It’s Time to Look At Your Worst Picture Ever, And Take A New One

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Remember when we asked you to Take Your Worst Picture Ever?  Well it’s time to take it out.  If you haven’t taken it yet, or are new to World Fitness Network, we’ve got reminders at the end of this post…

What Do You See?

That old picture of yourself – is that what you still look like? Have you made any progress?  Have you made enough progress?  I’m not here to lecture you – I’m here to help you lecture yourself.

If you think you’ve made good progress, skip to the Take a New Picture section and then compare.

If you haven’t made progress, do these things right now:

1. write down every excuse you can come up with; don’t hold back!
2. now rank those excuses by their “power”; the stronger their power over you, the closer to the top of the list they go
3. for each of your top 5 excuses (more if you have the gumption), write down at least one action you are going to take to eliminate it as an excuse moving forward
4. take your top 5 excuses and share them with someone who cares about you; ask them for their advice on how they think you can eliminate those; don’t share the previous step with them – you want original ideas
5. take the combined list of approximately 10 ideas to combat your 5 major excuses, and tape the list to your bathroom mirror
6. every day (especially on your workout days) recite that list out loud;  if you get embarrassed reading it out loud, good!  you’ve got to break through some barriers if you want to eliminate those excuses
7. now act!

And time to take a new picture:

Haven’t Taken Your Picture Yet?  Or Need To Take A New Picture?

Did you fail your self-evaluation?  Or are you just now planning to get in shape, but haven’t quite started yet?

Or even if you’ve made progress, you now need a new benchmark – a new picture.

Go into your room and take all your clothes off. That’s right, strip down to nothing but your briefs, your Spiderman Underoos, your boxers, your lingerie, whatever you are wearing underneath.

Go and do it right now! This is your last chance to officially say goodbye to the old you, and you will want a picture as a keepsake. Call it a going away present… You will thank me for this later.

Go ahead and let it all hang out. Take one last look in the mirror at the old you. Soon this person will be gone, and a newer, better version will take its place. The old you is now obsolete.

Once you are all set up and ready to go, should you suck it in so that this picture isn’t so terrible?

No!!!

This picture absolutely has to be the worst picture of you ever. [Or, if you've made progress since your last picture, but not enough, then pretend you are starting over.]  Today, this one last time, you need to be your absolute fattest and flabbiest. You have to be the ugliest, the nappiest, and the jiggliest version of your self ever. You need to stand upright and proud in front of the camera in all of your untanned and unshaven glory.

This might be embarrassing now, but it will ironically become a source of pride to you later. One day you’ll be proud. Not of how you look now, but of how far you will have come. These pictures will stand as a final testament of the person you are leaving behind.

Revealing a Whole New Person.

It’s truly amazing to see a new face and a new body type emerge with each passing month. You can take pictures of your progress as often as you like. You can even take your pictures daily if you want.

One person who did this and now has a wide group of admirers is John Stone. He took a picture of himself at the beginning of his change and then a picture every day thereafter for almost a year and a half. John worked hard at combining cardio, weight lifting, and dieting to get these incredible results. You can even see a difference just in his first week. See the weekly pictures here.

Another great (and possibly more extreme) example of somebody who uncovered a whole new person is the former fat guy, Rob Cooper. This guy actually showed how he had 3 totally different looking people stored inside himself.

Check out his weight loss pictures. You can see him beginning at 475 pounds and dropping an incredible amount of weight until he looked just like Napoleon Dynamite’s scrawny little friend. He went from fat to thin, but then he made another change: he went from thin to muscular. Kudos to this guy for showing us just how different we can all look.

Now, some people might say these are doctored photos.  I have no way of knowing.  But I do know that you can have results similar to what these guys are showing.

Now It’s Your Turn

So set that timer on your camera and get ready to snap away. Be sure to take both a front shot and a side shot. These will serve to highlight your improvement from both angles.

You’re going to have a lot of fun when you come back and put your before and after pictures side by side. Your pictures will help in keeping you motivated to press forward, and they will even become an inspiration to your friends and family.

More than a “New Year’s Resolution”

Maybe you’re staring a weight training program because you are sick of feeling the way you feel.  Or maybe your doctor has recommended it.  Or maybe you are getting older, and know all the benefits of resistance training as you age.  Or maybe it’s as part of a New Year’s Resolution (don’t get me started on those!).  Whatever the reason, you need to measure your progress.  And a picture is worth a thousand words.

Please don’t skip this important step to starting your transformation journey. The more you take pictures and the more you write down your progress, the less likely you will be to regret it later… and you will regret it if you make a big change and don’t have a picture to show for it. Don’t let yourself regret it later!

Just starting out with weightlifting? Want to get bigger muscles this winter?
Get my full-body lifting routine here: FullBodyAttack!

Related posts:

1. It’s Time to Take Your Worst Picture Ever

Tags: fitness, Goals, progress