the guy with the weightlifting gloves, short shorts, headband that says “chick magnet’ on it while he curls 10 lb dumbbells and groans a lot?  Again?

3.  Make an appropriate work out plan.

You decide to go the gym or start a program.  What is it that you are going to do?  Most people (not you of course) start a new exercise program with something they read in a magazine or workout manual (or they hire “Günter”, the toughest trainer at the gym!) and go for it all on day one.  Then you wonder why you’re aching and can’t sit down or stand up without feeling sore and stiff.  Now you dread the workouts more and more with each passing day.

Start slow.  If you haven’t exercised in a while, then maybe 1 set of 8-10 exercises is a great beginning.  Get on a bike and do a couple of 15-30 second intervals at an appropriate speed that doesn’t make you look like you are going to shoot of the back of the treadmill.  Next week do 2 sets of the exercise and add a few more sprints.

Get it?  You wouldn’t do a triathlon without building up your program through progressively longer distances, so don’t do it with your workouts.  Build up.  Enjoy it.  Have fun.

4.  Follow a simple and unambiguous diet plan.

Here comes that magazine article again.  You know, the one with all the press and cool pictures of half naked people.  And some celebrity endorses it, so it’s gotta be good … Right?

Wrong.  Don’t get sucked in.

Simply fill out a blank food log and dollars to donuts (See how I worked that in there?).  You will do better simply because you have to write it down.  Better yet, tell someone to do it with you and then swap.  Do you really want the person in the cubicle next to you at work to know you ate 2 pints of double chocolate chip fudge ice cream on Tuesday night while watching Friends again?

Then choose a program based upon simple principles that you understand and makes sense to you.  Now, commit to sticking with it and follow it exactly for a predetermined period.  Don’t skip from Diet A for 10 days and then to Diet B for a week and then start reading Diet C.  This is a sure recipe for failure.  Give it at least 30 days and then change it up if you have to.

Easy, right?  Call a friend, find a place to work out and start after work or this afternoon.