The Quickest Way to Get Six Packs and Toned Abs

By Jason, Wellness, Strength & Conditioning Coach for Heirs Holdings

Every day we are presented with choices – to stay at a job or to pursue a dream, to have mayonnaise with our Salad or to settle for French dressing, to wait for proper lunch or binge on birthday cake in the canteen. Whatever we choose, we move closer or farther away from whatever better version of ourselves we want to become.

Making the right choice about food or physical activity is easy. However, following through on that choice takes discipline. The kind of discipline that requires you to show up and be present. Take food, for example, I find that the closest some of us should ever be allowed near a processed carb is licking a picture of a cupcake. That’s because when some people aim for a bite, they end of taking several at a sitting. (I can sense your guilty vibes!)

Frankly, many of us lack the discipline required to choose what’s best for us. It’s not that we don’t know the right thing to eat. It’s just that we don’t make plans to. Example, with our vegetables. There are also other choices you can make daily to make you a better version of yourself. You could walk down the street instead of driving. Or simply stand for a while as opposed to sitting while you check your emails.

These simple options may seem small and unimportant but truth is discipline as regards our health and food choices starts with the small stuff. It’s not in the 30 day fast, the juice cleanse (these are mostly useless by the way). Nor is it in the ridiculous amounts of cardio, the “fat loss” teas, the waist trainers or just not eating past 8 pm. It’s simply choosing to show up, be present and make the right choice at that moment in time.

Most of the work I do with clients as a strength, conditioning and wellness coach, revolves predominantly around making the right healthy choices. After several years of working with some high-performance individuals, I find some of my clients don’t do so great when it comes to their health and physical wellbeing. This is understandable considering food, sleep or physical activity seem like the small stuff in the large scheme of things. However, slight improvements in any of those three things show significant increase in performance for any individual.

So, what is the point of all these? Keep it simple! There is a general trend of unrealistic pursuits of health goals that are short term. While most of everything we read sound amazing, they tend to be simply to sell magazines and are sometimes unsafe. Our bodies are better suited to consistent, traceable, incremental changes that become habits over time.

This means that you won’t die if you don’t have all the birthday corn and pepper soup in the canteen between meals. Your colleague won’t try to kill you if you say not to their giant bottle of groundnuts. The world won’t end if you don’t have all the sweets in the bowl in the lobby. You won’t have a heart attack if you walk downstairs to get a glass of water yourself. You can choose to make the less convenient healthier choices every time.

It’s either that or wait till we can’t see our feet anymore without a mirror.