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30 Day Ab Challenge WARNING*

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As Hosted By Robyn Mendenhall Gardner via FB
As Hosted By Robyn Mendenhall Gardner via FB

30 Day Ab Challenge WARNING Article at a Glance

People Are Hungry For Change

At the time of writing this, there are over 2 MILLION people signed up to do the 30 Day Ab Challenge.  I applaud all of you.  Do it.  Try hard.  Make it happen.  Get a friend (or many friends) to take this challenge with you.  I wish you all success!

On the surface, this a beautiful challenge.  Just look at the number of people who are joining.  Robyn has made it super easy to follow.  And, over the 30 days, you’ll be challenged a little more each day.  The workouts look short and sweet.  You are very likely to have success with this type of challenge!

Expectations:  Can This Challenge Give You 6-pack Abs?Man of Steel Abs

YOU MUST BE BRUTALLY HONEST WITH YOURSELF IF YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE SUCCESS.  You have to dig a little deeper inside of you.  A new challenge may motivate you, but there is more!  Where are you right now physically?  Are you in shape, slightly out of shape, or way out of shape?  Set your expectations accordingly.  And if you are using this 30-day challenge to propel a long-term change, then you should already be looking at what you want to do for your body in July and August and beyond!

Would you like to have a “Brutally Honest” moment with yourself right now?  Realize that you are already self-experimenting.  Look at your body right now. 

Many people won’t like this next questions:  What in the world do you put in your body as fuel?  Continue Reading

Little Changes Every Day Make Big Changes Over Time

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Do You Have New Goals For Climbing This Year

The best advice I can offer you is to track your changes. Tracking your data may help you keep on course and keep you motivated to stick with your goals.

You will see in the later graphs, that in each of my workouts, I challenge myself to do just one more push up or one more pull up than the previous workout.  It is just a tiny change; but the dividends it pays later are enormous.

So, if you are going to improve your climbing abilities this year, start tracking your data.  Will you climb a grade or two harder?  Will you work on your diet and try to drop some fat from your body.  Or, will you just work on improving your health?  You can track all of those changes.

How I Track My Workouts Continue Reading

I Didn’t Lose Any Weight In The First 30 Days: Would You Stick With Your Diet?

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NO Weight loss in first 30 Days

  • On January 15th, I weighed in at 191.6
  • On January 31st, I weighed in at 193.0
  • On February 14th, I weighed in at 189.4

Losing only 2.2 pounds in the first 30 days for the amount of work I was doing was a gigantic disappointment.  The SCALE made me think that I was not moving closer to my goal.  I was working my hardest.  I only took 3 days off from exercise.  And, I was eating a very crazy high-fat, low-carb diet.

Would You Stick With Your Diet If Your Weight Did Not Drop In The First 30 Days

I have received a number of comments and congratulations  from my peers in response to posting the before and after pic where I show my body changing from approximately 190 lbs. to 176 lbs.  And, yes, those pics are 30 days apart – February 14th to March 15th.

Here is one comment I recently received:

PS great blog post the other day. Dropping 20lbs in a month is awesome. It is a goal of mine to do the same.

The Hardest Work Was In The First 30 DaysHard Work Ahead

I want to be clear:  I did have phenomenal success beginning after day 31.  However, Continue Reading

The Importance Of Self-Experimentation: YOU Are In Charge Of Your Health

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You Are In Charge Of Your Health

If you are not hitting your heath, weight-loss, or sports performance goals, it may be worthwhile to ask yourself a few questions:

  • Is what I am currently doing for my health, working for me?
  • What if some of my personal beliefs about diet and exercise are off?
  • Where did my information about diet and exercise come from?  Why do I believe it?
  • Am I open to trying something completely different?

When it comes to losing weight and getting healthy, you are in charge. Let me write that again:  YOU are in charge.  And this is exactly why self-experimentation is important to you.

Before and After Jason
Before (190lbs) and After (176lbs)

The picture to the right shows the results of my self-experimentation.  The pictures are only 30 days apart!

I am n=1: The Importance Of  Self-Experimentation

Calories That I Ate On Jan 22
FAT: I ate like this to get in the best shape of my life

There is a current trend to shed the popular one-size-fits-all low-fat diet and (a-hem) your doctor’s bad advice about eating and health and sports performance; and embrace this concept of n=1.

What is n=1?  N=1 means, “I will find out what works for me!”  N=1 is a way to describe an experiment with one test subject…YOU.  N=1 means that you collected data about yourself.   N=1 is anecdotal evidence.  But, can n=1 give groundbreaking information about you?  Maybe.

A very simple example for me is:  When I eat a high-fat, low-carb diet (as the graph shows); I lose weight, sleep better, feel better, and some minor joint pains go away.  This is what works for ME.

Do you know what works for you?

If you have found something that works for you, please share in the comments.

More details soon about the crazy way I lost 20 pounds of fat and gained 7 pounds of muscle.  I also went from bouldering V2 to V6 during this experimentation time.  (I used this increase in bouldering ability as MY true measure of success during this diet and exercise program that I created for myself.)

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You Will Be Okay!

Did you overeat this Thanksgiving weekend?  Feeling fat and bloated?  Mentally beating yourself up for all the dessert you ate?  Oh, how human of you!

It is human of us to enjoy good food.  It is human of us to associate a wonderful meal with happiness and contentment.  It is also human of us to not exactly know how to get the fat off our our midsection, butt, and thighs.  Is it human of us to have to sort through tons and tons of diet and weight loss information and opinions?

There is no need to beat yourself up mentally about where you are with your health, fitness, or fat loss goals.  If you haven’t found what works for you yet, just keep looking.