I talked to a friend of mine who has been very busy working over the Holidays, as this is the peak season for his business. As a result, he has 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.

My friend became very frustrated, as a result and contemplating to perhaps just dropping the whole program until the beginning of the New Year when things would become normal again. However, I advised against doing so for the following reasons why:

1. By stopping to train it would lower his metabolism which in turn would lower his energy levels and thus make him less productive at his job.

2. Even though he cannot get in 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 making undesirable fat gains. As this in turn stops him from getting further depressed as he sees his begin to waste away.

3. When he gets the chance and he can start hitting the gym more often and following the meal schedule to the, he will be in good shape and his body will respond very quickly to the more aggressive program.

This is a very different scenario than the one he would have encountered if he would have stopped training and dieting altogether, as in this case, he would have needed to use at least a week to get his body conditioned for the weights again and it would have taken him an extra week, or maybe even two, to get rid of any body fat that he might have gained depending on how bad the diet had been.

Try to be flexible, Be Consistent, Be Prepared. 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 endeavor. Of course, we all get frustrated when our schedules are affected by work, or any other life circumstance that may be thrown our way. Life is full of monkey wrenches in case you have not noticed and it does not make it easy for us to get our workouts and meals in. Therefore, we have to fight aggressively and plan ahead if we want to get our workouts and meals in daily.

Being a bodybuilder 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. So 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 your routine.

Back in the days 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. Well since I had no time to do some cardiovascular exercise, I would superset antagonistic muscles in order to get some sort of cardiovascular effect. That is all I could afford to do.

Many times I 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. The worst case is that there was always the weekend to make up for lost time to work out. 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 move.

Then there are some of you for whatever reason may not even be able to do more than three sessions a week. Now if this is the case, then no issue; make the most out of the time that you do have available to train. The key to making lasting bodybuilding gains at the end of the day is that you have a realistic plan that can be executed consistently, not trying to follow one that looks really good in paper but cannot be executed. With the right determination 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 of getting fit.