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The “EVERYTHING NOW” generation of today has lost the ability and connection to effort, hard work and patience.
“EVERYTHING NOW” is great when it comes to convenient things like online shopping, auto pay, streaming and infinite information at your finger tips. But when it comes to working towards things that are not on the internet, like strength training, fat loss, learning a skill, changing dietary habits, wood work, blacksmithing, learning a language, painting, building a house or anything that requires skill and effort, many seem to forget that they are not in the internet themselves, and that losing the 30lbs that they have gained over 10 years will not happen quickly, or if it does, it more than likely won’t last. In fact, myself and all of my collegues in fitness and nutrition would say that 9x out of 10, those that lose fat fast, gain it back within a year or 2. Now where has that gotten them?
Too often have I seen a very motivated person hit the gym for the first time in years run them selves stupid on the treadmill, lift all the weights or do all the sit ups, leading them to a burn out, injury, maybe some initial fat loss due to actually moving more, but then either quitting, slashing too many calories or trying to go harder when hitting plateaus, like myself when I started this process. Many will try to eat less and less and run more and more to lose fat as fast as possible, turn to extremely well marketed fat burners, this diet, that diet, wreck their hormones, lose sleep and feel like shit all for the sake of losing fat fast. In the case of gaining muscle and strength, some do gain pretty quickly, but this is what we call “newbie gains”. Many will attempt what Ronnie Coleman or Arnold Schwartzenegger did, going from 0-100. What you need to know is that those famous bodybuilders, strongmen or powerlifters you admire have YEARS of experience doing the basics before becoming famous. They understood the process and learned the skills.
This process requires skill. The skill of learning basic movements correctly, the skill of learning and applying basic nutrition, the understanding of taking small steps each and every week towards the and goal, not putting yourself into a stressed out situation for the sake of losing weight by a certain date. Unless you are an experienced body builder or physique model, like several years experienced, you should not have dead lines for your fat loss or muscle gain goal. It does not work in the long term. I know because I’ve tried.
If we could get people to understand that everything from lifting weights to running requires skill, and that those skills need to be practiced before entering the race, we would have a lot more healthier and stronger people around us. You wouldn’t expect to learn another language in a month would you?
Re-think your relationship to the gym. Is it just a place that you go to burn as many calories as possible and sweat a bunch? The word gym comes from gymnasium. The gymnasium used to be a place that people went to practice skills, and they didn’t give a shit about how many calories they just burnt. Start looking at this as a learning experience, do the homework, practice the skills, up the frequency of that skill practice, eventually up the intensity of that skill practice along with the skill of cleaning up the diet and you will succeed. It may not be today, tomorrow, or next month, but with a healthier mindset towards what and why you are doing this, you will have the skills for long term success towards an older, stronger, healthier version of yourself.