Motivation is a difficult thing to find no matter how hard you search inside yourself. If it's not there, it's not there. Sometimes other people have to give you that motivation, and that's what has happened this week.

Since last week's revelations in the paper about my slack attitude and lack of action in shifting weight over the past six weeks I've had family members, friends and members of the general public telling me to stick to it and pull my finger out. Motivation found.

Early on in this quest I said that having my progress watched would be a good thing because it would keep me on my toes. To be honest I've hadn't realised that anyone was paying any attention until last week, but now the pressure is starting to tell.

So this week I've thrown myself back into the gym, working hard and trying to watch what I eat. I'm still going for the watch what I eat during the day as much as possible and enjoy my normal meals for tea philosophy and it seems to be doing alright. I could hardly move after my first session at the gym for a few weeks. I thought swimming made me ache but it was twice as bad after the gym. But I keep working through the aches and pains and hopefully by this coming Monday the scales will be heading in the right direction.

I've had a bit of help over the last ten days or so from a new friend. I luckily got a pre-release copy if Nintendo's Wii Fit and it's been putting me through my paces all week. It's a fantastic and ingenious piece of kit that I would recommend to anyone, not only because it gives you a half decent workout but it's also a good laugh. Standing on a little white board swivelling your hips to try and make an on-screen cartoon version of yourself keep a hula hoop up is great to do but even better to watch. The yoga and muscle exercises sections really make you stretch as well and you can tell that you've done something. How people in the flat below feel about me running on the spot for five minutes every night I can only imagine? But I've got work to do.

I think this piece of kit could spell the end for fitness videos, so Liz McDonald, Janice Battersby and co should start looking for a new venture to boost their Corra pay packets. The biggest attraction to Wii Fit is that it's completely personalised to you and it monitors how you're doing, giving you tips and encouragement along the way. I'll be giving it a proper review for my next column for the paper after I've had a good few weeks at it.

If I can stick to this three visits to the gym, one swim and at least half an hour on the Wii a night I should be fine. But of course, motivation might have something to say about it.

I seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall.

Last Friday was the first time since this whole thing started that I couldn't force myself out of bed in the morning to go to the gym. I hadn't had much sleep and I just couldn't face it. But when I finally got up I was really disappointed in myself, and I still am to be honest.

I dropped a stone in the first month of the weight loss plan and I was really happy about it. But I know that it's really unlikely that I will achieve similar results in the months to come because it gets harder to shift the weight once you get going, and that's a difficult thing to accept. Now, I'd be happy to lose a couple of pounds a week for the next six months and get to where I want to be, but I'm quite impatient and I want to look good now.

This impatience could be the root of why many people fail with dieting and exercise just weeks into their programmes. Gym membership sign-ups jump rapidly in January for the New Year's Resolution stuff but cancellations hit their peak in April when people finally realise that not going to the gym that you pay for each month is a bit of a waste of money. Results are great at first because if you've not done exercise before weight drops off when you start, even without drastically altering your diet. But then your body gets used to it and the weight loss slows down. That's when the impatience sets it.

Then impatience becomes 'why bother?' and it becomes even more difficult to drag yourself onto the treadmill or bike. A lot of my disappointment last week was out of the fear that this was already happening to me and that the determination and drive that I had shown over the previous five weeks would all amount to nothing in the long run. It sounds really melodramatic but that's how I felt.

To make matters worse I couldn't get to the gym on Monday. During a night out at The Pastures Lodge in Mexborough on Saturday (I avoided a huge meal and instead had a chicken tikka, which is a big achievement for me when steak is on the menu), someone broke into my car, stole my radio then nicked one of my alloy wheels. This left me without the use of my car until Monday night so I missed the normal Monday morning visit.

That made getting myself to the gym on Wednesday really important. But when I got there and got to work, it was like starting all over again. I huffed and puffed and struggled like I hadn't done in weeks and I really ached when I came out. I didn't even bother getting weighed because I know that the results won't be very good. I'll wait now until next Monday to see what's happened.

To make this experience a little more interesting I am attempting to try different things each month that are supposed to help weight loss to see if they really work. Last month was the Weetabix Week, which proved largely unsuccessful. This was probably down to me eating three at a time - something which I have been properly ribbed about. It's also really unpleasant because that's a lot of Weetabix in a week. Putting that behind me I've started with something else that I was in two minds over doing and I'm still not that sure now I've started. I'll report back over it as the weeks go on but just for now I'm waiting to see what happens.

Right now I'm trying to pull back that determination that characterised my first few weeks and get myself back comfortable at the gym before kicking on and working even harder. This is the difficult stage of it all and I must push through it I know that. I'd like to think that this stage wasn't even a wobble but a minor aftershock from the starting quake.

