If you're here I want to say congratulations because you already know 95% of the information you need to know in order to get a 6 pack.  Why do I say that? Because as much as we all don't want to hear it, a 6 pack is not a " I don't know how to get it "thing, it is a " I'm not willing to do what it takes " thing; AND for some it may also be a " It's going to take some time " thing.

Let's clear the air here.  I'm not here to sell you any fat burning crap pills, newly discovered exercise equipment, cheap DVD's or systems that don't work.  BUT Jimmie you're an Independent Beachbody coach don't you promote DVD's and nutrition systems? YES I DO. But these things aren't required to get 6 pack abs or the results you want. They're merely tools to help make life a little easier and FOR ME that's exactly WHAT I NEEDED.

So this is my gift to you, 3 simple rules I've learned over the past 2 years from experience and programs that have helped me get AND maintain my 6 pack.


1.  Count backwards
"Getting Abs" in my opinion is a bad statement, more correctly we should be saying "Seeing Abs." You already have abs but they're covered in belly fat. If you want to see them you need to remove body fat. Counting calories, tracking macros, fasting and dieting are all methods to get there but I've found they're all a pain in the ass and it's a hard method to sustain unless you're in some form of body building.

For me I count FATS, SUGARS and SODIUM. The idea here is to play these three categories like a game of golf, the lower your score the better.

Ohhh and another huge 6 pack killer is ALCOHOL. Have you been on my Facebook page, do you know me? You could make the argument that I drink and it doesn't seem to effect me. Well... I got the results first. It's easier to maintain a 6 pack rather then get one but believe me the first thing I cut out when I really want my abs to pop is alcohol.



2.  Sticking to what makes the biggest change
This is where I see people making the biggest mistakes. The truth is that some activities have a greater impact on a 6 pack then others. So isn't it reasonable to attack those activities with full force first? You wouldn't play $5 blackjack if you wanted to become a millionaire, you'd go to the high stakes tables.

NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) says.. "70% of your daily caloric burn comes from your RMR or Resting Metabolic Rate... and 20% comes from your workouts."

What does this mean? Well it means you need to keep working out but you can make much larger strides towards your goals if you can amp up what your RMR is burning. Body size, body composition and food intake are some of the factors of RMR that are changeable. This also why it seems that skinny people stay skinny and fat people stay fat.    

So, if you want to see your abs, build the muscle required to change your RMR. Muscle is your best friend and fats worst enemy, so build it. Get done the work that needs to be done first, then work on the finer details.


3.  Fast or Sloww AND everything is not always in moderation
Would you like results fast or sloww? The majority of people will say "I want fast results" but are you really willing to do what's necessary to get them? Most people aren't so they chose the sloww route but there's one thing you need to understand, slow is sloww.  It could be the difference between 3 weeks (like me) or 6 months.

In my opinion this is not an everything in moderation situation.  Getting results is much easier being consistent with good habits rather then trying to space out 'cheat meals' throughout the week. Do the required work for longer periods of time, get the results and then you can go back to 'everything in moderation.'

Find a partner, find a trainer, get motivated and do what's necessary to get the results you want. Sure that month or two may be hell but once you're there it'll be much easier to maintain and keep!


Conclusion
In my opinion you don't need fancy meal plans or insane workout plans but you do need to work hard. Lift weights and eat single ingredient clean foods (if you have to ask if they're clean or not they're NOT) and you will be on your way.

AND if you're like me and need more help and a system to follow, then find the time and money to spend on one that will get you there. The results you get will more then pay themselves off.

Remember when you were a kid and your parents tried teaching you the value in saving money. For some it was a piggy bank and for others is was a full blown savings account. My parents actually did a really good job at teaching me this lesson. When we went to the bank for whatever reason instead of just reviewing their accounts and having me wait in the corner they would have the banker also review my account to see how it was doing. It made me feel a part of the entire process instead of something that only adults do.

Now it's present day and I'm realizing more and more how important the lesson I was learning was and that it doesn't just apply to money. If you've read any of my blog posts you know I love talking about, learning about, and practicing changing habits to achieve long term goals. The more I learn about this subject the more I've come to realize that Life is a Savings Account.


Steven Covey says, "Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert the process anymore than you can harvest a crop before you plant it." To me this means it's the little, seemingly unimportant actions we take everyday that lead to ultimate goals and success. Unfortunately we also grow up around media and brilliant marketing companies who have us believe that we need to make snap decisions in order for success.

