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The New Years Contest Transformation: 3 Incredible Stories

April 12, 2013 By 7 Comments

Woah.

I’m finally getting my butt in gear and announcing our winners for the New Years contest. We had so many entries – it took me a while to get through them all. It’s been a big process, but it’s been really cool to see some of these transformations happen in real time.

It was tough to narrow them down, not only going through physical changes, but also the stories of the people behind them but after much deliberation, we narrowed it down to our top 3 (with 1 runner up).

We had some big prizes at stake, but some of the biggest transformations actually actively turned down the prizes. While they started because of the different prizes at stake, they realized in the middle of the challenge that they were doing it for themselves – not some prizes – no matter how awesome they may be. And so while I’ll be sharing their stories coming up in the next few months, there were a ton of people who finished out the contest and deserve the swag. Here they are:

Here are the results of the winners in their own words.

Honorable Mention: Alessandra

24 year old, Quality Assurance Manager

Lost 7 pounds in 8 weeks, but gained a six pack and one cool pair of sunglasses.

Before

Alessandra-1-17

After

Alessandra-3-3

What’s Your Story Allesandra?

I’ve always been pretty fit, but got to a space where I was teetering. I just thought that was where I was going to stay. I made tiny strides of progress, but then would fall back at square one. Basically I was good, but not great.

I started off at 140 lbs (I’m 5’4”) and measurements of 37:28:40. I’ve always been in decent shape and loved my curves, but there was no reason why my stomach shouldn’t be totally flat. There were a ton of reasons why I wanted to get fitter and stronger and I just needed and excuse to do it. Honestly, I never realized how much social pressures affected my lifestyle. I was weeaaaakkkkk.

What type of Results Did You See?

Every week I felt some sort of change. First, it was endurance. I realized that I suck at starting a workout, but once I got into the groove, I could go forever. That’s when I started doing back to back MMA classes so I had 2 hours for ass kicking. Then, I felt my core get stronger. I was in better control of all my movements, especially headstands and handstands. I’ve always been an excellent yogi, but the extra arm and core strength had me pushing harder and finally getting into the full expression of some of the most challenging poses. Finally, my cardio started improving. I live in a 4th floor walk up and while getting up the stairs has never been an issue, these days it’s like NOTHING.

I hesitate to give final weight and measurements as I went on a bit of a bender during my last week, so this is in no way final, but here it goes: 133 lbs; 34.5:27:38.5.

Mental Clarity

I realized that a really hate starting an exercise on my own. If I’m in a class, I can jump right in, but that first bit of motivation (I mean, discipline), is hard to muster. Getting past those first ten minutes is the worst, but after one circuit, I didn’t want to stop working out. I’m still working on getting rid of the fear of the first ten minutes, but I’m definitely better prepared to face them.

As far as eating goes, “I don’t need it” became a sort of mantra. And I don’t. I don’t need bread. It was such a staple and it can be annoying not being able to eat sandwiches and other convenient gluten wrapped foods, but I don’t effing need it!

Any Words Out There For People Thinking About The Challenge?

I’ve been toying with the idea of going paleo for awhile, and this was the push I needed. Having the excuse of a contest to decline alcohol really takes the social anxiety out of the equation, and now that I feel amazing, I don’t even care about the social implications of drinking less and cooking more. I also can say, I can’t meet you out that night, I have an MMA class, and not feel guilty. Feeling better in my own skin had killed my FOMO (fear of missing out).

Five stars. Highly recommended. Just try it already. NOW.

 

Third Place: Josh

27 year-old Australian. Former fat guy.

Total weight loss = 17.6 pounds

josh before after impossible abs

What’s your background Josh? Tell me a little bit about your story:

I come from an overweight family. I’m not sure how much genetics has to play in it, but inactivity, good food and too keen an interest in bright colours and flashing lights (read: TV) had some input I’m sure. Being of the build I am, weight was extremely easy to put on, and it seemed the family way of life and the path down which my life was headed. Fast food, soda, junk food, and binges on bread and sweets was almost a weekly occurrence.

For too many years this has been going on. I graduated High School 9 years ago at a weight of 85kg, and since then I’ve seen it fluctuate from 79kg (working as a dishwasher in a restaurant and being poor will do this), all the way up to most recently a whopping 104kg. That was in September 2012.

before impossible abs

104kg in September

Since September I’ve been following about a 75% paleo diet, with the odd bit of exercise in there when it was convenient to do so. I noticed some of the weight simply melt away and by New Years i was a decent 94kg.

I’ve been a reader of Impossible HQ for the last 10 months, give or take a few, and I’ve owned a copy of the Impossible Abs program since it was released. And I am super encouraged by the honesty, badassery and constant pushing that is dished out on the blog and through email correspondence.

Before Christmas, I took a leap of faith (decided to blackmail myself) and signed up and paid for a Tough Mudder event. All I needed now was the kick in the butt.

Okay, so you took on the challenge, right around New Years. What types of results did you see? How did you not fall off the wagon like so many people do?

The biggest result I noticed was only a moderate drop in weight. At the start of the competition, I weighed in at 93-94kg and at the end I struck in at 86kg. That’s only 7-8kg lost (~17.6 pounds for us state side). It doesn’t sound like much, and I really thought I was going to lose more. However, I gained a lot more than I anticipated.

Core strength is the largest improvement I noticed. Obviously improvements in numbers of repetitions of exercises and the depth or intensity at which I do them were noticeable as well. But, the biggest, especially coming from a life lived mostly on the couch, was definitely core strength. The power and control  that I now have over how my body undertakes movements was the best realization I had.

I’ve been getting comments from all sorts of people about how much better i’m looking, which is always great to hear. It’s also great being able to fit into better clothes. I even found a pair of pants that I put away because I was too fat to fit into them (I’m now too thin to wear them – they practically just fall off me!). I’ve also moved down about 4″ in pants and belts size since September.

It’s cool to see the physical changes, isn’t it? How did the challenge change you mentally?

This was also one of the biggest improvements I noticed. Mental Grit, is the term I believe. Obstacles seem a lot smaller and more easily tackled. My optimism is through the roof, my confidence is up and all bets are off as to what the future holds.

Yes, it was quite difficult at times, and there were certainly days where I thought about skipping a workout (and I’m not above mentioning that, yes, there were a few days where i did skip the workout, but for the most part, I stuck it out (and  some days where I ended up outside the house doing exercise at 10pm).

Killer story Josh, what’s next for you man?

The overall result is that I want to continue down the path i’ve been on for the last 2 months, I have the tools to continue and mental determination to keep going. Self-discipline is better than it was, and there is definitely room for improvement. One day i will finally have the 6 pack abs. I don’t want them for looks, or vanity, i want them for the sake of it, to prove that i can do it, that i can take something to it’s full end.

BOOM

Second Place: Kiernan

42 year old mother of 3.

Total weight loss = 15 pounds.

kiernan before & after impossible abs

Kiernan After

I am a 42 year old mom of three. I am a yoga instructor, and I “live” yoga but I workout by running. Most of what I do for fitness revolves around being in shape for half marathon or marathon distance events. By 1/1/2013 I had fallen out of shape though. Lots of things conspired to create a perfect storm of self-medicating. A big part of that was 12/14. My kids go to school in Newtown, CT – they have for their whole lives. The shootings have turned my life upside down.

By the first of this year, I knew I needed to grab control of SOMETHING. I decided to make it the hardest thing I could think of. I had read about Impossible Abs on the blog, and I had dismissed it out of hand. Paleo eating is kind of contrary to my endurance runner/plant focused way of eating. Plus, an 8 hour window just seemed ridiculous. The workouts didn’t “scare” me but they did seem like something I would absolutely hate and dread. So – I decided to change the meaning of “Impossible” into something good. If something impossibly horrible like the Sandy Hook shootings can happen, then so can things that are impossibly great.

