Who else is guilty of not seeing the growth and progress they’ve made with their physical health?

A couple of days ago I was shocked when I saw an old photo of myself pop up on social media and I compared it to a much more recent image.

Whilst the changes in my body shape were very noticeable, what I really began to think about as I looked at these two photos side by side, was all the time that occurred between them and the journey I had been on to improve my health and fitness.

I call it a journey because there were many ups and downs and unexpected twists and turns along the way.

During this time, I lost weight, but I also gained it too. I trained regularly and intensely for a number of months, but there were also long periods when I didn’t exercise at all. At certain points my diet was very restrictive and extreme, and at others I overindulged in food and drink a little bit too much and for a little bit too long.

There were moments when I loved my body and moments when, I’m ashamed to say it now, I hated it.

There were times when training felt fun and easy, and yet there were also many times when it felt like a struggle and my goals seemed impossible to reach.

My reason for sharing this is I want to show you that there is no perfect path to getting in shape.

When you embark on your own journey to improving your health, you’re going to have periods when everything works, progress comes easy, your desire to work out is high, you love what you’ve achieved and you’re proud of yourself.

But, there will be times when it’s hard, you feel stuck, nothing seems to be working and even if you are making progress, perhaps you can’t really see it.

It’s important to accept that getting fit is not always going to go to plan and it’s certainly not going to be a perfect, easy process where you see progress week after week.

Irrespective of all the setbacks you may experience, you keep going anyway because none of these means that you can’t or won’t achieve your goals, improve your health and get in shape eventually. I have the privilege to work with so many incredible people who make a real effort to train hard, eat well and lead a healthy lifestyle, and yet I still hear from them every now and again how they have failed.

They have failed because they ate a forbidden cookie or some chocolate, they had one too many glasses of wine on Friday night, or they missed a training session because a meeting ran late, or their child was sick.

What I tell them they’ve failed to do is see all the amazing things they have achieved — the workouts they did complete and all the healthy meals they cooked and enjoyed.

So I’ll make my point again: there is no perfect health and fitness journey and it’s important to stop expecting one because this will not only likely blind you to the things you are achieving, but also take a lot of the joy out of the process of getting fit. Next time you contemplate throwing in the towel because you think you’re getting nowhere, I encourage you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

I bet you that progress is there, even amid the setbacks, missteps, failures or whatever you want to call them.

I’m sure you’ve come much further than you think, and that’s something to celebrate before you get back to working on achieving your goals.

•Becky Wright is a qualified personal trainer, nutritional therapist and international bikini fitness champion. She has worked with clients worldwide, including royalty. Contact her at www.beckywright fitness.com or becky@beckywright fitness.com