We often praise the grand slam hitter in baseball, we fantasize about winning the lottery and we wish we could be in the right spot, for that great opportunity. It's true that the people that this happens to are in the spotlight for a brief moment but what we have to ask ourselves is, where are they now? What kind of longevity do these 'grand' events bring?

Be careful how you save
If small positive habits carried out everyday lead to larger positive outcomes the reverse is true as well. Small bad decisions carried out everyday will lead to large negative outcomes. For example eating a candy bar isn't going to make you fat but, eating one everyday for 10 years will certainly add some weight.

TIP: Garbage in equals garbage out so make sure your daily habits are aligned with your ultimate goals. If they're not, rethink your strategy.

Create multiple Savings Accounts
If you're like me you don't have just one goal. Some of my current goals are to grow my business, maintain my health and read more books. Now I dedicate differing amounts of time to each but for instance I'm not good at sitting still and reading. But the knowledge I gain from reading is invaluable so I know I need to work on it. So I take it in small chunks. I try my best to read for 15-20 min/day which allows me to cover about 15-20 pages/day, therefor I can get through a 300 page book in roughly 15 days. Viola, I'm going through books!

TIP: Imagine for a second if everyday you took 15 minutes to achieve something positive in your life, and did that multiple times a day? Where would you be in 3 months, 6 months or a year? What could you accomplish?

Don't save $10/ week when you can't afford $1
I see people especially in the health & fitness field doing all the time. Inspiration hits like an explosion and they want to get in shape and ripped up. "I can workout and hour a day," "I can eat healthy," and the list goes on. If you're not currently working out or eating right, don't bite off more then you can chew.

TIP: When trying to change a major habit, don't try to change too much too soon. Want to workout for 60 min/day? Start with 15 minutes for 30 days and slowly progress. Let's be serious if you can't handle 15 min/day you'll never make it to 60 minutes.

Then I'll save $20/ week! Still not a good idea
Sometimes good habits, even with good intentions can be overdone. Maybe you accidentally skipped date night with your loved one, so the next day you bought them flowers and took them someplace really special to make up for it. A few months later something comes up again and you repeat this process. How long do you think it's going to take until date night is going to lose it's entire significance?

TIP: It's important to know that in our journey of creating new habits that mistakes and failures will happen and you will fall off course. In this example this couple started out showing each other importance and priority above all else but small changes in plans set them off course.  They tired 'making up' for it by doing more but in doing so something else happened.  A habit was created where their brain said, "it's okay to veer off course because I can always make up for it later," and that attitude is more damaging then anything!

Conclusion
It's time we all wake up and realize there is a formula for SUCCESS and achieving OUR GOALS and it doesn't matter what your goals are.  The formula is simple, small habits made everyday will lead to long term outcomes. Life is a Saving Account, treat it like one.    

3 Things that will help you SET and ACHIEVE your goals in 2014 and beyond...
Okay so it's that time of year again.  I don't know why people use this time to set personal goals but I'll leave that for another blog post.  For me 2013 was a year of taking chances and dreaming big.  I'm proud to say that 2013 was the year I broke out of my own self constructed 'box' and set out to achieve my dreams.  

I've learned a lot about setting goals and I want to share that with you so maybe you'll achieve some or all of the goals you are about to set.  It's my hope that by the end of this article you'll be inspired enough to dream big, set goals always and not allow a calendar that you didn't invent to guide your own goals.

1.  Set small goals that will lead to big changes
I want to lose weight, I will workout for an hour a day, I want to save more money and the list goes on and on.  I've discovered that most peoples dreams are serious life changing events.  Be honest with yourself, if you haven't been able to do these things thus far in your life it's unlikely you'll be able to do them any better on January 1st.

The key to making large changes is setting BOTH small and large goals.  Losing weight and working out for an hour a day are great goals but if you can't even workout for 15 minutes a day then you'll never make the full hour (or at least for any significant amount of time that will make a lasting change).  Instead of charging the gym on January 1st (or Jan 2nd if you had too much fun) set a goal of 15 minutes a day, 6 days a week for a month.  The consistency will be better for you, less of a change, and you'll be forming a habit instead of fighting old ones.  Keep adding 15 minutes each month until you get to your goal.