All right, lets cut to the chase – what types of results did you see?

I lost 15+ pounds. I am close to 5’6″ so that’s a pretty significant difference. My final weight is 137 and that’s within a pound of my lightest weight ever. I went from needing to go get size 6 jeans to having my size 4 start to fall off. Even my yoga tights are roomy! I also got back my upper body definition, not seen since I did Insanity a few years ago. I have better leg strength than I can get just from running. My sleep has improved, my skin and hair has a significantly healthier look. My belly is calm ALL THE TIME.

I have basically lost my taste for sweets. To me, this is HUGE. I take my coffee black, I don’t look twice at cakes and cookies. I see these changes as maybe more important for the long run than the burgeoning six-pack. I am eating so clean now, and I plan to continue to do so. My next challenge is to run a marathon in May at a light weight and see how that affects my performance. My kids are eating better too! What a bonus. Also, in the photos you can see my guns!!

kiernan after impossible abs

So what about the mental aspect of the challenge?

The challenge was really all mental for me. And I am a tough person. I’ve done drug free childbirth three times. I’ve done GORUCK and other all night physical tests. I’ve run marathons. I embrace hard workouts and I know how to lean into the sucky parts. The diet was tough, since I love toast and peanut butter! The workouts were tough because I really dislike pullups and burpees. But I just embraced it.

I am SO fortunate that my boyfriend did the program along with me. He is truly tough mentally. He never even seemed to want to waiver or complain. Together, we ate kale and fish and eggs and greens and fruit. We drank water and black coffee. We did not have even a cheat “moment” for eight weeks. Carlos managed to lose over 30 pounds during the challenge!

Awesome! We need to get Carlos’ story on here. Any additional thoughts on the challenge in general?

I learned from this. I read a LOT about fitness and diet, I’ve done P90X and Insanity and Asylum. I live yoga. I know my body and I know what I’m doing, yet I learned from this. I learned about how making a few seemingly impossible moves to clean up my diet could make a very big difference. I learned about how I can maintain and build fitness doing things that take less time! I learned big things about myself too – about what I can give up and what I need. About how much I’m willing to do things differently than those around me.

I think the best thing I can say about this program is that I am going to make a LOT of it my lifestyle. Specifically, the clean eating (I’m not staying Paleo, can’t give up grains completely and don’t really like to eat much meat). But no processed food! I won’t buy dairy – just have it out at a restaurant once in a while. AND – Monday thru Friday we continue to eat Impossible Abs style completely. I also plan to incorporate pushups and pullups consistently even when marathon training.

Prizes Kiernan Is Going Home With

First Place: Brock

29 years old. Full time desk jockey, full-time student, family man, and father of 3.

Total weight lost = 25.5 pounds

Before

impossible abs before brock

After

impossible abs after brock

Brock, what’s your story?

Well, I guess I should tell you a little bit about myself. I’m 29 years old, I have a family with three kids. I work full time, and also go to school full time (going to graduate with my BS in Accounting in December). I’m 6’1″ and when I started this contest I weighed in at 193 pounds with a 42.5″ Chest and 40″ waist (measured at the belly button). I started this challenge a week late and didn’t start exercising until a week after that, but did reign in my diet for the first week. I used your free No Excuse Workout for 6 weeks and no other exercise. I found it pretty challenging to get it started. I didn’t realize how out of shape I really was! After spending a year in Iraq as a Calvary Scout with the Army National guard I really started packing on the pounds over the last couple years. I also quit working out after I got back. I pretty much did the bare minimum health wise, no exercise and eat anything and everything.

What Type of Results Did You See?

Here are my weekly weigh-ins

Weigh Ins

  • 3-Jan  – 193
  • 10-Jan – 185.2
  • 14-Jan – 183.5
  • 19-Jan – 180
  • 27-Jan – 179.2
  • 3-Feb – 175.7
  • 12-Feb – 173
  • 19-Feb – 171.8 
  • 3-Mar – 167.5

That is a total weight lost of 25.5 pounds, 3.5 inches off my chest and a whopping 5 inches of my waist!!!!

Besides looking better, most importantly I feel great! I’ll admit that it was extremely hard to keep going the first couple weeks. I was tired, sore and wanted to give up. I knew that it would eventually pass when I was in shape for the Army. And it did, once that initial stage of pain was over I looked forward to working out. Plus when I was finished working out I felt great when it over. I wasn’t as tired or sluggish at the end of the day and fell a sleep quicker at night as well.

Was There A Mental Barrier To This Challenge At All?

I think the challenge really helped me break past that mental barrier and give me an end date to work towards. The hardest part is always starting out. Now that I’ve been in the swing of things it much easier to keep the momentum going. I plan on upgrading to Impossible Abs when I get my tax money back. I’ve also started training for a GORUCK Challenge, which is what I will pick if I happen to place in the top three. Even if I don’t win I plan on pursing the challenge anyways and earning my patch!

1st Place Prizes He’s Going Home With

 

BOOM!

Josh, Kiernan & Brock – shoot me an email & lets get in touch & I’ll ship you your prizes. Nice work.

These are just some of the few of the stories we got in. It made me incredibly proud to see what people could accomplish in just 8 weeks – AND how their entire trajectory for the year changed because of the habits they made in the first two months.

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that results are not typical – but I’d really hate to do that. Of course, these results aren’t typical if you just buy a book and expect it to transform your life. You have to take the time & energy to invest yourself in actually doing the work. If you do that, sure your mileage may vary, but the physical results will come along & the mental ones might be even greater.

What’s cool is that the results came came from about an even 50/50 split between the programs.. About 50 percent of the participants used impossible abs. & 50% just used the free no excuse workouts. You won’t hear too many fitness people tell you this, but you really don’t need the latest & greatest gear, equipment or programs to do what you really want to do. While solid info definitely can give you a boost, the real secret to fitness is this:

Half the battle is doing the work.

All the fitness secrets in the world won’t help you if you don’t get that foundation down.

So congratulations everyone. I’ve never been happier to spend a few thousand dollars on things that for other people that I want badly for myself (but hey, at least I’m racking up miles). I think this was a lot of fun. It was cool to see how many people got jumpstarted by the bribery, but once they were in, they kept going for themselves (I even had a few people voluntarily disqualify themselves from the prize because “they wanted to do it for themselves, not a prize.”) That’s what it’s all about and I can’t wait to share some of those stories :) .

Again, thanks to everyone who participated in the Impossible Abs challenge. I keep coming back to the fact that Impossible Abs is different from a lot of fitness programs for a reason. It’s not about shortcuts. It’s not about vanity. It’s not about crash dieting. It’s about taking control, creating habits & making a change.

I loved this quote from Josh (down 40+ pounds since September) that he presumably thought up while climbing the mountain he’s photographed in below:

One day soon, I will finally have 6 pack abs. I don’t want them for looks, or vanity. I want them for the sake of it, to prove that i can do it, that I can take something to it’s full end.

after impossible abs

That’s what it’s about.

—-

Impossible Abs Updates Are On The Way

I’ve been getting a lot of queestions about Impossible Abs lately. I’ll be releasing an update in the next 10 days to address a ton of questions I’ve gotten that are really easily solved. and should put your mind at ease. I’m not done with this yet. We’ve got a TON of more great stories on the way & I’m still working on making this the best resource out there. If you already have it, don’t worry, you’ll get an email notification when the update is ready. If you’re about to pick up a copy, don’t worry – you get free updates for life (cause I love you like that) so you’ll get the updated copy when it’s live.

