I bought my first gym membership when I turned 19 years old. I chose a lifetime membership from a local canadian franchise. After all, I enjoyed going to the gym and all of my friends at that time went to the same one. I just knew I will be able to make use of it for the rest of my life. And what a sweet deal, I could just pay a maintenance fee of under $10 a month after the third year!

Statistics say that a gym membership is the least used membership. You pay your monthly dues every single month for what? So that when you are ready to get serious about losing weight that it will be there when you need it? A close friend of mine told me that this is why he still has a gym membership. He's been a member of the same gym for about 20 years and used it for 1/10th of the time.

Sounds familiar? A lot of people join fitness gyms for several reasons - to stay in shape, to lose weight and to have a healthy lifestyle. In my case, the gym rep was great in promising me a better, sexier body for less than a dollar a day. However, that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow just does not materialize on its own. You have to work hard at getting the desired results. Even the motivation of knowing that $30 is coming off my bank account every single month was not enough to get me using that gym as often as I should.

I have heard every excuse as to why people do not go to the gym even though they have a membership. Here's been some of mine:

I'm feeling lazy today

Really, I don't even have an hour to spare

I have to work

I just can't fit it in my schedule

I had to wait for a wake-up call in order to motivate me. I woke up one day at 180 pounds at 5'2". At this point, my weight problem really was not an issue anymore compared to the onset of depression and health issues. It was much more harder at this time to say I am going to the gym and I am going to make it work. But I did it. It's all because I decided that I need to invest time on me.

And it was great that I still had the lifetime membership....

Sure. We all lead busy lives. But let me ask you - why wait until you really need the lifetime membership? What prevents you from starting today? And I mean today. Not tomorrow. Go grab your organizer and start planning your next ten workout schedules. Invest time on yourself. After all, you only get once chance to live your life.

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