M2 SIX PACK 70 | SHRED2SHRED 13

I am sorry that I didn't blog over the weekend and I want to assure anybody who is concerned about my whereabouts that I did not go surfing.

I decided to do something a little different today and am wearing a T shirt that represents that.

What is authenticity?

For me personally it is about love and gratitude.

So what do I love and what am I grateful for.

1. I love Carlos DeJesus and I am grateful that he is part of the sphere
2. I love and am grateful for Adam Waters for creating this remarkable place.
3. I love and am grateful for Johannesburg winters otherwise how would I be able to appreciate the beautiful summers
4. I love and am grateful for adversity since it makes me stronger
   
5. I love and am grateful for amazing people like Saraaaaaaah who through an amazing transformation bring hope to so many people
6. I love and am grateful for my good friend Sharon who through tenacity has shown an unquenchable fire and a will to win
7. I love and am grateful for my children who bring such joy to my life
8. I love and am grateful for the gifts that I have been given to do with what I will and the ability to fully reach my potential
9. I love and am grateful for all my friends who encourage me to reach for the sky
10. I love and am grateful for mountain tops that allow me to see into the future and remind me when I look into the valley from whence I have come.

Off the top of my head and without thinking about it.....these are the things that have made my day ....today.

How bout you?

M2 SIX PACK DAY 67 | SHRED2SHRED DAY 10

I can't get in, I can't get out, I can't download pics....so my sincere apologies for having wasted your time if you have arrived here expecting something interesting.

M2 SIX PACK DAY 66 | SHRED2SHRED DAY 9

Back on the upcurve

I feel like I'm getting 'back to the future'. Although I have been doing everything right my computer melt down has made me feel like I am way behind the curve...Weird feeling.

However, I started my new program yesterday and it invloves a three day a week routine to start with full body followed by metabolic cardio training..Kind of a break in thingy.

I'm excited about new things but I'm really excited about seeing where this new program can take me...I have committed to the program until december and we'll see what sort of progress I have made up to that point.

I am full of energy today after finding myself exhausted come evening for the last two days and since we have a 'swine' flu strain running around South Africa I thought perhaps it had popped through my front door. I think that since I havn't been acting like a pig lately it is probably just some work pressure.

I have worked that through mentally and feel recharged today.

It is a beautiful day here in South Africa and I feel for all of you going into winter...I suppose the good news is that come summer again everyone is going to be saying...Whoooaaa where did you come from, look at you.

So...as we head into another weekend I wish you all love, peace and gratitude for being here and helping others as well as yourself.

OUT

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 65+ SHRED to SHRED day 8

I have just written a thesis on the effects of summer on the human body.....unfortunately you will never get to read it because I very cleverly wrote the copy onto a word document to avoid losing it however...I had not got around to saving it when my machine crashed so.....

I'm very sorry but....I just do not have time to do it again.

Have a wonderful day grrrrrrr!

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 62+ SHRED to SHRED day 5

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 61+ SHRED to SHRED day 4

Like everyone else I sometimes get this mistaken idea that I am going backwards. Firstly that's not true but I am also susceptible to "The voice".....which I successfully chase away when I realise it for what it is by asking a simple question...."Is it the truth" and invariably it isn't, so I send it packing.

If it IS true however I am able to do something about it.

I am rattling on about this because I am in such a great position now of having tons of pictures to compare me to me with and sometimes I take a look and am blown away....I also realise that I still have along way to go but it's great to know that my next set of day 1 pics....which will be M4...will culminate in me looking the best I have ever looked in my whole life.......

......... AT 60.

Wow....an amazing thought....that you can be your best at 6o....which I will be on October 1st.

I am so excited about life I just can't tell you....what a great place to be....Wonderful relationships, fabulous shredder friends....some I have got to know better than others.....I could go on and on.

The only blip on my horizon happened just yesterday and serves to show me how tenuous life is and and how we should make the most of every moment.

Going home last night I drove right passed a service station ( strangely enough, the service station where my sister was killed ) which was in the process of experiencing an armed robbery. The robbers tried to steal a car that was being filled with petrol to make their getaway but something went wrong and a 48 year old lady who was innocently waiting in her car was shot in the chest... She died this morning.

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls and little animals...PLEASE, Life is way to important to be taken seriously....please, make the most of each and every day...fill them with laughter, love and happiness, health and fitness and don't be heading up to heaven one day saying to yourself.."I could have done so much more with my life."

LOTSA LOVE

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 60 and SHRED to SHRED day 3

I was chatting with Carlos yesterday via e-mail about Adam's trip to Virginia to spend some time with Carlos and to do some work.

Carlos' reply was really interesting and .....if any of you shredders had any doubts at all about the authenticity of our ferless leader Adam then take a look.

