Last week I talked to a client of mine who had been very busy working over the Holidays, as this is the peak season for his business. And he had not been able to do as much as he wanted to in the gym and also he has not been able to get in all the meals that he needs to on time either.He was very frustrated and thinking of just dropping the whole program for a couple of months when things would get a bit quieter for him.I advised against doing so for the following reasons:

1. Stopping his bodybuilding regime would lower his metabolism which in turn would lower his energy levels and thus make him less productive at work.

2. Though he couldn't get to the gym as often, getting his workout in and following the diet as much as possible will prevent him from losing valuable muscle gains while putting on the pounds.This in turn would then prevent him from getting depressed as he sees his body deteriorate.

3. As it starts to get a bit quieter at work he can start visiting the gym more often and follow the meal schedule again, he would be in good shape and his body would respond more quickly to the more aggressive schedule. This would be a different story to the one he would have had if he had stopped training and dieting altogether. He would have needed to use at least a week to get his body back in condition for the weights again and it would have taken him another few weeks on top of that to get rid of all the extra body fat that he would have gained depending on how bad the diet was.

But, having said that, in order to be successful in bodybuilding you need to have the right mindset. Bodybuilding is both a physical and extremely psychological exercise. We all get frustrated at times when our schedules are affected by work, or any other life circumstance that may be thrown our way. Therefore, we have to fight aggressively and plan ahead if we want to get our workouts and meals in.

As bodybuilders we must keep our eyes on the ultimate goal, which is always more muscle mass with less body fat. In order to accomplish that one must be consistent with the training and diet. If for whatever reason the program that the bodybuilder has mapped out is too much of a time commitment at a certain period in life, then the solution is to modify the bodybuilding program to one that does fit the time schedulebe flexible. For instance, back in my earlier career there were periods when I had to work 60-70 hours a week, I modified my training to where I would hit the gym 5 days a week for 40-45 minutes of weight training. Since I had no time to do cardiovascular exercise, I would superset antagonistic muscles in order to get some sort of cardiovascular effect. That is all I could afford to do at the time. I always tried to get my training in before work, but if for some reason I would miss it in the morning, then I always had lunchtime to make it up or later in the evening after work. Worst case, there was always the weekend for makeup sessions. Regarding meals, I always brought in all of my meals with me pre-prepared and also enough Meal Replacement Powders for those times that I was really on the run.

Some of you for whatever reason may not even be able to do more than a couple sessions a week. If this is the case, then simply try and make the most of the time that you do have. The key to making lasting bodybuilding gains is that you have a realistic goal that can be executed consistently, not trying to follow one that looks really good on paper but cannot be followed. You will get to where you want to go, it may just take a little bit longer depending on how much time you can dedicate to reaching your goals.