Where's my 6 pack?

Hello one and all.  I trust you are doing well, and hopefully I can entertain and inform you in this short time away from work (as I am almost certain your reading this while you should be doing something else).  OK, here I go.  I hope your exercise has been going, and going well, and the same goes for your diet.  I must admit I don't really like the word "diet." I feel that people hear it and automatically think of not being able to eat what they want.  When in fact it's just a word to explain what you are eating.  Even if you aren't "dieting" you still have a diet. 

That was a bit off topic, let's get down to biz.  So you asked, "Where's my 6 pack?", so I'll try to answer. (Maybe you didn't ask, but you read the title, so technically you did ask) .  This is under the assumption that you've been doing everything correctly.  Eating right, exercising intensely and frequently, and keeping this up for more than a week and a half.  You get into the bathroom, ready for a shower, take off your shirt, glance in the mirror hoping and expecting to see something like this:

wouldn't it be nice if your abs looked like that?





and instead you see something more like this. 

Well this can be disappointing, especially if that's your goal.  Let me first say, just because you didn't hit your mark yet is not a good reason to give up.  Keep on trying, with enough hard work and discipline you can get there, or at least very close to it.  Now let me also be a bit more real with you.  The people who look like that first picture they have to do a lot of work to look like that.  They watch what they eat, they do a good amount of ab work and TONS of cardio, and they do this all the time.  However, a lot of that is genetics as well. 

Anyone that you know or see that has a truly unbelievable six pack was born with the genes to have AN UNBELIEVABLE SIX PACK!  Six packs like that don't just grow on trees ya know, and there is a very, VERY real possibility that you will never look like you should be on the cover of a magazine.  You might be able to look like that for a very small period of time, (we are talking a matter of hours or 1 day at best) but even for that you'd have to change your lifestyle SO MUCH that it might not be worth it to you.  My advice to you is this:

-do your best

-eat right

-workout

-try to de-stress

-get plenty of sleep

Be happy with what you have, and with what you've already accomplished.  If it's in your cards to look like you've been chiseled out of granite then congratulations, good for you and all of your friends probably hate you for it; if you are a mere mortal and it's not in your cards well that's OK too.  Remember the key here is a long, strong, high quality of life folks, not going head to head with Arnold on his best day.  Even those people that you see on magazine covers don't look like that for more than a week or so at a time.  They diet down and practically starve themselves, then deprive themselves of water and sweat themselves dry, its quite an elaborate process and creates a very unrealistic possibility.  So stay positive, you've come a long way already, there is still plenty to go, but don't beat yourself up if you would be laughed off of an infomercial for 11 minute abs, almost every one you know would be laughed off of the set as well. 

Thanks everyone.  Until next time embrace the burn!