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#160 - You Work out But Don't Look Like It (Here's How To Fix That)
35 Plays24 days ago
You go to the gym, but you don’t really look like it yet.
In this episode, we’ll walk through exactly what you need to do to change that, including the biggest diet, training, and lifestyle mistakes that keep people from seeing any changes in their body.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
• Why working out more won’t fix the problem if your diet doesn’t include the right things to support fat loss and muscle growth
• The top 3 training mistakes people make when they can’t get their body to change and how to fix them
• How your expectations set the stage for whether or not you actually achieve the result you’re looking for
• How lifestyle factors like sleep and stress play a role in transforming your body
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Transcript
Introduction to the Fit-ish Project Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. We got the weekly episode for you, as we always do. Before I get into that, just a reminder to continue to leave reviews, subscribe, share with people who you think get some value, continue to grow the show, get this info out to people who can use it the most to help live better lives, have better health, look better, feel better, which is exactly what this week's topic is going to talk about. It kind of builds on last week.
Transition: From Losing Fat to Looking Fit
00:00:33
Speaker
So last week I did an episode about how you can lose fat without losing muscle. And this week's topic is how to look like you work out.
00:00:42
Speaker
Because one of the things that I hear a lot is I work out, but I don't really look like I work out. And I know there's tons of different reasons that we want to exercise, whether it be to live a longer life, whether it be to build confidence, build strength, have more functionality in your day to day life, better mobility, build some muscle, build some strength, boost your metabolism, have better mental health, decrease your risk of major disease or illness. There's so many reasons that you should be exercising or want to be exercising.
00:01:15
Speaker
But one of the common themes that I see among pretty much everybody is part of the reason, if not a very large part of that reason that they work out is because they want to look better. And there's absolutely nothing
Common Exercise Mistakes and Motivations
00:01:26
Speaker
wrong with that. And so a lot of the things that people will do when they decide that I want to change my body, I want to look better is they focus on exercise. That's the first thing that they think about. I need to get in the gym. I need to start working out. i need to build some muscle, loosen fat, that sort of thing, which is all good. But I think sometimes people make quite a few mistakes when it comes to training around changing their physique, because there are some things that you need to be doing. And there will be some overlap from some of the themes and some of the lessons of last week's episode. But there's also some new things in here that I want to touch on. Just things that I see quite often that if you can make some of these slight tweaks, you can see better results because there's nothing worse than putting in that effort
00:02:06
Speaker
towards a goal that you really have and something that you really want to achieve, but you're not really seeing the results that
Key Focus Areas: Diet, Training, Lifestyle
00:02:11
Speaker
you want to see. And oftentimes I'll see with people, they're doing some of the things right, but they're just making a couple crucial mistakes. And that's the reason that they're not really seeing the results that they want to see. So again, they're working out quite often, maybe they're in the gym three, four or five times a week, but they're not really seeing the results that they want to see. They don't actually look like they work out. They don't really look like they have much muscle mass. They don't really look that tone as people like to say, or more fit or leaner, that sort of thing. And so I want to get into some of the main mistakes that people make around this whole goal.
00:02:43
Speaker
And then as we always do, give you some practical takeaways, some things that you can start implementing right away so that you can see better results. So when we think about this category, you're somebody who works out, but you don't really look like you work out and you really want to look like you work out. we break this down into three different categories that we want to focus on so we have diet we have training and then we have some lifestyle things that we want to be doing so when we think about diet the number one mistake that i see people make all the time when it comes to this whole idea of like working out but not really looking like you work out is people simply eating too many calories i know it sounds extremely simple but that is the problem for a very very large majority of people who work out but don't actually look like they work out it's just that you're eating too much
00:03:27
Speaker
I think people put a lot of emphasis on exercise and think that when they're exercising quite a bit or getting in the gym three, four times a week that they're burning a bunch of calories and their body should be
The Impact of Diet on Your Physique
00:03:37
Speaker
changing. But diet plays such a bigger role in changing your physique than exercise does.
00:03:43
Speaker
Now, don't get me wrong. The entire episode that I did last week was about maximizing muscle and muscle is a really important part of this whole process. But if you have a bunch of muscle, but it's covered up with a big layer of fat, you're still not really going to look like somebody who works out.
00:03:58
Speaker
Depending on how are you carry fat and you're building those sorts of things, you may look like, you know, power lifter or myself, I was a lineman. And some of those guys, like they look strong, they look kind of burly. But I don't think that's really the look that most people are going after. They want to look, again, more toned, more lean.