Note From Joel:

I literally just got off a google+ hangout with Vic Magary (my co-author for Impossible Abs) at 7am this morning. After showing him the stories listed above, he wanted to do something to really get people pumped about Impossible Abs and offered to throw in his course – 40 days fit - to whoever picks up the program in the next 72 hours. If you’ve been around the blog much, you’ll know I don’t really do promotions like this ever – seriously ever – so if you want to get started this weekend, pick up a copy of Impossible Abs + forward your receipt to vic (vic@vicmagary.com) to get your f*ee copy of 40 days fit as well. This is good until midnight on Sunday, CST.

Boom indeed.

Fitness Resources

Look like a bad a** and do impossible things in your Impossible Gear (Available Here).

Want to be featured on the blog? Cross something off your impossible list while wearing your impossible gear & send it in!

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Case Studies, Fitness, Six Pack Abs, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , , ,

How To Submit Your 2013 New Years Contest Entry

March 4, 2013 By 1 Comment

Calling All Contest Finishers

Almost exactly two months ago we launched the New Years Contest To End All New Years Contests.

If you don’t quite remember it, the gist is that EVERYONE wants to use the New Year to start getting in better shape. I wanted to help people actually DO that. So I decided to bribe you.

More and more I’m realizing that my real goal is to remove any and all excuses you have from working out and/or doing the things you really want to do be doing. If that requires bribery, than so be it. So I bit the bullet, and launched a contest featuring a slew of ridiculous prizes.

And…the response has been incredible. Hundreds of people began Impossible Abs and thousands (yes, thousands with a T), picked up the No Excuses Workout. Not only that, but halfway through the course, I sent out an email just checking on people and surprisingly people were sticking with it (unfortunately many fitness programs have an incredible fall-off rate of people picking up and stopping as soon as it gets hard. Case in point: is your gym empty yet? Surprisingly, we’ve seen an incredible amount of people sticking with the program – which is about the best thing a program creator can hear :) .)

But, now the 8 week challenge is over. It’s time to share your story (if you stuck it all out).

Prizes Up For Grabs

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

How To Get In On It

Submit Your Story

First up, submit your story here

http://impossiblehq.com/story

We’ll be considering entries for the next 7 days – until March 10th, 2013 at Midnight EST). After that, you can still submit your story, but it won’t be eligible for these prizes (although I’d still love to hear them). Please note: for the sake of our sanity & keeping track of everything, we’re only considering entries that are submitted through the above link.

Tips on Submitting Your Entry

I’m expecting a flood of submissions. I’m going to read every single one, but if you want, here’s how you can stand out from the crowd.

Your Physical Changes

How did you change physically? Did the program actually work? Remember, details are good and photos are great. If you have numbers as far as weights/measurements, etc – even better. Also, if you’ve noticed energy level changes or other physical-related changes or improvements, this is where you let me know.

Beyond The Physical

One of the reasons I focus on physical challenges is because I believe they have the greatest ability to help shape, impact and change people in a real, undeniably, visceral way. If the 8 week challenge has been challenging you beyond just the fitness component, be sure to let me know.

What’s Next?

8 weeks is a good start, but the contest isn’t the end – it’s just the beginning. What’s next for you and your story? What are you going to be relentlessly pursuing from here forward? How has Impossible Abs helped you forward in that respect?

The Ripple Effect

Who’s going to be different because you’re different? How are you going to pass it along?

Details & honesty are more important than creativity or clever phrases. Results of course, speak the loudest of all.

Thank You

Again, to everyone who participated in the contest – I want to say thanks – not only for taking me up on this challenge – but for putting action to the words that people so easily toss around.

Remember, you have the next 7 days to submit your story here.

Share Your Story Here

BOOM.

Filed Under: Kicking A**, Launches, Six Pack Abs, Weight Loss

“All-In” 31 Pounds In 8 Weeks – Toyah’s Story

February 19, 2013 By 5 Comments

Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve gotten quite a few great Impossible Abs success stories. Today I get to share with you one of them.

Meet Toyah.

Toyah first emailed me a few months ago:

Hi Joel.

I did your 8 week impossible abs challenge and lost 14 kilos.

Just wanted to say thank you. Your blog has changed my life in a lot of ways, not just health wise.

Thank you!!!!!

Toyah

I had to do some conversions, but I did the math and 14 kilos is 31 pounds for us Americans. In just 8 weeks. Woah!

Toyah Impossible Abs

I decided to sit down with her to see exactly what she did:

—–

Hey Toyah, Thanks for taking the time to do this interview! Before we get started, what’s your story? Can you give us a little background about who you are and your fitness history?

A: Hi Joel, no worries, I’m a police officer and my fitness history doesn’t go much further than a few years ago when I started to think about becoming a cop. It was one criteria that needed to be met to get into the academy, so my first taste of training for anything was the beep test, the Illinois agility run, hand grip strength testing and a 75kg dummy drag. It was a pretty gruelling introduction to training and I hated every second of it. If I knew back then what I know now about it all starting in the kitchen it would have been much easier. But I guess things have to suck at first for you to start looking at better avenues to take things, so it took me a few years to figure that out.

Cool, So How Did You Find Your Way To Impossible HQ?

A: There’s an Australian woman who runs a Facebook page, she’s very paleo focused. It’s called  Eat. Sleep. Move. She often posts bits and pieces she finds helpful from other facebook pages like Bellatrix Nutrition, I was looking through a few things and found a link to your Impossible Abs Challenge that both Bellatrix Nutrition had posted at Eat. Sleep. Move.    

So Why Did You Decide To Start Impossible Abs?

A: It was the way you wrote it that got me, no excuses no bullsh*t attitude, and I thought “this guy’s on to something” over a few days I read pretty much everything on your blog and everything on the Impossible HQ website. And then lastly I read the manifesto. I was in Spain during that time, I’d run off and left home for a few months after an incredibly sh*t year and I felt I was either going to make a massive change in my life and go home with a new outlook or just run as far from home as possible which probably would not have helped me at all.

After reading the manifesto I made a decision to not run away and to become stronger by facing everything. Doing the challenge wasn’t about weight loss anymore it was about owning myself and giving enough of a shit about myself to be happy, regardless of how crap life can be sometimes. Taking control of such a small thing like your diet and exercise, I found, brought everything else into line. 

So You Jumped In! I Know When Most People Start – The Actual Starting Part Is The Hardest – How Did You Jumpstart The Program In Order To Make Sure You Didn’t Fail Before Even Starting?

A: I used cold shower therapy to start the diet, I needed to know I could do anything even if it initially sucked pretty badly. As I said before I was in Spain and I was feeling pretty down and pretty desperate. Cold shower therapy woke me up out of my lull. Once I’d done my first whole 5 minutes I got out feeling ruthless, stealthy, and just a bit awesome. It puts this realisation into the forefront of your mind that you are able to do anything, but only if you’re willing.

Did The Program Work? What Results Did You See?

A: It worked much better than I expected. After all those years of looking for the quickest way to lose weight and finding out it seems like the “hardest” way, was actually the most effective. I haven’t tried another eating or diet plan where a person could lose this much weight in such a short period of time. I lost a stack of weight. My mind was more focused and clearer than it had been in about 2 years. And that’s what I most loved about it.

How Did You Track Your Progress Throughout The Challenge? Did You Find That Helpful?

A: I was ‘all in’ when I started, nothing was stopping me at all, I took photos of myself every few days and when I felt a lull in progress I’d have a look at them. The best part of this program is its simple for people like myself who don’t have time to write things down and take notes on workout and all that. I ate until I was full, I would work out until I was wrecked. And at the end of that I’d take a photo and compare it to last weeks. And noting the difference was how I tracked my progress. 

Have You Tried Other Programs? What Did You Do Differently This Time Around?

