Most people when they start to go to a gym they have an idea that in 3 months they'll have a completely different physique from the one that they have now, a physique that'll get them more attention, and opportunities. But a month in the gym and most of them don't see anything changing in them and then they come up with answers, such as:
This gym is bad, no proper equipment, no coaches, etc.,
I did not have they right supplements,
I do not have hours to spend on fitness,
I have heavy bones,
I have bad genetics,
I cannot eat like a bodybuilder,
No one gets more muscular on a natural diet,
I cannot be in gym everyday, I have a life,
Oh, it's hard for me to sleep early and wake up early,
and the list goes on...
All valid reasons, ON THE SURFACE, (if you just start to peel back a few layers)(rephrase and reword the sentence), you end up staring at issues that are related to:
Unrealistic expectation
Poor sense of priorities in general
Not taking responsibility for oneself
Overestimating their expertise on the subject
Non-committal attitude
Let us break down these issues one by one.
Unrealistic expectations:
Except, if you've been a fairly fit person before losing your way just for a little bit getting out of shape just a little, chances of you meeting your physique goals in 3 months is rare.
A US based trainer Drew Manning gained 70 pounds, roughly 35kg, in 6 months and he had to remain committed to his weight loss regime for 6 months to lose all that weight.
Now don't jump horses and think that you can lose 30-35kgs in 6 month. You can't. Drew was able to do it because he was in a better shape than 99% people in the world, he has been an athlete all his life, he loved working out, and sticking to his diet was not difficult for him and he's only been terribly out of shape for about 16 weeks out of the 24 weeks that he did his experiment. Are you in the same category as him?
Were you in a better shape than 99% people in the world? Were you athletic before you became overweight (borderline obese, probably)? Are you in tune with how your emotions meddle your eating and sleeping habits? Do you really love training so much so that you'll take out an hour or two for 3-4 times per week? Will you be willing to overhaul your diet entirely just to get the results, remember there are serious repercussions? If not then you need to get off the high horse and re-evaluate your plan.
Long term inactivity along with high calorie intake can wreak havoc on the metabolic health of a person his muscles aren't sensitive to the nutrition that he's consuming. She's not able to workout as effectively because the movements aren't as coordinated that allow him a high degree of effort, he finds comfort in the food that he eats and thus has a distorted relationship with his food which can only be worked out with a counsellor outside of a gym.
So you see, none of these things take only 3 months. For some people, sure, but majority of us have a longer journey against some really slippery slopes of life.
Poor sense of priorities: Not sleeping on time is one of the primary examples.
As we are learning more and more about sleep and its impact on our health and wellbeing we know for a fact that getting good quality of sufficient sleep is probably more important than eating good food and certainly more important than working out.
That being said, how many of us really prioritize sleep? Especially the people who are trying to achieve a better physique and health.
We have all sorts of things planned career, relationships, get together with friends and family, OTT binges, but rarely do we schedule for sleep. In fact sleeping is on the bottom of the priorities for most of us.
We'll sleep when we die, this mindset is definitely bringing our death to us at an earlier age.
Similarly, grocery shopping, so that we can plan our meals during the week to stay on course of achieving our dream physique. It's not a priority. We'll make time to binge watch an entire season of our favorite show but grocery shopping is too time consuming and when we do go for it, we'll just haphazardly put stuff in our basket without any plan, more from a habit of picking up snackable items - rip and eat kind of. This sets up for further disappointment at the end of the stipulated time.
What we eat and how much we sleep has a way bigger impact on our physiques than we imagine and yet most of us don't pay close attention to it. Is it then any wonder why most of us are not in great shape?
Not taking responsibility for oneself: Ok, this is something which drives me nuts the most. Grown people saying I cannot eat diet food because their moms/wives won't cook a separate meal for them, or they can't say no to friends who decide to go for a late night movie when you should be ideally hitting the bed. Or they are late for their day because again, someone didn't wake them up.
I get it, sometimes it all is a little hard but on most days we are just looking for ways to chicken out.
By not taking responsibility for what you didn't do you evade consequence in the short run. Overtime the list of things that you didn't do and happily blamed others for your laggardness, it grows to overwhelming proportions. And then it gets really messy and then again because of the power of habit, you'll say that you've been dealt a bad hand at life.
No you were given a life, you squandered it, now it looks like a wreck. Fix it, take some responsibility.
Overestimating their expertise of the subject: This again is very close to my heart as I'm guilty of this one myself. In the age of internet where a simple google search will yield a ton of information regarding anything that you may be interested in, from the very basic to very advanced but it cannot give you the wisdom of using that information, that can only be learnt from someone who has already gone through this crucible before you.
People step into the gym with a workout from an online influencer which is not suitable for a beginner and then he follows it with zeal then,
Crash & Burn - Because the amount of work is simply too much. It just fried his system he may loathe the experience all together where everyday his soul got sucked out of him by bone crushing effort applied too quickly to the body.
Gets bored - Because the workout is so advanced that he couldn't do most of the things and then ended up spending most of his gym time looking at people, or checking his mobile.
At the end of the first week or month these two groups of people have decided that either the gym is bad, or the trainers are at fault, or the equipment were subpar but rarely will they acknowledge the fact that their information wasn't exactly correct. But of course that's harder to do then just mouthing bad things at others.
Also, if he accepts the shortcomings of his knowledge he may be posed with three choices, a). to leave the current mode of working out entirely because the dumb thing isn't giving any result, therefore, something else will be better, b). hire a personal trainer, but then that requires an acknowledgement that someone at your local gym might know more about this thing than google, scary to think something like that, c). leave the rat race, netflix and chill, because ultimately all are going to die, it'll come sooner to us.
Most people choose a) and c) and therein lies the problem. If you work with a personal trainer, someone with a lot of experience of training people like you he can make this journey enjoyable. Teach you exercises in a way that you enjoy, and look forward to. Most of all the work is scaled to your level so that you grow and stall.
Non-committal Attitude: Well this one is easy. You need a commitment for anything that is hard. Fitness is no different. Passion, motivation, everything dries up when faced with seemingly unsurmountable plateaus despite the work done, or when getting to the gym itself is a challenge, or turning off the TV at night to get full 7-8 hours of sleep. Therefore one needs to commit to this urgently and make it a priority.
Commitment is a beautiful thing. It bring to view the things that are most important and thus aligns your actions in a way that puts you on trajectory where success is a guarantee so long as you can stay on the process for the required duration.
Sleep is one easily understood example, commitment can also be applied to your workout plan and diet. If you keep jumping your workout or diet you wouldn't know what is improving and what is not. You'll be doing a lot of work but you won't be productive and that is a frustrating cycle isn't it? In the same manner committing to improving mental health is also important to long term adherence to healthy lifestyle which will bring about the desired results.
There you have it, reasons why 3 month transformations are exceptions than rule. It happens to a very few people who have all the qualities, both genetic as well as behavioral, to develop a great physique quickly and you know that is not you. Don't be sad though most people are like that only and we all get over it buy working smarter, and over a longer duration.
In conclusion, what does all of this mean? Does this mean that adopting a healthy lifestyle is futile? On the contrary. What it does is that it encourage you to apply the principles of healthy lifestyle and stick to it. It encourages you to do it for as long as it takes, it tells you that it doesn't matter if the transformation did not happen in 3 months, but it will happen if you stay on the process, it also tells you that your journey is your own and the only person you have to be better than is the person that you were tomorrow. Trite, I know, but very profound.
Hope this article will help you to stick to your physique and workout goals. Cheers. :)
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