Why did you make a New Years resolution?  To make life changes right?  My point is this, who cares if you reach that goal in January or April?  The goal is to reach that goal an that's it.  By making small changes you increase your success rate exponentially and you don't have to set the same goal the next year.        

2.  Flexible planning
I see this same post on Facebook every year where every week for a year you're supposed to make a $1 incremental deposit into your saving account and by the end of the year you'll have saved approximately $1,300.  While this is a great goal I see a major flaw with this idea and that is that 'life happens.'  Sure January and February are easy but as the year goes on the deposits get larger and more difficult.  Do you really want to be making your largest deposits during the holiday season?




Why not print out the sheet and deposit as much as you can when you can and just check off the amounts as you make them?  This will alleviate stress around holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and other life events both planned and unplanned.  Personally I get some money around Christmas time so I should knock off the more expensive deposits then.

My point is that planning is important but flexible planning will last you longer and ultimately lead you to greater achievements.  The journey may be more important than the destination but it's got to be YOUR journey.  Keep your eye on the big picture and what works for YOU and YOUR life.    

3.  Don't be afraid to fail or have set backs
I started a 90 day workout program called P90X about 3 years ago.  I did it for about 2 weeks pretty religiously until I missed a day and then I quit for about a week.  I picked it back up and completed about 30 days until my grandmother passed away and I had to leave town for the funeral.  When I got back I had lost my momentum and couldn't find the motivation to get back into it.  A month or two later I decided enough was enough and started again this time for almost the full 90 days and quit yet again a week or two before I'd be done.  I forget the reason I quit now but I do remember how disappointed in myself I was.

Then it occurred to me, why am I doing this?  Am I doing this to complete a 90 day program or am I doing it to improve my health?  I had let the challenge of completing the program get in the way of the real picture. Now I workout and eat healthy for one reason and that's to live longer and live happier.

The point is to use failures and set backs as lessons and learn from them.  If it hadn't been for me quitting so much I might have completed the 90 day program and quit for good.  Instead my failures and set backs led me to a lifelong habit.  I think John Maxwell says it best, "Failure can be your best friend or your worst enemy, the choice is yours."

Bonus.  Challenge yourself
The opposite of goal setting is true too.  If you're setting goals that you're reaching too easily or too fast then you're not challenging yourself enough.  Don't be afraid to dream even bigger.

Conclusion
I don't know what your goals are for 2014 but don't fall into the trap of setting goals and not achieving them. Every year it seems like the same thing.  People make these life changing goals and quit within a matter of weeks.

Set yourself up with success by making short term and long term goals.  Make you short term goals attainable with little effort and allow those short term goals to add up to something great.  Allow your goals to be flexible and look at failure and set backs as a little friend giving you advice, and take it.  Most of all allow yourself to dream, dream big and never stop dreaming! 

I saw this the other day and I just had to write about it.  They renovated my local grocery store and put this in the middle of the store.  This new 'stay healthy' and 'live well' sign is, I'm assuming, their answer to living healthy?  A huge 'stay healthy' and 'live well' sign above the pills, supplements and other various drugs.  Way to go!  Ah... what I wouldn't give to meet the person who designed this.

Now I believe pills, supplements and drugs have their place in the world of health and nutrition but it seems as though that's the first place we turn to now-a-days.  Have an issue?  Hmm maybe there's a drug that can fix it.  I mean it certainly can't be something you're doing to yourself right?  


We all need to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for our actions, and in many cases our inaction's.  Just because some medical minds have come up with a solution to fixing YOUR problem doesn't mean you should  live like it's okay to continue to make the same mistakes.  And remember, you're not just affecting yourself anymore. Many of the people I see making these mistakes have children, and guess who they're learning from?  Telling your child to not do what you're doing simply doesn't work.  YOU HAVE TO BE THE EXAMPLE.

I want to keep this one short but my point is to take care of yourself and lead by example.  Be the change you want to see in the world, don't just sit back and complain about it.  I'll admit I'm not perfect or anywhere close, but I am trying.  Don't continually band-aid problems, start to look for ways to fix the origin of the problem instead.  I think if we all worked on this a little more we would see a lot of positive change all around us.

References
Deaths from 9-11 approx 3,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks)
Deaths from obesity approx. 300,000 (http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/calls/obesity/fact_consequences.html)