A: Not necessarily ‘programs’ but I’ve gone vegan before which yes, I lost a lot of weight but I was incredibly unwell. And then I went paleo and put all the weight back on. Don’t get me wrong paleo is amazing, but we all need to do what’s right for ourselves, I was obviously having too much in the way of carbs via my fruit intake. 

What’s Your Current Workout & Nutrition Regime?

A: My current workouts are a lot less, a couple times a week I’ll do short sharp sessions of body weight exercises, all kinds of push ups, dragon walks/bear walk/spiderman walks, dips, kettlebells and isolated weights with free dumb bells, and a lot of burpees. I stay away from the assisted machines as much as I can. Diet recently has been pretty relaxed, and when I say relaxed I mean there’s fruit in there and I’ve for onto this Bullet Proof Coffee that you love Joel! So there’s some butter in there. However, I’m beginning the 8 week impossible abs challenge again, so it’s on like king kong!

What Was The Toughest Part Of The Program? Did You Ever Want To Quit?

A: The toughest part of the program I felt was justifying things to other people. “Everything in moderation” they’d say or, “I don’t know how you live without carbs.” I felt I’d had this massive awakening and I wanted everyone else to have one too, but a lot of the time I was talking to a brick wall.

However after all my success. I have swayed the bravest few who are eating clean and loving burpees with me. When you first start those little voices start getting really loud, and you can easily pull the pin. But I found as I got healthier my mind got stronger. And while people were putting their two cents in, I was telling myself in my head was positive and reassuring that I was on track and doing the right thing.

What Do Your Friends & Family Think? Have They Noticed The Change?

A: Oh yeah! Everyone’s noticed. After I’d done the challenge I’d lost 14 kilos (31 pounds for you Americans) and now I’ve slowly lost another 4 kilos since (~9 pounds). My face looks completely different, everyone’s pretty amazed by it all. 

What’s Your Next Impossible Thing? What Do You Want To Do Next?

A: Well Joel I did my first fun run yesterday – first one ever. I wanted to start getting into those kinds of things. Now, I’m looking at a triathlon which is coming up in a few months, as well as running the 88 flights of stairs of the tallest building in the southern hemisphere here in Melbourne called the Eureka towers. I’m fit as a fiddle right now, and I love it, I can do anything! No really I can!

—

Since the initial challenge when Impossible Abs launched, Toyah has lost another 9 pounds for a total of 28 kilos/40 pounds lost. Lets break down why it worked for it and why she continues to be successful.

—

Toyah’s Keys To Success

“Everything in Moderation” Is A Load of B.S.

HA! Moderation sucks. I’m kidding, but seriously…

When you work on breaking habits “moderation” is a death trap for staying the same. It’s an easy way to justify complacency. There’s time to be moderate when you get to where you want to be, but if you’ve got 20, 30, 50 or 100 pounds to lose, it’s not time for moderation - it’s time for war.

“Everything in moderation” sounds nice and fuzzy but the reality is you might need a good dose of extremism to get ready to suit up and go to war.

She Did It For Toyah

I felt I was either going to make a massive change in my life and go home with a new outlook or just run as far from home as possible which probably would not have helped me at all.

She decided that she wanted to do it for herself. It wasn’t about impressing anyone. It wasn’t about vanity, it was about taking back control of her life.

No one could have made that decision for Toyah except for Toyah.

She Wasn’t Afraid of Cold Water

She kickstarted her challenge with cold shower therapy which helped her tackle the mental aspect of the challenge. Once you figure out the mental part, the rest is simple.

I’ll say it over and over and over again.

If you’re having trouble kickstarting a new habit or getting out of a rut, give Cold Shower Therapy a trial run. 30 days of cold showers and you can do anything.

She Tracked Her Progress

The photos of the beginning of the workout are what kept her going when things got tough. Take a photo once a week. Even if the scale doesn’t show a huge difference, the best proof of all is a photo in the mirror. You don’t always notice a difference week to week, but over time, looking back at the photos is what shows the cumulative effort you’ve expended.

She Ignored The Haters

A Frustrating Truth: People want you to stay the same. They might not say that, but if you start changing, it starts to make people uncomfortable. When people started questioning Toyah about this crazy diet and how it’s probably not “safe”, she put them out of her mind and kept going. Not because she believed some random guy on the internet with a blog, but because she saw results and results trump all.

People will try to keep you exactly as you are. If you want to change, you’ll have to ignore them and fight for it.

She Realized It Was More Than Just Abs

People tend to thinks Impossible Abs is just about abs, but like Toyah said:

Doing the challenge wasn’t about weight loss anymore it was about owning myself and giving enough of a shit about myself to be happy, regardless of how crap life can be sometimes. Taking control of such a small thing like your diet and exercise, I found, brought everything else into line.

Weight loss, abs or whatever you want to talk about is one aspect of it, but it goes much deeper. Once you realize you can exercise control & discipline in your own life, you’re able to apply that to other things. It’s also why Toyah’s now moving on to things like fun runs, triathlons and other adventures & challenges. Losing weight was a gateway drug into doing other impossible things with her life that she wasn’t physically capable of doing before.

She Didn’t Believe Me – But She Tried It Anyways

I love hearing form people, “I didn’t really expect anything, but I was really blown away by the results.” I’d rather undersell something and overdeliver than the other way around. 100% of the time. No question.

Here’s the deal: you don’t have to believe me. You really don’t.

But, try it for yourself. Experiment. Hold on to what works.

Toyah had a healthy dose of skepticism coming into this, but she still went ahead and did the work anyways. And guess what? She saw results.

She Went “All In”

Best of all, she went all in. She didn’t pick 3 different programs and do 10% of each of them. She picked one went after it and gave 100%.

She was all in.

What About You?

Toyah’s story is really inspiring and the great thing about inspiring stories is that they’re – well – inspiring. It’s amazing to see what regular, normal people are capable of doing.

However, there’s a trap that’s very easy to fall into – and that’s the trap of living vicariously through others. Reading other people’s stories and letting the inspiration you get from them substitute the feeling that you get when you actually accomplish something yourself. Once you start doing that, you never actually do anything because it’s so much easier just to watch inspiring things on youtube than it is to do something inspiring yourself. You fall into a black hole of inspirational porn.

Instead, live vicariously through yourself. Decide to not just read great stories about other people, but live a great story yourself.

The last week I’ve had a sort of overload of incredible testimonials & transformations come in and it really is one of the coolest things you can get. If you’ve started impossible abs or the no excuse workout, how is it going for you?

And…if you haven’t yet started….why not?

Filed Under: Case Studies, Good Stories, Physical Challenges, Six Pack Abs, Weight Loss

How To Get Motivated To Workout

February 7, 2013 By 10 Comments

motivationThe #1 question that I consistently get is:

“HOW DO I GET MOTIVATED TO DO SOMETHING?’

The most common variation of this how do I get motivated to workout?

My initial answer is: motivation is overrated. Get disciplined instead.

In short: motivation is fleeting. Those people who who depend on motivation consistently start out with a big bang and fail as soon as something gets hard. As soon as the motivation dries up, they quit. The people who accomplish things get disciplined.

That said, if you’re still convinced you need motivation to get stuff done, I’ve decided to finally tackle this thing head-on. Here it is – Your Guide On How To Get Motivated To Workout

How To Get Motivated To Workout

Read This

The Iron & The Soul by Henry Rollins

This is the only piece of motivation you’ll need to workout.

Realize, even if you can’t do anything else, working out is the one thing you can control. That’s why I think fitness is the ultimate discipline.

bad

Take Cold Showers

I say it over and over and over and over again.

If you think working out is “too hard”, start taking a cold shower every day.

It will be the hardest thing you do all day and you’ll start to realize how terrible your excuses really are.