I publish this with Carlos' permission. Thank you my friend.

My question was..."How was your time with Adam"

Non-stop productive.

On the train from NYC to Virginia we worked on Muscle, then when we got to my house he was almost non-stop working.

The Shredders don't know how dedicated he is. And how much he cares about them. Working as hard as he could to distill 45 years into a PDF, moving as fast as he could- all the while concerned about this being a quality production.

Meticulous about every part of the program, including having me re-write the introduction to give the shredders insights of me, I could see his point so I did it.

All you have to do is look into his eyes and you could easily see his honesty and genuineness. Sometimes those eyes were tired and red, he would take a short nap and then back to work.

We also made several videos, some of interviews and a few hours taping time for the workouts. We had little time for anything else.

I don't know how the Shredders could ever see how much he does, and really appreciate his gifts to them. If you taped a day in the life of Adam, I think people would be exhausted just watching it!

Thank you for that insight Carlos....Perhaps now we can really appreciate everything Adam does for US.

Adam...a big thank you my friend...I think I can say that I speak for most everybody here when I say we are grateful for you, our 'Commander' for all the work you put in for us.

No question.....your integrity shines in everything you do...You are the Real Deal

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 60 + Shred to Shred day 2

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 59

Quick PS to start with. I was trying to post from a remote computer which would not let me in to the 'Shreddersphere' and I did not have my password on me ....so wasn't able to blog over the weekend.

No worries I'm back now and keen as mustard.

The Ab contest continues with the girls...Saraaaaah!, Sharon and Johanna looking awesome and the boys lagging a little in order to keep them motivated.

Tiger Woods lost a major yesterday to a little known korean Player. WHAT....impossible I hear you say if you didn't watch. Well..it DID happen.

The Korean pleayer was completely oblivious to the fact that he was playing in the final round of a major golf championship with the worlds greatest player and just had a good time.

A lesson there for all of us. Doesn't matter who you are up against you CAN win... Don't let the company throw you off track with your program just keep doing it and having fun.

And if you are Woods.... don't start believing you are invincible...You're not.

Dream stealers are not welcome....boot them out of your life and keep focussing on your goals...they are yours, no one else's and no one else has the right to try and throw you off track.

If you let someone else dictate the course of your life don'tcomplain when things start going pear shaped. Take resposibility for your actions and don't become a victim.

BE STRONG, and win the game of life...for you

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 57

I do HAVE A brain IN MY HEAD


Do I have a brain in my head...Yes I do and so I use it as often as possible...There are times when it doesn't work so well but most of the time it functions pretty normally.

So what? ......I love weight training...does that make me a dumba*@#, hardly, I consider myself a reasonably intelligent fellow. I am well read, I am articulate, I am interested in what goes on around me, I thrive on interesting conversation with stimulating discussion.

Get to the point Dougs......OK why is it that a lot of people think weight training is for morons....whoaaa, slow down there sports fans....I can hear the 'fall out' from here.

They do....Oh no, I do cardio, I could never go into that sweaty place where all those large foul mouthed men hang around making a big noise clanking those dumbell thingy's all over the place and telling rude jokes...oooh no not for me.

Wow what gym are these people going to....or is it just a perception, or is it actually real.

A bit of all of the above I suspect.....But the fact still remains that we HAVE to do weight training with as heavy weight as possible...Doesn't matter where we do it, we have to do it.

Women are at risk from Osteoporosis, men are at risk from....dare I say it....flabby gut syndrome...weight training alleviates both these conditions.

You cannot look good and be healthy on 2 hours of cardio and three lettuce leaves a day....all you will end up being is a thin fat person...great in clothes but ....not to good when the lights go out.

Don't take my word for it....Any amount of research will tell you the truth.....so if you are unsure of where to go from here....whatever you do make sure it always consists of a weight component, a cardio component and a broad based eating plan to get you there.

PEACE OUT

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 56

Winter is done and ....the LEAN SEASON is here

The weather is changing....it's getting warmer, the days are getting light earlier and the atmosphere seems more positive...a feature of the approaching summer I think.

I am always amazed at how the seasons mirror our own attitudes. Although the winter in South Africa is not as harsh as other parts of the world it is what we are used to and people seem less communicative than when it's warmer.

I notice people on the street are more friendly and willing to communicate.

Winter of course is a great time to get in shape because we can hide what we don't want people to see until we are ready...It's been happening to me recently.

I'm able to wear a T shirt to the gym now and people are saying ..wow, what happened to you boy you've changed...what drugs are you on etc etc.

It's interesting though the amount of people who never change. They spend years in the gym but carry on eating as though there were no tomorrow and wonder why nothing has happened.

We all have to be mindful of the 'lifestyle' change...rather than a short term plan.

I was chatting with some new clients only yesterday and asked how it was that they got to where they are now.

