People ask me all the time how fast can they expect results. My answer is always simply, “That depends on how closely you follow nutrition and how consistent you are with exercise.” But that’s the short answer. Yes, those two things are the most important, but there are other factors to add to that, so I often refer them to this post for more education.

I used to talk about genetics, but recent research shows that’s only 2% of the formula, so I don’t bother talking about that factor anymore. Having gotten that out of the way, let’s get to the important stuff.

C stands for consistency. This applies to all of your healthy habits. Exercise must be consistent. X Gym is just 21 minutes, twice a week, and that’s enough to achieve an amazing level of fitness, muscle tone, and strength. For most members twice a week is enough, but since our group members get unlimited visits, some do more because they like it so much. And our one-on-one members, get nine personal training sessions a month, but they also get unlimited free access to our group classes, so they sometimes supplement their sessions as well. It’s only the people who don’t consistently come twice a week who don’t get the intended results. Consistency in the other three letters of this acronym, but we’ll get to that below.

H stands for hydration. The human body is over 60% water, and the muscles are over 75% water, so it makes sense that we need our main ingredient as a priority to achieve proper fitness and health. To calculate how many hydrating beverages you need, just take your body weight and pounds, divide that number in half, and that’s how many ounces you should be drinking every day, spread through the day as evenly as possible. This formula works great for people who weigh 100 to 250 pounds, in a normal temperature environment, so if you weigh more or less than that, or are in a hot environment with a lifestyle that makes you sweat, or a cold environment, where you are sedentary, it may be more or less than this. Chronic dehydration will ALWAYS slow or stop your fitness progress and 85% of the people walking around in America nowadays are in this category.

I stands for intensity. I see so many poor saps working out at traditional gyms, spending hours per week on a treadmill, elliptical, or other equipment going too easy while reading a book or watching TV, and wondering why they’re not getting anywhere with all that time spent. The same applies for people using the weight machines who don’t go to fatigue. Over 90% of them stop when it starts to burn or when it becomes uncomfortable, but this is when results actually start happening. The further you go past that discomfort point, and then into fatigue, and then into complete muscle failure at the end determines how much results you get from that exercise. The X Gym formula and methodology automatically take care of this, so our members aren’t on their own, not knowing they are doing it the wrong way without anyone letting them know, like at the traditional gyms.

N stands for nutrition. You have to provide the right nutrients and balance to the muscles for them to change, and the right macronutrient ratios to get lean, so nutrition is vital for health and fitness success. Because of the intensive nerve training in the X Gym methods, someone on the Twinkie diet will still get slowly stronger, but for the results most people want, proper nutrition is the key because there’s no way to out-exercise a bad diet, no matter how effective the workouts are.

The first letter – C – applies to all of these categories because consistency with hydration, intensity, and nutrition, as well as exercise, is how anyone who has achieved a notable level of health and fitness has done it. No exceptions. You really do get out of it what you put into it, and if any of these are halfway, your results will reflect that.

So remember your CHIN and continue to work toward transforming your habits and lifestyle to reflect all of them. You’ll never be perfect in all of them all the time, but even if you are in most of them most of the time, you will get to where you’re going eventually.