Do 30 days of cold shower therapy and you’ll slowly find yourself turning into a stronger, more determined, badass-er vrsion of yourself.

cold shower

If you don’t think this will work (like this guy), stop complaining and spend 5 minutes in a freezing shower before saying anything else.

Everyone who’s actually done it says otherwise.

Start Sprinting

Help!

I don’t know what exercise to do!

I don’t have a trainer!

I don’t have any equipment!

I don’t want to get hurt!

I don’t know how to exercise – it’s complicated!

That’s fine, and that’s why I’m going to give you the best exercise in the world: sprints.

The best exercise in the world.

Why? It’s simple:

Sprinting is one of the most human exercises you can do. You don’t need a gym. You don’t need special equipment. You don’t need a coach. You don’t need to learn. You don’t need a video tutorial. You don’t need anything really.

You just need to do it.

So how do you practically make that work? Try this on for size:

Your Sprint Workout

  1. Set a time. Hit Start
  2. Sprint for 30 seconds.
  3. Rest for 30 seconds.
  4. When the timer hits “20 Minutes” – you’re done.

Workout complete.

Boom.

BUT I STILL DON’T WANNNNAA

Cool story bro.

You need to stop talking to other people and finding other reasons for your problems and you need to have a talk with yourself instead.

Get up (right now). Go to the bathroom. Look in the mirror and stare at the person looking at you.

Then you have two options:

OPTION 1

You look in the mirror and tell yourself:

I WANT TO WORKOUT BUT I’D RATHER EAT CHEESECAKE

Then go back to your kitchen, grab your cheesecake and convince yourself that that’s the most compelling excuse you can think of. Then go nuts with your cheesecake and enjoy (feel free to substitute cheesecake with whatever you want – sleeping, food, hulu, video games, etc).

But just remember that the next time you look at yourself in the mirror.

OPTION 2

You look in the mirror and tell yourself:

I DON’T WANT TO WORKOUT, BUT I’M GOING TO ANYWAY.

Then put on your running shoes, get outside and start sprinting (no matter what the weather is outside).

Long Road

Make It A Priority

The only difference between option 1 and option 2 are your priorities. That’s the only difference.

Don’t blame it on something else. Instead of feeling bad about it. Own it.

If eating cheesecake is more important to you than being healthy, living a long life and being there for your kids, that’s fine, but own that decision.

Instead of saying “I don’t wanna” or “it’s hard”, say “It is not a priority.”

Then, go look yourself in the mirror and say that to yourself. It puts things in a whole different perspective than empty-whining about where you’re not where you want to be.

Whenever someone asks me if I can help them to lose weight, I ask them, “How Bad Do You Want It?” If the answer isn’t “REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD” with a hint of desperation in their voice so much so that they’re a little out of breath, 9 times out of 10, they probably won’t succeed.

Realize You Have a Choice

You always have a choice.

Even if you don’t “feel” like it, you can still go do it anyways. You don’t have to be a slave to your feelings or motivations. You get to choose.

Motivation is fleeting. If you decide your actions are dependent on being 100% motivated 100% of the time, you probably won’t accomplish that much.

Everyone has an excuse. Only some people decide to believe them. You choose whatever story you want tell yourself. But always remember you get to choose.

Set Impossible Challenges

You might not be “motivated” because your goals aren’t something you think is worth pursuing.

In that case: Stop thinking so small. Create bigger challenges.

If you’re not motivated to run a 5k, then sign up for a triathlon, a half or a full marathon. If you’re crazy, start thinking about an ultra.

Aim higher. Pick something impossible. Then catch up to it.

Dream big by setting yourself seemingly impossible challenges. You will then have to catch up with them. - Richard Bransonbranson

Results Are The Best Motivation

“It’s easy to be motivated when you’re seeing results”

If I had a dollar for every person who’s gone through Impossible Abs and told me that that around week 3 or 4, I’d have…well…a  lot of money :) .

Seriously, seeing results in yourself is the best motivation out there. But, you have to step out and do something first. You don’t get results from doing nothing – you have to take the step first. In a sense, many times the motivation only comes AFTER you’ve taken action.

THE REALLY ANNOYING TRUTH

No one always wants to go work out.

But we try to to rationalize is that we’re different than everybody. That nobody knows exactly what how you feel. That your situation is incredibly unique to you. And that everybody else’s excuses are terrible, yours are somehow valid.

The annoying truth is that everybody feels that way at some point. It’s called being human.

But what you have to realize is that you’re dying. Your default state is atrophy. If you’re not consciously choosing to push yourself and grow, you’ll atrophy and decay automatically. That’s the default state of life.

No one ever gets better by doing nothing. So, if you want to get better, you’ll have to do something…and it won’t be easy.

Yes, It’s Hard – That’s The Point

Work Ahead

Working out is hard, but you do it anyway because it teaches you how to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

You do it because:

You want to grow.

You want to get disciplined.

You want to get better.

You want to do the impossible.

So you do it.

Staying the same is an option. It’s the easy choice. But it’s not going to change anything. Eventually, you have to look yourself in the mirror and decide if you want it or not. And, if you don’t, all the motivation in the world won’t do jack.

—

You have one life to do everything you’ll ever do. Don’t fill it with excuses

—

I’m disciplining myself to do 28 days of videos in February. Check them out on YouTube.

Today’s Video is The Myth of Motivation

—

photo credit: jenni from the block | tricky (rick harrison) | gato-gato-gato | koalazymonkey

Filed Under: Endurance Racing, Fitness, Kicking A**, Six Pack Abs, Strategies, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

How To Break Through A Weight Loss Plateau

January 19, 2013 By 18 Comments

This is a guest post by Vic Magary of FatLossForFree.com, my co-conspirator on Impossible Abs.

So you’ve been watching what you eat and working out…

Your clothes fit a little better, you can start to see the faint outline of what you think is an “ab” in the mirror, and the cute girl (or guy) at the office even smiled at you.  So you keep watching what you eat and working out.  But things stall.  After another month your clothes still fit only a “little” better, that ab outline is still faint, and now you’re wondering if the cutie was just smiling at the lack of a line at the copy machine behind you.  You’ve hit the dreaded fat loss plateau.

This situation of stagnated fat loss progress is common.  But breaking through the plateau?  That requires the uncommon…

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein

Yes, the classic Einstein quote applies to fat loss.  When you keep doing what you’ve been doing (the common) but are no longer seeing results, it’s time to do something different (the uncommon).  Perhaps a better way to think of the uncommon is the uncomfortable.

Get Uncomfortable

My favorite exercise for embracing the uncomfortable is cold shower therapy.  And although there is some evidence that cold exposure may help with fat loss, I prefer to go for the big wins.  Anytime I need to help a client break a fat loss plateau, I ease them outside of their comfort zone on diet, recovery, or exercise – in that order.

But before we get to the diet, recovery, and exercise, we have to ensure that we have one crucial habit in place.  And this habit makes some people more uncomfortable than 100 burpees with a kale smoothie chaser.  This crucial habit is keeping a food and training journal.

Without a written record of what you are eating and how you are training (bonus points for also tracking sleep), there is no way to make an accurate prediction of what adjustment to your regimen will yield results.  And beyond the data collected, there is the awareness gained from deliberately tracking.  One study found that keeping a food diary doubles weight loss results.  My personal experience is similar – every single client that I have ever had who was not happy with their results also failed to keep a food journal.

So if you’ve hit a fat loss plateau and you are not keeping a food and training journal, step one is to start keeping a food and training journal.  Now that step one is out of the way, let’s get to what people normally think about when it comes to breaking fat loss plateaus: diet, recovery, and training.

It’s Your Diet… No Really, It’s Your Diet.

