There is no doubt that Welshman are proud patriots. So, you can imagine how I have felt this month after making our way to the semi-finals in the Rugby World Cup and the Gaspari duo of Neil Hill and Flex Lewis obtaining 2nd at the 2011 Olympia and then a 5th place Open Class finish at the Spanish Grand Prix. Even the most elite athletes and teams need that extra push, direction and accountability to further their careers and realize their potential. The winning team-work of Neil Hill and Flex Lewis is well documented and is without exception.

We understand all too well that many people simply cannot train without the parental guide or a personal trainer. Having someone to be accountable to when you miss a meal, cheat on the weekend or slacken' on your training schedule can be the difference between living in your age old residence in the suburb of fat-ville or building a brand new home in the town of fit-ville. Making the wrong or right decisions can change your life forever!

Formerly, I was a professional one-on-one trainer who specialized in 12 and 18 week transformations. Now, I do the same but online for 1000’s of viewers on Bodybuilding.com mainly through video instruction and via my book – Body by Design. I would recommend the 18 week challenge for potential clients whom were morbidly obese that I predicted would take more time to reach their desired goals

During my time training my clients I had created a formula that not only managed to attain an extremely high success rate, regardless of the client's physical, mental, and social background but also one which made them feel accountable for their own actions once they had finished the challenge and began training themselves. Not everyone is in a position to have their own personal trainer to be accountable to, so I would like to offer you the next best thing.

Start By Creating Conscience Below, I outline some of the systems that have been through the trenches and were most successful in helping people reach their desired transformation goal.

Document Every Meal Purchase a pocket sized note pad to write down every single meal that you eat throughout the day. This note pad MUST be pocket sized so you cannot provide yourself with the excuse that it wasn't filled in on a particular day because you couldn't carry it due to its size or inconvenience. Write down every single meal that you eat, especially if it was something that isn't granted on your nutritional program. By writing this down you are being more accountable for your actions. When people cheat the guilt normally follows. When you put that pen to paper and then read over your mistakes, you are blessed with a little more guilt and concern for you actions, and the likelihood of you wanting to go through this again is reduced. Highlight The Bad If you ever have to write down a mistake on your program, whether it was going over your 3 hour meal intervals, forgetting to add protein to your food, or missing a meal or blatant cheating, be sure to highlight this with a neon pen. With every mistake you highlight I want you to penalize yourself a day from your challenge. This is a day in your 12 week transformation that you cannot get back; you lost it and have to be accountable. Every time that neon pen makes its way into your pad, you have to complete another cardio session for your sins. This will be known as your damage control. You damaged it, no matter your excuse, you have to fix it.

The Four Methods Of Personal Punishment

1.1. Cardio For Counter Productive Development. God forbid, cardio can be as entertaining as waiting to watch a pen write for itself, so when you are doomed to do damage control cardio, I want you to remind yourself of these 8 words as you are doing it - "it's not helping you attain your prior goals". For instance, if you set about your 12 week challenge only to hit a road bump and cheat, you have now sacrificed yourself to the sordid depths of damage control cardio. Whist you are doing this cardio, you are only burning off the bagel or the sweet that you cheated on in the first place. Your goal of shredding fat has now been put on the back burner because you decided to put a slab of butter at the front of the pecking order. Ask yourself, what do you want to burn off, your fat or your food?

1.2. The Coin Flip We really hope you don't have to punish yourself due to slacking on your transformation challenge, but if you do tend to loosen the reigns, so be it. Take a coin to the gym and flip it after every single set that you do in the gym. Heads will be your friend and will allow you to have your normal rest interval; tails will be your evil which indicates another set immediately with no rest. Some of my clients have had as many as 10 tails in a row, so you may have to strip the weight in order for you to complete your sets. This agonizing pain will remind you of your sins and will make you ponder on how to rectify this fault in the future as you bath in Epson salts trying to ease your aches.

1.3. Lunging for Lax Behavior Another great way to hold yourself accountable for you transformation hiccups is by completing a set of lunges during your supposed rest intervals. At the end of your workout, the thought of crawling out of the gym by your lips will seem more appealing than getting your legs to do the same.

1.4. Shuffle The Deck For Redemption: Take a deck of cards on your next business trip or vacation when you know you might be in a position where you won't have access to a gym. If you want to maintain that physique you work hard for day after day then you will need to find a way to get a quick work out in while you’re in your hotel room. You can easily turn your deck of cards in to a personal trainer that is calling out strict orders to do another set. Here is the method: Shuffle the cards well, then lay them face down on the floor. Get ready to sweat as you’re firing off push-ups and sit-ups with every turn of the cards. For red cards do push-ups and for black cards do sit-ups. The amount of reps for each exercise will be equal to the number on each card, and all face card (kings, queens and jacks) will count as 10. If you think this sounds easy then wait till you get 3-4 cards in a row that are the same color. The goal is to get through the deck without stopping and transitioning quickly between exercises with no rest. Time yourself and try to shave off seconds or even minutes every time you perform this routine. This will keep your metabolism burning fast and make-up for some of those bad eating habits on vacations or business trips.