Everyone can agree that nothing puts a damper on fitness and weight loss goals quite like a busy schedule. But being busy doesn’t mean you have to give up on your health objectives. The scale doesn’t care how many hours you have in your day - only how wisely you spend them.

But remember, even with a busy schedule, kids and family, you can achieve your weight loss goals! It's just a matter of putting a plan in place. Here are 7 weight loss tips for go-getters who need some solid advice on how to achieve their weight loss goals.

#1. Declutter Your Kitchen

Clutter isn't good for your mental state and can increase your stress levels. The same goes for your kitchen, where mountains of unhealthy food can easily derail your weight loss programme.

Tidying your fridge and pantry isn't just good housekeeping. It will also help you eat better and save time, no matter how crazy and busy your schedule.

#2. Plan Your Meals

As well as planning your training schedule for the week, plan your diet. Plan an easy-to-prepare, healthy and travel-friendly lunch to take to work. Cooking your own meals will help you keep track of your calories.

If you don't have time to prepare a meal in the morning, you can always pack leftovers from the previous evening's meal or just a wholemeal sandwich with vegetables. Packing your lunch every day will reduce the urge to order takeaway food.

#3. Track Your Calories

While regular exercise helps, your diet plays a big part in burning fat and shedding pounds. It's important to make sure you're eating the right amount and not going overboard.

Keeping a food diary and listing what you need is one way to count your calories, but it may not be the most accurate way. There are several apps you can download to help you count your calories and stick to your diet.

Not only will this help you achieve your weight loss and fitness goals, but it will also help you understand portion sizes and the nutritional value of the ingredients in your diet. Use measuring cups to determine a healthy serving size and don't underestimate your portion size.

#4. Don't Skip Meals. Just Don't...

This may seem counterintuitive after the advice to eat less overall, but busy people in particular may need to spread out their calories more throughout the day. That's because going more than four or five hours without eating can slow your metabolism, affect hormones and insulin levels, and contribute to unhealthy food choices when you do sit down to eat.

It seems that many overweight people don't necessarily overeat, but their eating patterns have become so erratic. They have a cup of coffee in the morning and then they don't eat properly until late afternoon. The key is to avoid that and stick to a consistent schedule, whether it's three meals a day and a couple of snacks or five mini-meals.

#5. Schedule Your Workout Time

How does an overly booked individual “perceive” that they do, in fact, have the time for regular exercise? By scheduling it like an important appointment.

If you are an incredibly busy individual, you are probably already glued to your handwritten day planner, Google Calendar or a similar one. Why not also use those tools for pencilling in your workouts? Experts praise regular exercise, and there’s no better way to keep to a regular exercise plan than to block it off on your calendar.

#6. Integrate Full-Body Exercises

The key here is to integrate exercises into your workout that give you a full-body blast and mix muscle work with cardio. Think jumping jacks, mountain climbers, burpees, plank exercises and similar. Also, the smart choice is to add dumbbells or kettlebells to your workouts to help create resistance and help burn more calories.

These exercise staples make great additions to a 20 to 30-minute circuit workout, perfect for a busy person and/or on-the-go parents who don’t have the luxury of taking a long jog through the park every day.

Full-body blasting workout: The key here is to integrate exercises into your workout that give you a full-body blast and mix muscle work with cardio.

#7. Don't Be Afraid To Change

Don't be afraid to change course if something isn't working. Finding the right mix of habits and behaviours that work for you will almost certainly require trial and error. So, be prepared to change if you feel something is a dead end.