If you’ve seen many photos of 12-week Body for Life challenges, you’ll notice that some of the results are really dramatic and some of them, well, not so much. I’m often asked what the people are doing differently and if I have any secret tips for a really dramatic transformation.

Here’s my secret tip: work your ass completely off. The people who have dramatic changes live it, breathe it, and become it. They plan, they scheme, they set goals and as soon as they reach them they set new ones. They train at an intensity that causes their fellow gym-goers to blink and back up. They're up at 3:00am to workout in a cold basement before a 5:00am shift. Their refrigerator has seventeen different meal combinations in color coded tupperwares. Wherever they go, they have a cooler in one hand and a bottle of water in another. They're writing in their success journals at all hours of the day and night. They're just ON IT. They're behaving as if they fully intend to win the million dollars, or the corvette, or whatever the heck the prize is now. It's not that they're doing something different or tricky, they're just doing BFL with such passion that they can't help but succeed.

If you want to have a ho-hum challenge, have some vague notion about wanting to get fit. Don't commit to it in any way and don't plan anything. Miss a few workouts here and there. Take a free weekend instead of a free day. Don't worry too much about your portion sizes or getting all your meals in. Try not to push yourself too hard on those workouts. Be sure to have some birthday cake anytime there's a party at work. Hit the snooze button instead of making it to the gym. All those little decisions will come back to haunt you when it's time to take your final pictures and measurements.

Now, that's not to say that you have to do things perfectly or not at all. You can muddle things all over the place, have fun, be totally happy-go-lucky, and still have a stunning transformation. It may even be *better* for your sanity and long-term success if you do it that way. It's just going to take longer than twelve weeks. :-)