Where abs?

I’ve read more fitness textbooks and studies than I’d care to mention.

I’ve helped 100s of people lose 1,000s of lbs over the last 13 years.

I ended up taking about a 2 year break from training, and restarted about 2 weeks ago.

Do you know what I’ve caught myself thinking when I see my reflection? “How come I don’t have abs again yet?”

I know all this intellectually.

Based on my waist circumference and weight, I’ve got 25kg of fat. Every one of those kilos can release 50kcal of energy per day, so the max deficit I can support is 1300kcal per day.

At that rate, factoring in diminishing returns, it’s going to take me 17 weeks to lose the 14kg needed to see much muscle definition.

I know all that and it STILL pisses me off.

I can’t even understand how frustrating this must be if you’re new to it, and seeing endless fairy stories of folk losing 30kg per month doing intermittent hyper-keto.

We’re conditioned to expect instant gratification.

You don’t have to wait until next week for the next episode of your show, you just sit there and Netflix plays it for you.

Click a button and Amazon brings you anything you want in a day or 2.

Move your thumb and a pizza will be at your door in 20 min.

You’ve been trained to expect everything to be instant, and advertisers reinforce this by lying to you about rates of progress (“Suzie lost 100lbs by unlocking her metabolism!”).

That narrative is deep in your brain now. That programme will run unconsciously if you let it, and make you feel bad.

The best cure for unconsciously-derived negative emotions is to make them conscious. Notice what you’re doing. Shine your attention on it like the all-seeing Eye of Sauron, and let the intensity of focus burn the bullshit away.

Remind yourself what’s actually happening, how you’re actually doing and what kind of rate of progress you should actually expect.

If you don’t set your own expectations, your subconscious will do it for you - but it will do a terrible job of it.

Get in there first and get your story straight.

Think you own thoughts, not the imprint of all the amalgamated bullshit you’ve been bombarded with over the last 10 years.

Your brain will thank you.