fitmentalitydotcom

You hear this situation a lot. Someone decides that they finally want that six pack to show. They decided it was go time. It was time show the world that their abs had just been shy their whole life. Well, to abs everwhere, I say, SHOW YOURSELVES!!

So, what do most people do, in order to achieve this? They do 869767587698 crunches every day. Because, that’s what it takes to get ripped abs, right? Crunches and sit ups work your abs, so if you want awesome abs, sit ups are the way to go, right?

No. Not right, ma’am or sir.

I am not a certified personal trainer nor do I have a background in exercise biology. HOWEVER. Let me explain why wanting your abs to look awesome and, sit ups, don’t make much sense to be in the same sentence. Unless, of course, the sentence is, what is something I can spend lots of time on that won’t get me much closer to revealing my 24 pack to the world? (24 pack. That’s like, 4 six packs. I figured if one six pack is awesome…)

When thinking about getting a flatter stomach, or showing your “abs” a bit, one needs to shake up how they think about the situation. Instead of trying to do a million crunches to make their abs pop out, think of it in the opposite way. Work on getting your abs to show by losing all the fluffyness that covers them. THAT is the key to showing your abbies (“abbies”, it’s all the rage these days, instead of calling them “abs”).

Okay, prepare yourself for the metaphor of the year. Think of this point like a kiddy pool full of jello. It would be tough to force the bottom of the pool up from the inside, so that you could see it. It makes more sense to melt the jello away so that you can then see the bottom of the kiddy pool.

By cutting back on the calories, eating a more balanced diet and upping the exercise, you make it much more likely for your abbies to reveal themselves to the world, in all of their glory. Eat a cleaner diet, rich in fiber, protein, healthy fats etc and you will be doing much more for the cause, than doing crunches.

As far as the exercise part of it all, peep game, son. “Peep game.” I figured I would get all slang on you all, so that I sound like I have more street cred. The thing about crunches is that they don’t burn all that many calories. They really won’t do much, relatively, in the journey to making your abs show. Remember, we want them to show, more so than making them “pop.” Once your body fat percentage is low enough to where your abs are showing, THEN you can worry about making them pop. One thing at a time, my friend. Patience. Patienceeee. Doing exercises that burn more calories and require more effort are going to be the types of exercises that will help out the most. The usual suspects, compound exercises, will help you much more in this department. As far as cardio, high intensity interval training will burn a great more deal of calories in a shorter amount of time than walking on the treadmill and texting your friends about how you are working out right now. What is high intensity interval training? Look it up, champ! In short, it is short bursts of high intensity/effort cardio, followed by a bit of rest, then, repeat.

That’s pretty much it. It’s not that crunches/sit ups are totally worthless, it’s just that with this type of goal, you can better spend your time.

Remember:

It’s more about revealing or allowing your abs to show, than to force them to the surface through all the nutrition fail you have allowed over the years.

Once you adjust your way of thinking, a flatter stomach is much closer than before.

Who said you can’t have a nice desert that is also nutritious? Well, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone actually say that.

Regardless, here is the recipe for a simple and great tasting Banana Pudding. Eating good, real food, still tastes good. Too many folks get caught up in the idea that eating better, “cleaner” food has to mean they will stop enjoying food. Not so! This is a perfect example.

The exact quantities of the ingredients really are up to you. It depends on the consistently you would like, and which flavors you would like to accent. You also want plan how many servings you would like. Feel free to mess around with quantities of each ingredient.

Recipe:

1 Frozen Banana (Slice the banana in small pieces and freeze for two hours or so)

Almond Milk

Greek Yogurt

Vanilla Extract

Cinnamon

Combine the frozen banana slices, a splash of almond milk, mini splash of vanilla extract, a few spoonfuls of greek yogurt in a blender/food processor. Use the “pulse” option on the machine until the ingredients combine and you get the consistency you would like.

Take a big whiff of the awesome smelling desert you just made! Ok, that last part is optional. But you know you will do it The vanilla and banana mixture smells amazing.

Pour/scoop out the pudding into a small bowl. Sprinkle cinnamon on top. Enjoy!

For a thicker consistency, add a bit more yogurt/banana and less almond milk. You can also pour the contents of the blender/processor into a bowl and let sit in the fridge for a little while. This will firm it up real nice. It all depends on your preference.