There is no facet of your fat loss program more important than diet.   And that’s why diet is always the first place I look when trying to solve a fat loss riddle.  The simplest adjustment to make with diet is to eliminate a certain type of food that you have been eating.  Below are the foods that I recommend removing one-by-one if you are not losing fat:

Wheat, other grains, and legumes.  Ok that’s not really one-by-one, but let’s scrap this junk all at once.  Bread, pasta, cereal, and other wheat products should not be part of your diet when trying to lose fat (and maybe not ever, but gluten is a topic for a blog post in itself).  Other grains such as oats, corn, and buckwheat should also be avoided when striving for fat loss.  Some people will consider legumes a bit more controversial to take out of the diet (namely slow-carb fans) but if you’ve hit a plateau, try eliminating the beans.

Liquid calories.  If you are still consuming liquid calories during your fat loss quest, stop.  Obviously soda (including diet soda even though it’s calorie free) and alcohol should go.  But also fruit juice, even fresh squeezed, should be eliminated due to the high sugar content.  And if you’re still drinking milk, consider letting go of dairy.

Dairy.  Milk, cheese, and yogurt should all be taken out of the diet.  Yes, dairy can have some great nutritional value especially when derived from the “rawest” sources available.  But remember we are talking about breaking a plateau here… so if you’re still consuming dairy, try giving it up and seeing if your fat loss resumes.  An exception to this is butter (ideally derived from grass fed cows), which is nearly pure fat and great for cooking or blending with your coffee.

Potatoes and rice.  Wait a minute, isn’t rice a grain?  Yes, rice is a grain but I’ve found that small servings for those with high training volumes can work.  But if the fat loss stops, consider forgoing the rice.  Same thing with potatoes.  Potatoes are a carbohydrate dense food that can benefit someone doing high intensity work, but I put them on the chopping block if fat loss stalls.

Fruit.  Fruits can have good micronutrient content but they are also high in sugar.  If you have hit a fat loss plateau, I recommend avoiding fruit especially the “sweeter” fruits such as mango, pineapple, melon, and even bananas.

Another factor to consider experimenting with is the quantity of food you are eating.  Even if you are sticking to a diet of lots of vegetables, some meat, and small amounts of fruit, nuts, and seeds (commonly called the paleo diet), it is still possible to eat in an amount that can hinder fat loss.  If your fat loss has hit the wall, consider using the following portion guidelines:

Vegetables.  For the most part, eat all of the vegetables that you like!  This goes especially for the green vegetables such as spinach, kale, broccoli, and asparagus.  Some of the root vegetables, such as carrots and parsnips, might hinder fat loss if eaten in large quantity.  So if you are trying to break a plateau, you might want to consider abandoning the Bugs Bunny impersonation.

Meat.  Beef, chicken, pork, fish, or anything else that has contributed muscle or organs to your dinner plate should be kept to the size of the palm of your hand.  That’s about 3 – 5 ounces for most people.

Nuts and seeds.  Keep the quantity to no more than fits in the center of your palm without overlapping.  As an example, this is about 6 – 8 almonds for most people.

The timing of meals can also be a factor for fat loss.  Intermittent fasting is worth experimenting with when trying to break a fat loss plateau.  Popular intermittent fasting methods include 16 hours of fasting followed by 8 hours of feeding and 24 hour fasts once or twice per week.  Intermittent fasting is not as much about calorie restriction as it is about hormone regulation.  And as we’ll see in the next section on recovery, hormones can play a key role in fat loss.

Recovery: The Sneaky Culprit.

The tag-team of “diet and exercise” gets drilled into our brains from every glossy fitness magazine and purveyor of six pack abs when it comes to losing fat.  But there is a third component that can sneak up and derail your fat loss when it gets neglected… recovery.  Recovery can include a variety of modalities from myofascial release to ice baths, but as usual we are going to focus on the big wins: sleep and stress reduction.

Sleep is kind of weird when you think about it.  We become unconscious, our nervous system powers down to the point that we are essentially paralyzed, yet the body is hard at “work” doing repairs and maintenance that help us function optimally during our waking hours.  Disruption of sleep can lead to hormonal imbalances that can make fat loss feel like a losing battle.

One study found that losing sleep can cut fat loss by as much as 55% and elevate levels of the hormone ghrelin.  Higher ghrelin levels have been shown to reduce energy expenditure, stimulate hunger and food intake, and promote retention of fat.  Lack of sleep has also been shown to significantly lower testosterone levels in men.  Testosterone is crucial for strength, muscle building, and bone density – all important aspects of body composition and looking and feeling your best.

So if your fat loss has floundered, try getting more quality sleep.  Go to bed an hour earlier.  Stop looking at computers, tablets, and televisions a few hours before bed.  Ensure your sleeping space is cool, dark, and quiet.  Avoid caffeine and alcohol in the evenings.  Basically, follow a bedtime ritual that sets yourself up for sleep success.

Another factor of hormone imbalance is stress.  Specifically, stress can lead to elevated levels of the fight-or-flight hormone cortisol which causes fat to be stored centrally.  Yep, stress reduction is one tip that may actually reduce the often hyped “belly fat”.   So if your pants aren’t any looser despite your best efforts with diet and exercise, reduce the stress in your life.  Meditate, play with your dog, take a walk in nature, or just stop watching the damned news every night.  Unplugging from our modern always-connected lifestyle and enjoying the simple things may be one of the best things your can do to break your fat loss plateau.

Training: Where Most People Look, But Few People Find.

Finally we get to where most people immediately turn to when they are frustrated with their fat loss – exercise.  I love fitness training and firmly believe that it is essential for overall health and well being.  But when it comes to fat loss specifically, training pales when compared to diet.  After helping people lose fat and get fit since 2001 I am convinced that nearly any exercise protocol will work as long as the diet is dialed in.  And that is why training is the last place that I look when someone hits a fat loss plateau.

That’s not to say that I don’t have my preferred training methods when it comes to fat loss.  If possible, I favor a combination of heavy strength training with barbells and high intensity interval training such as sprinting or skipping rope.  But barbells are not always accessible and some people prefer a no equipment “no excuses” approach.  In that case, I prefer using body weight circuit training as we did with Impossible Abs.

But the strength training and intervals or body weight circuits are just the foundation.  If you’re looking for an exercise “hack” to try to get you over a fat loss hurdle, below are a few methods that I’ve used with success:

Morning wake up call.  As soon as you roll out of bed, do five minutes of high intensity bodyweight exercise.  Sure you can hit the bathroom first and wipe the sleep from your eyes, but before you do anything else in your morning routine grind out your five minutes.  Burpees are my favorite morning wake up call drill.  But other movements such as squats and lunge jumps can also work.  And if you want to venture outside of bodyweight exercises, kettlebell swings are a great option.  The key is that this morning wake up call is in addition to your regularly scheduled training that you do later in the day.

Evening stroll.  This is a great option for people who already have their regularly scheduled training first thing in the morning.  Simply get outside and walk for an hour or more.  Notice I said to get outside… sure we’re burning a few extra calories with this evening stroll but we are also reducing stress as mentioned earlier.  So leave the iPod and cell phone at home, get out into the real world, and enjoy a leisurely walk.

Sprints.  If you are not already sprinting as part of your training, I can think of no better exercise to add for fat loss.  Whether up a steep hill or at your local high school track, sprints are the ultimate high intensity short duration exercise for breaking your plateau.

Now What?

So I’ve run down several different options for breaking a fat loss plateau.  By no means am I suggesting that you should try all of these options at once.  Breaking a fat loss plateau comes down to self experimentation.  You have to test and track – but if you test too many variables at once, you never know which one was the key to your results.  So here is the simple process for breaking your fat loss plateau:

1.  Weigh-in once per week.  The number on the scale is the best indicator of whether your fat loss efforts are going in the right direction.  Sure we can get into the whole “muscle is denser than fat” issue and there may be a point in your transformation where the number on the scale either doesn’t budge or actually goes up a pound or two due to an increase in muscle mass.  But that intersection will be fleeting.  By and large if you are trying to lose fat that scale should be headed south.  So weigh-in once per week on the same day and time wearing the same attire or lack there of (always wearing shorts and a t-shirt with no shoes, or naked before you step into the shower as examples).