My name is Liam Hoden and I am a pizzaholic. It's been three weeks since I had my last pizza. I've been using the distraction of self-torture at the gym to get me though the hard times but I still cannot shake that craving. The cheese, pepperoni, oh the pepperoni, how I miss it. At some point I know that I will crack, it's inevitable. How is it possible to resist picking up a pizza after a night out? And seeing that make-your-own pizza counter at Asda when doing the weekly shop is driving me crazy.

Other than pizza being in my head every tea-time, things are going well. I've yet to miss a planned session at the gym, though it has involved a lot of mental jousting when the alarm goes off at six in the morning. I seem to have awoken the little angelic slim imp and his counterpart the tiny fat devil and they go back and forth on my shoulders each morning. So far the slim figured character with the halo has won out but that little devil is getting stronger every morning.

Once I'm in the car on the way to the gym everything is fine and I arrive with quite a lot of gusto, immediately heading for the exercise bike, before getting on the cross trainer. Me and the treadmill have fell out and I'm avoiding it altogether at the minute. It tries to make me do too much and I'm sure it wants to hurt me. So I just hammer myself on the bike and the cross trainer while watching Sky Sports News. It's ok and I seem to be sweating more and more until I can't see and my eyes sting. So I suppose something is happening.

I had the big weekly weigh-in on Monday and I have hit the 16st mark. I'm quite chuffed after three weeks to have shifted nine pounds, especially having a bit of an off weekend with the old watching what I'm eating and drinking lark. When you're tucking into a three course meal and downing lots of beer and wine all for free then the voice of the little angelic imp on your shoulder goes awfully quiet. I've got another meal coming up this weekend and I'm sure when I pick up that menu to see what's on offer, my cherubic friend is going to be silenced again.

Next week I'm going to be aiming to shift quite a bit of weight by doing that Wheetabix diet thing that they keep going on about in the adverts. I already eat them for my breakfast every day so I might as well see if I can get through a week with them for my dinner as well. Hopefully both the Wheetabix eating and my gym sessions will do what they're supposed to and I will drop quite a few pounds. Ideally I would have liked to have lost a stone after a month but with five pounds to go it doesn't look like I'm going to meet that target by Monday so a blitz next week would make up for it.

It's been two weeks since I first walked through the doors of the gym and started on my planned route to my ideal weight.

And it's so far, so good.

I've stuck to my initial plan of getting an hour of workout in before work on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That's something I'm quite proud of at the minute because I hate getting out of bed in the morning but I'm feeling really good. Now I'm much more awake when I get to work even though I'm out of bed an hour earlier and I notice a big difference to the days that I don't go when I tend to be quite sluggish. I know that I would not have the motivation to go after work when the gym is packed and honestly, I can never wait to eat my tea.

My time in the gym is divided between my holy trinity of cardio machines: the treadmill, exercise bike and the cross trainer. I seem to be able to do a bit more every day and I've really taken to the cross trainer as it seems relatively easy, although I'm always soaked with sweat when I climb off it. The treadmill is a bit of a thorn in my side because I can never seem to do as much I would like to do on it. Walking on a treadmill seems to be a bit pointless to me and I feel daft when I look around and everyone else seems to be running at Paula Radcliffe levels. But when I run for a while, the top half of my body pounds my knees, shins and ankles. This happened before when I decided that I was going to run for half an hour a day from my mum and dad's house but I had to give up less than a week into it as pain seared through my shins and I struggled to even walk. I didn't tell many people about that fitness failure. Hopefully as I shift a bit of weight I can start picking up the pace on my new nemisis.

Since Monday I've been spouting the philosophy that if I eat sensibly during the day (i.e. Weetabix for breakfast and a ham sandwich for lunch) then I won't have to think too much about what I'm eating at night, within reason. My girlfriend Leanne has her doubts over this one, but if I stick to at least three visits to the gym a week I should carry on losing weight for a while at least.
The thing I need to concentrate on food-wise is cutting down the portion sizes I have for tea. I don't particularly eat a lot of rubbish but I eat a lot of what I eat. If I can reduce my appetite it will do me the world of good not just now but in the future as well. Hopefully this new stage of watching what I eat will produce even better result.

One of the main motivations about going through this weight loss regime in the public eye was that I would have an obligation to see it through and as a person that is not easily motivated I thought that it would give me the kick up the backside I need. But I could not have imagined the pressure this has piled on me.

Since the first article appeared in the South Yorkshire Times loads of people have spoke to me about what I'm doing so paranoid as it may be I feel that people are going to be watching me to see if my belly starts shrinking. Through work, there are people that I see only once a week and I think these are the people that are going to notice most if there are any changes in my size. I've even been interviewed by a bloke from newspapers website holdthefrontpage.co.uk about my monthly column, this blog and my weight loss. Sitting at home and thinking about it all, I began to see myself as a bit of a performer with a standard to reach. This is what I wanted to happen but it is still scary at times.