The first time I made this, I added a little too much vanilla extract. It still tasted great, but the vanilla flavor was a bit overpowering. It’s all about the tweaks we see necessary.

That’s it. Super simple. Tastes awesome. Great ingredients that are great for you. Try it out.

This is the look of a woman who clearly is focused on what it will take to reach her goals.

Did I lose weight yet? Aw man, I weigh the same!! But, I just walked briskly for fifteen minutes on a treadmill while talking on the phone!!!

I don’t feel different. I ate a leaf of spinach for lunch and I don’t feel any healthier. Nutrition is hard.

How come I’m not buff yet? I lifted last month! Lifting doesn’t work!!

Being inspired by a goal is great. Picturing yourself with more energy throughout the day, to tackle life’s challenges, is exciting. It’s fun picturing how proud you will be during the summer to show off that beach body you have been working so hard on. These things can add fuel to the fire that so helps us reach our goals. However, in order to actually reach these goals, most of our attention must be paid to the process. If you worry more about the outcome you want than how you plan on reaching that outcome, there is a problem. Attention must be paid to clearly laying out, executing and periodically evaluating a specific plan of action.

If you really want to reach a goal, focus on what it’s going to take to get there. This way of thinking can be applied to any goal. However, I’ll break it down in fitness terms. Say your goal is to lean out a bit more. You would spend time on educating yourself on what kinds of fitness programs make it more likely to get more lean. Read articles, talk to fitness professionals, listen to fitness personality interviews. Yes, it can feel overwhelming with the amount of information out there. But you need to start somewhere! The more you learn, the more you can hone in on strategies to reach your goal. Once you  have a safe and effective plan; go for it! Focus on the task at hand. Yes, the overall goal is going to be great, but put that on the back burner for now.

What will you need to do TODAY, to get you closer to your goal? What little tweaks can you make to your day, to make sure the day was conducive to your goals? Maybe it’s making sure that you put everything you had into that workout. Maybe it’s a little bit of time spent doing research on a new exercise program you want to try. Maybe it’s spending a few minutes to evaluate how you feel (how you’re eating, what you’re eating, what your workout is like). Maybe it’s writing down what you could have done better today, and will adjust tomorrow.

Instead of constantly checking how close you are to your final goal, focus on the process. If you commit to (sound) hard work, you’ll get results.

Your mentality about fitness, makes all the difference.

I recently had a conversation where the other person was telling me how disappointed they were about the little progress they have made towards their goals. In fact, they felt they had gone the opposite direction they planned to go. They asked me if I thought it was too late to turn things around.

I had a really busy weekend. I was on the run constantly and ended up having In n Out (fast food hamburgers  for those non california-ers) twice in four days. Fast food twice in this amount of time is a lot for me. This was after a week of knowing I didn’t eat as much food as I wanted to, for my fitness goals. I had lots of dance practices and knew I didn’t eat as much protein and calories to sustain the muscle I had worked so hard to build. I was not helping myself get any closer to my goals.

Often, I’ve heard of folks getting depressed about not having worked out or been active for a long time. The more they would think about how they had let their level of fitness slip, the more depressed they got. The more depressed they got, the less motivation they had to get back on track.

These are three situations in which, if we are not careful, can play a roll in making it less likely to reach our fitness/health goals. It’s easy to get bummed out about how we have slipped on our commitments, and then allow that to push us FURTHER away from our goals. My response to the conversation I referred to at the beginning of this article was “it’s never the end of the world.” This also applies to the two other situations I shared above .

It sounds obvious. “Of course it’s never the end of the world” you might think to yourself. You’re right, or, at least until the sun expands and eats earth up. Or, a big ol’ asteroid comes around and bonks us on the head. Wait, back to the original point. Yes, it sounds obvious that it’s never the end of the world (figuratively). However, this is something we have to actively remind ourselves about. Right when we catch negative thoughts coming into our head, we gotta’ stop em! These thoughts may keep us from bouncing back on track in an efficient manner. This applies to any goal. Don’t allow yourself to fall in the cycle of allowing the negative thoughts turn into more procrastination. Remind yourself that what may feel like “the end of the world,” isn’t. Take a breath, reassess, and get back on track.