2.  Keep your diet and training journal for a week.  For the food journal write down what you eat, when you eat it, and an approximate quantity.  Calorie counting is not necessary, but if that’s your thing, knock yourself out.  For the training journal write down the exercises used, sets and reps performed, and amount of weight lifted if any.  Other factors such as the amount of rest between sets, total time of the workout, and even the weather can be tracked if you desire but are not essential.

3.  Weigh in at the end of the week.  Did you lose weight?  If yes, keep doing what you’re doing.  If no, select ONE of the adjustments listed above in this post, make the adjustment for a week, track it in your food and training journals, and evaluate your results.

4.  Rinse and repeat until goal is achieved.

When it comes to fat loss, there is no one-size-fits-all formula.  The big picture of eat real food in appropriate quantity, train in a manner that is continually challenging, and allow for adequate rest and recovery applies to everyone.  But the finer details, especially when trying to break a plateau, will vary from person to person.

If you are experiencing fat loss frustration, start with diet.  Consider eliminating a specific food, adjusting your quantity, or trying intermittent fasting.  Next, look at your recovery.  Do what you can to optimize your sleep and reduce stress.  Lastly, examine your training. If your foundational training is solid, try adding the morning wake up call, evening stroll, or sprints.

And remember that self experimentation is key.  Weigh-in weekly, track your diet and training, and focus on one adjustment at a time.  Before you know it, your clothes will fit much better, your abs will be clearly defined, and the cutie at the office will be smiling at you even when there is a long line at the copy machine.

Vic Magary is a U.S. Army Infantry veteran and has been helping people lose weight and get fit since 2001.  Get his complete fat loss program for free – including four different 12-week training programs, a 12-week sample menu, 20-minute jump start audio, and 68 instructional videos – by clicking here.

Filed Under: Fitness, Six Pack Abs, Weight Loss Tagged With: ,

The New Years Contest To End All New Years Contests

January 1, 2013 By 59 Comments

Shake off your hangover and wake yourself up.

It’s 2013 and we’re not wasting anytime with getting started on your new years resolutions.

We are not wasting any time. Today’s the day you can get started and get after it. I’m willing to bribe you to help do it.

Introducing the Ridiculously-Massive-New-Year-Giveaway-Shamelessly-Bribing-You-To-ACTUALLY-Do-What-You-Keep-Saying-You-Want-To-Do-But-Never-Do-Contest.

The Ridiculously-Massive-New-Year-Giveaway-Shamelessly-Bribing-You-To-FINALLY-Do-What-You-Keep-Saying-You-Want-To-Do-But-Never-Do-Contest

Impossible Abs

The Prizes

Lets talk about the goods first because – lets be honest – they matter. The good news is that  I’m giving away a deluge of prizes. Yes, a deluge. Here’s what’s at stake. These are not your mom’s contest prizes…

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

I also reserve the right to lavish said winners with copious amounts of great looking impossible gear - but that’s just a rumor I’ve been hearing that may or may not be true :) .

How To Enter

Okay, now that I’ve got your attention, here’s how you can win all the previously mentioned deluge of prizes.

1. Get one of my programs if you don’t have it already.

2. Actually Do it (this is pretty crucial).

3. Take a before and after picture, and document your progress (bonus points for progress photos).

4. Send in your amazing success story.

5. Win the deluge of prizes.

How Long Is It?

The contest runs today through March 3rd. That’s 8 weeks and some change (to make it end nicely on a Sunday and all). That’s enough time to go through Impossible Abs 8 week program once or the No Excuse Workout twice. That means you get started now. Bonus points if you use Cold Shower Therapy to kickstart yourself out of a rut.

Winners will be judged by a completely biased panel of judges including me, myself, and I and announced 1-2 weeks after the contest ends.

How do you know which one to pick? If you want to really get after it and specifically burn fat, I don’t know of a better resource out there than Impossible Abs. The no excuse workout is awesome as well, but to be honest, it doesn’t have nearly the level of detail that Impossible Abs does. While you can see incredible results on both programs, but I’d be lying if I said that Impossible Abs customers won’t have the distinct advantage of a more intense workout & the in-depth nutritional component.

If you want to change your life – then change your life. Make it happen. Today. Get after it.

Get Impossible Abs

 

Get The No Excuse Workout

 

If you’re taking the challenge, do me a favor and tweet this – a little healthy competition is good for you. :)

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Whether or not you join the contest, I’d like to say thanks for being a part of what’s going on here at Impossible HQ. 2013 is going to be awesome.

Filed Under: Business, Nutrition, Physical Challenges, Six Pack Abs, Weight Loss

Merry Christmas From Impossible HQ

December 25, 2012 By 18 Comments

Merry Christmas from Impossible HQ!

I hope you’re enjoying the holidays and spending time with friends and family. We’ve got another present under your tree…er…waiting in your inbox for you.

If you’re worried about falling off the routine during christmas or want to get started throughout the new year, I’ve put together a new workout routine for you for f*ee.

Introducing The No Excuse Workout

no excuse workout

The no excuse workout is just that – a no excuse workout.

It’s a quick and dirty guide you can read and understand in 10 minutes or less to help jumpstart your fitness goals this year that you can do anywhere in the world.

Whether you’re putting it off because you fell off the bandwagon a few months back, you’re confused, you think it’s too expensive or you simply don’t know what exactly you’re supposed to do,  we’ve worked to eliminate those reasons and make it as easy as possible to simply start. The no excuse workout is designed specifically to

  1. require no fancy equipment
  2. provide video demonstration of each exercise
  3. be absolutely freaking free.

What’s Inside

  1. 4 Weeks of Workout Programming
  2. 10+ video demonstrations + exercise tutorials.
  3. 28 days of meal plans.
  4. Simple & Solid nutritional framework

We shot specific videos for this workout and created a mircosite to get you started on eating better & more holistically through the paleo framework. Oh, and it’s absolutely f^ee to you. Think of it my Christmas Gift to you :) .

>> Pick up the no excuse workout here

Merry Christmas + Happy Holidays :) .

Get After It

-Joel

p.s If you don’t celebrate Christmas, enjoy Christmahanakwanzika or whatever seasonal celebrations you choose and if you want to pass on the holiday spirit, I know a great cause that would love your help. We are less than $600 away from hitting out #impossible school goal. Is anybody up for helping put us over the top on Christmas?

Filed Under: Fitness, Launches, Six Pack Abs, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fight Like Hell

November 14, 2012 By 19 Comments


Fight Like Hell

Sometimes trying to help people is discouraging.

Impossible Abs is a project we’ve been working on for a while. It’s a tough fitness program – I don’t try to hide that (It’s called Impossible Abs after all). Because of that, some people have seen some incredible results (more stories coming soon). Anyways, I don’t get a lot of refund requests, but they do happen. I understand for the most part and promptly refund things as part of my 100% guarantee, but sometimes the reasons people give make it tough. Not because I don’t want to give them a refund, but because some people give up so easily.

Here’s one email I got from someone a few days into the program:

I would like to take you up on your money back guarantee….It just didn’t “work” for me. I found the physical part difficult and the diet part very difficult.

Here’s an exact email I got about a week later from someone else:

I’m already down 7 pounds and I’ve never felt better. The first couple of days were hell, especially since I work at a very busy pizza place! But the worst are my friends, we are all in college and all they do is drink. But when there is a will, there is a way. I haven’t cheated once.