00:04:13
Speaker
more fit and so to do that you need to be controlling how many calories you eat so that you can get your body fat to a level of where you can see some of that muscle mass that you have and again for a lot of people it just comes down to you're eating too many calories on a consistent basis to actually get your body fat down to a decent level and this is something that i hear so much in fact just this morning when i was working in the gym that i've been working at I was having a conversation with one of the members there and he's been pretty consistent getting in there like at least four times per week, sometimes five times per week. But he was just talking to me about his struggles, about how he's not really losing much weight, like he's not really seeing as much progress as he would like. Like he's getting stronger. he feels like he's building some muscle, which I would agree with that. He has gotten quite a bit stronger and he has been pretty consistent in the gym. But for a lot of people, it's just this diet piece because that diet piece plays a much, much larger role than people really realize, because when it comes to exercise,
00:05:11
Speaker
You definitely want to be active and working out helps a ton, which is building muscle and also helps a little bit with burning calories. But it doesn't help with burning calories to the extent that people think. And so if your nutrition is not dialed in, you can easily overeat to a point of where you're not really losing body fat. You're not really losing weight. and You're not really seeing those physical changes that you want to see that you think working out is going to get you. and when it comes to food and when it comes to estimating how much we eat and just overeating in general people are really really really bad at estimating how many calories they're eating and there's been some studies that have proven this i know i've mentioned these on some other podcast episodes previously but people underestimate how much they eat by roughly up to 50 percent which if you think about that if you think you're eating 2 000 calories which might be a calorie deficit for some people
00:06:04
Speaker
you think you're eating 2000 calories, but in reality, you're eating 3000 calories because you're eating 50% more than
The Importance of Tracking Diet and Progress
00:06:10
Speaker
you think. And then it's no wonder that you're not losing weight. You're not really seeing the changes that you wanna see.
00:06:15
Speaker
When you look at just the average person, the average person in the US is eating around 34 to 3,600 calories on a daily basis and exercising less than 20 minutes per day. And to give you a little context around this, I currently weigh about 205 pounds I run about 20 to 40 miles a week, which is anywhere between four to like five and a half, sometimes six hours of cardio.
00:06:42
Speaker
I lift weights four times a week for about 45 to 60 minutes at a time. And I get roughly 15,000 steps a day, sometimes more like if I'm going on a really long run or if I. did a little bit more that day or had a bunch of training to do that day, like coaching people up and I'm on my feet, i might get 20,000 steps, 25,000 steps, but roughly around that 15,000 steps a day. And I maintain my weight around 35, 3,600 calories as a guy who weighs 205 pounds. So the average person is not working out that much. I mean, I'm probably working out
00:07:16
Speaker
let's say five times as much as the average person if they're only getting 20 minutes of activity per day and I'm getting in an hour and a half, an hour 45, roughly on average between running and working out.
00:07:26
Speaker
And then people wonder why they can't see the changes that they wanna see. Well, if you're eating too many calories, you're not active enough, and so you're not really gonna see much movement as far as fat loss goes when it comes to this goal of wanting to look a little bit more lean, more tone, more athletic. So what do you do about this?
00:07:44
Speaker
One of the best things that I can recommend is just to track calories for a period of time. And I know that this takes a little bit more effort. It is a little bit tedious at times, but until you have a good concrete idea of how much you're actually consuming, it's really hard to...
00:08:00
Speaker
make progress towards that goal because you're just going to continue to spin your wheels because again people are just not good at estimating how many calories they eat and especially if you've never done this before like if you don't look at food labels regularly if you've never tracked calories if you've never measured out portions of food i can promise you you're eating more calories than you think Every time I work with somebody new and I have them track calories for the first week or so, they're always surprised at one, how many calories they're eating and two, how much protein they're under eating.
00:08:29
Speaker
It almost happens with every single person that I work with when I have them track for the first time, they're just surprised that how many calories they're eating, how much smaller portions are than they thought they were, and just different things like that. So tracking calories just gives you some of this info and just helps you build the skills and gives you a little bit more data and just gives you a bigger picture about what's actually going on.
00:08:50
Speaker
figuring out how many calories you actually need and this is something you can do extremely simply now like with ai or just go on google and just type in calorie calculator it'll give you a pretty good estimate about how many calories you should be consuming on a regular basis and then just track calories for a while track your calories track your protein track your body weight for at least 30 days and be pretty meticulous about this so you can get a good picture about everything that you're putting in your body so you can know how many calories you're consuming And then also if you are losing weight, gaining weight, that sort of thing. So then you can make adjustments if you need it, because if you're trying to do this blindly, especially if you're somebody who's not super well-versed in nutrition and just training and like making these sort of changes, it's really hard to do it without data. Like you can do it and people do it from time to time, but it's it's difficult. People are just not good at figuring out nutrition and different things like that. But when you make it tangible, when you actually put some numbers to it,
00:09:46
Speaker
Well, now you can be a little bit more concrete than just saying like, oh, I feel like I'm eating pretty healthy. Like that doesn't really get us anywhere. So that's exactly what I would do if you were in this position and you were struggling and you felt like you were kind of spinning your wheels, just spend a little bit of time tracking your calories so then you know. Okay, these are my numbers. I'm hitting these numbers. Oh, I'm actually seeing some progress. I'm losing some fat, getting stronger in the gym. So that's a good sign that I'm losing fat, building muscle. And then you're headed in the right direction. Then later on down the road, if you don't want to track anymore, you don't have to.
00:10:15
Speaker
But having some time, putting in some work and just building those skills around food, around portion sizes, around knowing how much to eat, looking at food labels, all those different things are going to be extremely beneficial to getting you to that place that you ultimately want to be.