I got weighed on Monday, two weeks after my fitness test at Dearne Valley Leisure Centre. Then I was 16st 9lbs, slightly below the 17st I thought I was. Now I'm down to 16st 2lbs, so I've lost half a stone!

I can't believe it really because I haven't really noticed any change in my size. My jeans are still tight and I still shouldn't be wearing a few of my favourite T-shirts that are a bit figure hugging for a man with a family-size-pack for a stomach.
Also, in the first week I did not drastically change my eating habits. I was still having the odd chocolate bar at work and could not resist a bag of Chilli Heatwave Doritos. But, I have avoided having a pizza for the last two weeks which, trust me, is a massive step forward. If I carry on how I've been going, I might reward myself with a visit to Pizza Hut, although that is really undoing my hard work.

In 18 months I am getting married and when I stand in front of everyone saying my vows I want to look my best. For the rest of my life I want to be able to look back on that photo album that cost an absolute fortune and be pleased with the way I looked on the happiest day of my life.

Dropping about four stones should do it. Well, it’s a good thing I’m starting early.

I have struggled with my weight since my early teens and my shape of my body has gone through a rollercoaster ride over the past ten years.

Conscious of how I looked, I hardly ate anything during my second year at comprehensive school and I threw myself into playing rugby. In the end I looked quite ill and looking back at photos from the time, I can’t believe I was ever that thin.

From there, I put weight on steadily for three years and by the time I left school I weighed more than 15 stones. So again I tried to quickly rectify that by joining a gym, going on a diet and throwing myself whole hog into dropping the fat before I started at college.
And it worked. I got down to less than 13 stones in a little more than two months, leaving me the happiest I had ever been with my body and I even managed to keep the weight off as well. That was until I passed my driving test and forgot all about the ability to walk.

This just happened to coincide with going to university where the idea of a well balanced, sensible and healthy diet went straight out of the window. Three years of cooking for myself took its toll on my waistline and by graduation it looked as though I was wearing a tent rather than robes when I collected my certificate. Even running around for 20 minutes at six-a-side football became difficult but luckily I could stay in defence and look alright as the opposition struggled to get past me, probably more due to my width than ability.

Eight months travelling did wonders for my figure as with little money bread and cheese would often have to do for breakfast, dinner and tea. When I came home I was back down to a weight I was happy with but I failed to account for the fact that after months of scrimping on food I would be able to eat what I wanted.

So in the following few months I piled weight at what must have been a dangerous rate and before I knew it I was where I am today. Tipping the scales at around 17 stones where I have been for about six months.

And now the hard work begins to shift four stones and get myself back to the holy grail of my ideal weight.

The arena of my quest for physical perfection will be the Dearne Valley Leisure Centre between Mexborough and Denaby giving me the opportunity to swim as well as torture myself on the treadmill.
Arriving for my induction last week, I was quite nervous about what my body would allow me to do after putting it through weekly punishment in the form of huge pizzas.
Luckily I had gym instructor Nikki to guide me through my first tentative steps back into a fitness regime.
Before being introduced to my means of self-torture in the gym, I had electrodes stuck on my hand and feet. Unfortunately it wasn’t one of those machines that allow you to sit back while an electricity shocks you into shape but rather a body fat monitor that would deliver a verdict on my shocking condition.
Although it was not quite as bad a situation as I thought, having my shameful embarrassing statistics handed to me on a piece of paper was not the most enjoyable experience but made me even more determined to see this thing through.

So with a clearer idea about the size of the task ahead, I was whisked into the gym to start my journey to body beauty. Instructor Nikki gave me an introduction to the exercise bike, treadmill and cross trainer which will hopefully blast my fat cells into oblivion.

What will make the process easier is being able to watch your own television which you can access through the monitor on the piece of exercise equipment. These high tech fitness machines are a new addition to the gym at DVLC and it is easy to see why they received half the average number of cancellations in December after the refurbishment.

Set on with a ten minute warm-up at a nice steady pace on the bike, I was quite content watching Sky Sports News on my little screen and it took my mind off the exercise I was doing. In fact, in a shocking twist of events I quite enjoyed myself.
After a quick trip around the gym, I was handed my workout plan and left to my own devices and I jumped on the treadmill for ten minutes which really showed how unfit I was.
It’s funny how just watching other people in a gym can make you feel inadequate. Everyone appears to have been training forever and be finding everything so easy. These places have an element of intimidation and terror to them but avoiding eye contact with your full length reflection ahead of you and concentrating on the latest news about Kevin Keegan’s return to Newcastle is a decent remedy.

Despite the puffing, panting and heavy sweating, I was feeling pretty good when I left the gym after my first session. At this stage I am pretty confident that I can see this through and reach my goal. Who knows what I will feel like in a month’s time but for now at least I am sure I’ll be down at DVLC three mornings a week getting an hour in before work.

All I have to do now is avoid the pizza counter at Asda and that cupboard full of chocolate left over from Christmas.