Guess who’s going to be successful?

“This is hard.”

So what.

Everything worth doing is hard.

It’s hard for everyone. The only difference is your mentality.

Fight like hell and change or go home and stay the same.

You choose.

Sometimes trying to help people is discouraging. The fighters make it all worth it.

The difference between impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination. - Tommy Lasorda

Filed Under: Life, Physical Challenges, Six Pack Abs

30 Pounds In 2 Months: Meet Justin, The First Impossible Abs Success Story

September 11, 2012 By 16 Comments

Impossible Abs hasn’t even been out a full week and there’s already an Impossible Abs success story?

Dang straight. Here’s how it happened.

I finished my challenge in June and did a photo shoot to celebrate. Throughout the program, my friends and family started to notice my actions and transformation and their reactions changed over time accordingly.

When I started this whole thing, they were asking:

What are you doing again?

As I kept doing it and they saw the behavior changes and sacrifices I would make, they started to ask

Why are you doing that again?

When they started to see my body change and actually see the results I was getting, they began to ask:

How did you do that again?

After the photo shoot, I got a lot of questions from a lot of people wanting to know exactly what trickery I did to pull it off (spoiler alert: there’s zero tricker involved). About 50% of the people actually took what I said and did exactly nothing with it. The other 50% took what I said and decided to implement it and do something about it.

One of the people that decided to do something about it was Justin, my little brother. I should just refer refer to him as my younger brother, considering he’s about an inch taller than me and has about 20 pounds on me (which doesn’t matter too much since I can still beat him up :) ).

Over the past few months, Justin had thrown himself into his work, running his own business. He was working 6-7 day weeks, with multiple back-to-back 12+ hour days. Work was booming, but he ended up coming home exhausted and tired and letting his fitness routines fall away. He was getting soft.

He wanted to change things. Having seen my transformation first hand, he wanted in.

It worked out well. As I said, Justin had been feeling out of shape and lazy and wanted someone to kick his butt and I needed a guinea pig beta tester to test out my program before releasing it to the public. Also, as a bonus, I’m always looking for a good reason to kick his butt :) .

So I laid it out for him.

80% of the work would be changing his diet. 20% would be his workouts. He agreed and decided to do it.

Here’s Justin when we started out.

Justin Before Impossible Abs

6’3″ and 198 pounds. Not overweight by most American standards, but definitely not in the kind of shape he wanted to be in. The definition of skinny/fat. Soft, heavy and weak (sorry man, you know it’s true). He was ready to change.

I told him, it’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it. He jumped right in and was determined to get it done.

No excuses. No whining. Just action.

So he went to work. Day after day after day after day for the next 2 1/2 months, he got after it. Not missing a day of his workouts, despite being on a 5 1/2 week road trip, having a 2 week stopover in Portland for WDS, and having some unhealthy food and less rigid dieting. Overall, he stuck to the basics of the plan and kept at it. As a result, over the 2 1/2 months that he was following the plan, Justin went from 199 pounds to 169 pounds. Yup, he lost 30 pounds, all while somehow managing to come out looking bigger, stronger and leaner than before. Beast!

Justin Impossible Abs Case Study

199lbs to 169lbs and 5.8% body fat. Boom.

Seriously, he weighs 30 pounds less in the photo on the right than he does on the left. Sorcery? No. A lot of hard work? Yes.

Why Was Justin Successful?

There were a few very specific reasons Justin was successful.

Compliance

If there’s one thing Justin’s good at it’s listening (seriously, he’s an audio engineer – it’s his job). But Justin does more than just listen, he actually does what you tell him to do. Once I laid out the plan and showed him how to do things properly, he just did it. No complaining. No whining. Just doing. He had a plan and he stuck to it.

The best secret to fat loss and six pack abs, is simple consistency. Day after day after day.

Continual Progress Monitoring & Journaling

I don’t think Justin kept a journal throughout the program, but I did get an email or a text every week or two with a progress update or another shirtless photo (I have way too many shirtless photos of him in my inbox now and no you can’t have them). He consistently tracked his progress and when he saw his weight dropping, his strength improving and his shirtless photos looking better and better, that was motivation enough for him to keep going.

At one point I mentioned to him, “Man, you’ve gone kind of nuts on this haven’t you? I mean you’re going all out!”

He responded, “It’s easy to get excited about something when you see results. It just keeps you going.”

Yes it does.

Accountability

There were days when Justin wanted to cheat or give up on a work out, but I got the privilege to kick his butt and push him when he didn’t want to be pushed. Justin’s not the most competitive person in our family, but there’s nothing quite like having your older brother (me) challenging you, to make you want get out there and do your workout, regardless of whether or not you “feel” like it.

—-

While I would never say that Justin actually had a better transformation than me (what sort of older brother would I be if I did that?), but I will say it’s pretty freaking impressive.

30 pounds. 5.8% body fat. Just over 2 months. BOOM.

Impossible Abs – Zero excuses. No B.S. Just results.

Good job little bro.

——

Have you picked up your copy of Impossible Abs yet? What are you waiting for? Vic and I will be having a special webinar for anyone who buys (or has bought) the program before midnight tonight. No holds barred, any question you want. Impossible Abs.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Fitness, Nutrition, Six Pack Abs, The Impossible, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Impossible Abs Is Here!

September 4, 2012 By 21 Comments

Impossible Abs

I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty excited today.

After 6 months of planning, testing, programming, some more testing, a ton of work and even more anticipation, it’s finally here.

As promised, Impossible Abs is now live. This project will help you burn fat, kill your excuses and get six pack abs through a zero-excuses 8-week fitness program designed to work anywhere in the world without fancy equipment or an expensive gym membership.

You can read more or pick up your own copy here (There’s a special bonus only for those who pick up the program within the first week!)

***

After designing the program around my six pack transformation, we ran Impossible Abs through some beta testers over the last few months. It’s still early, but in a few short months, we’ve seen some incredible results already:

  • Justin lost 30 pounds in 2 months
  • Michael lost 22 pounds in 3 weeks
  • Abigail lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks.

Here’s all the legal mumbo jumbo about results not being typical, etc (yadda yadda yadda), but I’ve found that each person who committed to the program and stuck with it, saw results.

3 Main Options

In order to make this available to as many people as possible, we’ve created three different versions of the guide in order to serve those with different goals, needs and budgets. The middle CHALLENGE version is my personal favorite (surprise), but make your own decision. We have a basic training program for the do-it-yourselfers out there and a  personalized coaching option for people who want one-on-one attention throughout the challenge. There’s also an experience option which is available on  a very limited basis to challenge & coaching members by application only due to it’s expense and complexity.

Usually, this is where most people will say it’s available for the next 10 minutes only and if you click off the page, you’ll get 20 banners asking you to stay.

There’s no artificial timer and no pop-up windows if you try to leave, but if you pick up the program in the first week, you’ll be invited to a special webinar where you can ask Vic and myself any question you like.

Like everything I do, there’s a 100% satisfaction guaranteed with Impossible Abs. If you’re not happy with your results, just let me know and I’ll send you a prompt refund.

On top of all that, we’ll be allocating a portion of all revenue will go towards building our #Impossible school charity project with Pencils of Promise.

If you want to burn fat, kill your excuses and get six pack abs, you don’t need an expensive gym membership or any fancy equipment. We’ve designed this program to be done anywhere in the world. The only thing holding you back, is whether you want to do it or not.

There are no more excuses.

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it

If you want Impossible Abs,  you can get it here.

Go do something impossible.

-Joel

#boom

Filed Under: Fitness, Impossible Things, Kicking A**, Launches, Nutrition, Personal Development, Physical Challenges, Six Pack Abs, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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