In unison...."Fast Food" was the reply. So how you going to change that pattern I asked and they really wern't sure. That's why a plan is so important.

We will never get anywhere unless we have that plan which will keep us on the straight and narrow...permanently.

Too many times I see clients who have left the nest as it were to go on their own only to end up back where they were or worse.

We cannot get in shape and go back to eating 'cheescake', we have to make that lifetime comitmment.

Once we have done that, it is so rewarding to wear the clothes we want to...go to the places we have avoided and visit with the friends we havn't seen for a while.

And...occasionally, we can still have the cheescake...if we want to.

Peace Out

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 55

Lookout...a freight train's a coming

In the land of plump tummy's the man with abs is king and he is coming....

I started training again today with a new 'fat melting' program which is guaranteed to shed any unsightly fat that I have left on my body within a few short weeks...Power training is an understatement.

Don't believe me..... please, be my guest and try my warm up.

Take a pair of dumbells that you can do 10 reps of bicep curls with... in my case it was 33lbs each...

...Find a partner...Do one bicep curl..hand your partner the weight and he does the same
and hands it back...do 2 reps...hand it back, 3 reps, hand it back and so on until you have done 10 reps..... x 2 sets. If you don't have a partner just put it on the bench and pick it up again in the equivalent time it would take your partner to do his reps.

That folks is the warm up.....Now PLEASE don't try this at home unless you have medical assistance standing by girls.....and....I wouldn't plan any house work for a while either.

It gets really serious from there on in...but I don't want to scare you so I'll zip it for now.

Anyway the session went really well, I lost about 6% body fat while training so I guess I'm on target.

Glad to see everyone back from NY....LET'S GET TO WORK

PEACE OUT

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 52

Well today the party starts at the Shredder Summit in NYC so I thought we might have our own little party right here.

In my pic you'll see what's on the menu.

I wonder if it's going to be like a ghost town in here with everybody partying up a storm in the US.

I've got a four day drop on Saraaaaaah! since she is over the pond in NYC and I'm already missing our banter. Sharon is on her way to a 'fight'....Dean and Earl are at the summit and Johanna....well Johanna has to sign on for the competition...but I think she's in...have you SEEN those abs.

So I'm kinda going around in circles with not much to say.

Think I'll just leave it there and go do some ab work.

Tomorrow.

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 50

Now that we actually know what my abs look like I've decided to cover them up again until the final reveal.

Let the girls get over confident again and then BAM....game over.

I've just had another monster session in the gym and can hardly move my arms to type.

So I'm not going to.

The NYC summit happens imminently and I'm so looking forward to seeing a pictorial account of the weekend..

I hope everyone is going to write their own account of the weekend so we who can't be there are able to put together different perspectives.

Next trip....

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 49

The "ABDOMINATOR".....revealed

So I went in to hospital today to chat with my nuerosurgeon and have some x rays done to check that my head is still in one piece...It IS.

But....while I was there I decided to have an X ray done to check my sleketal musculature just to check my AB potential.



Wow....was I surprised at what was hiding JUST below the surface..

All I can say is ...GIRLS either run, go into hiding or concede defeat NOW before you are seriously embarassed.

Man I could lose my car keys in those babies.

M2 | SIX PACK | Day 48

My beloved.....rugby team, the mighty Springboks beat the All Blacks on saturday back to back for the first time in 33 years, " That's patience"

I read a saying some time ago which has stood me in good stead at times when I want to go too fast. 'You can't push the river'

In a world where we have fast food and instant gratification for just about everything the word patience has been relegated to a dusty tome in the scruffy archives of an old library somewhere.

We need to bring the word back into fashion because "we cannot live without it" and if you don't believe me try getting into a department store on "MEGA END OF YEAR SALE, EVERYTHING HALF PRICE, ONE DAY ONLY" whilst the doors are still locked and you are behind 50 other people queuing for the same reason as you without a whole lotta patience.

Patience is needed in everything we do. The art of a business deal is built on patience. Catching trout on a sunny saturday afternoon in waders in the middle of a lazily drifting trout brook, is built on patience, and winning an important rugby game is built on patience.

In sport, it's a guarantee that you'll get no where if you don't have patience. Building muscle takes patience. There is a popular misconception that you can build big muscle in a very short time...not true, it's extremely difficult to build muscle, unless you're a beginner, and any honest 'natural' body builder will tell you that.

Patience is what is needed to follow any kind of fitness routine through to success. Day by day perserverance, long term, dedication to purpose, daily action steps, patience to get through the down times, and there will be.

One thing I know for sure, even though we don't like it, 'winners are patient, guaranteed'.

Set your health goals, believe that you will attain them, building your action steps daily and have patience.

YOU WILL GET THERE.