00:10:32
Speaker
Mistake number and two is not eating enough protein. And this was something that I touched on last week. Pretty important to have a good amount of muscle mass if you want to look more lean, more toned, more athletic, that sort of thing. Because again, if you strip that body fat away, but you don't have any muscle underneath to show for it, you're not gonna look the way that you think that you're gonna look. So it's important to get enough protein your diet to help facilitate building that muscle and obviously you need to be strength training which I'll get into that here in a minute but as far as diet goes you want to make sure that you're getting enough protein so at least 0.7 grams per pound of body weight if you're really trying to optimize muscle
00:11:12
Speaker
Sometimes you'll hear people say one gram per pound of body weight is even better, but at a very minimum trying to get that 0.7. And I've kind of changed my views on this a little bit. I used to be pretty sold on that one gram per pound of body weight. And there is some instances that you might want to shoot for that. Like if you're really trying to focus on fat loss,
00:11:29
Speaker
Or if you're training a ton, like you're just running a bunch, lifting a bunch, you're super active, then maybe getting that one gram per pound of body weight will be just slightly better. But for most people, you can get away with getting 0.7 and you're going to get a huge bulk of the benefits. So for a 200 pound person, that's roughly 140 grams of protein, which is a little bit easier for people to hit versus that one gram per pound of body weight, because I know a lot of people really struggle to get quite that much protein. But if you're in that range of getting upwards over that 0.7 grams per pound, you're going to be in pretty good shape. And so the practical takeaway here is to number one, know your protein goal, which super simple. Take 0.7 times your body weight. That'll give you your minimum goal to shoot for.
00:12:10
Speaker
Secondly is track it. So right along with tracking your calories, you can easily track your protein with it. And then if you need some tips to actually hit that protein goal, use what I call the three to one method. So three meals per day with some sort of lean protein, always making sure that you have some sort of protein on your plate with breakfast, lunch and dinner.
00:12:30
Speaker
At least one of those meals, double your protein. So if you're getting three ounces of chicken breast or ground beef or ground turkey or pork or fish or whatever your protein source is,
00:12:41
Speaker
just double it at one of those meals. and that's going help to increase your protein quite a bit just from doing that. The two stands for getting two high protein snacks within your day. So in between your meals, just adding in a high protein snack. So this could be Greek yogurt. This could be cottage cheese. This could be jerky. This could be tuna. This could be a protein bar, protein shake. Any of that kind of stuff works really well, but just an easy way to add a good 25 to 50 grams of protein right there.
00:13:09
Speaker
and just by doing those two things you're probably going to already be at your goal but if you're still struggling to hit it the one stands for just getting yourself one protein supplement so like a whey protein powder and that way you can add that to either just some water or shake or something like that a scoop or two of that again is going to get you a good 20 to 40 grams of protein right there you could throw it in some yogurt you could use it in ice cream like I always do. But there's just a lot of ways that you can add in protein. Pretty simply, it just takes a little bit of planning. But once you get the routine down, you won't really struggle to hit that protein goal at first. But it is a little difficult to get that much if you've never done it before, if you've never prioritized protein. But once you've done it for a while, it just becomes second nature and it's not really that difficult to hit. So those are the two big ones when it comes to
The Role of Training Consistency and Intensity
00:13:56
Speaker
dieting.
00:13:57
Speaker
The next group or the next area that we want to focus on is training. And this is a big one here. Like this is probably one that I see even more so than like the dieting side, like the overeating calories that's that's up there. But I see these training mistakes quite a bit as well. And number one is inconsistency.
00:14:15
Speaker
And this should go without saying, if you aren't consistent, it's really hard to get good results. For a lot of people, this is the case. Like they'll go in and one week they're in there three or four times, the next week they're in there one time, And then life gets a little busy and they miss a whole week of workout. So they didn't get in there at all. And then the next week they try to make up for it. So they're back in there for four and then they're sore and tired. So then they only get in there two times per week. And so they're just kind of all over the place when it comes to their training. And it's really hard to get in a good groove when you're inconsistent with this. and if you just think about okay how consistent have i been for the last six months if you think back to how many times on average per week are you getting in the gym and if you were are not getting in there at a bare minimum twice per week every single week it's hard to expect really good results and i think even more so if you have goals around changing your physique getting in the gym at least three times or four times per week is going to be even better to help you get a little bit better progress but again it's got to make sure that it's fitting within your lifestyle and you're able to do that consistently but at the very least getting in the gym two times per week is going to be crucial and if you have your diet dialed in and you're getting in two really good strength training workouts per week you can still see some pretty decent progress but
00:15:33
Speaker
getting in there three to four times a week is gonna be even a little bit better. Again, just helping you with that momentum and helping you to just build up that consistency muscle. And once you do that for an extended period of time of three months, six months, nine months, a year, you really start to see a lot of good muscle building. You start to see some strength gains. You start to build up that consistency and you're able to see more of those tangible changes that you wanna be seeing. So inconsistency is a big one, fixing that to just make sure that you have a baseline number that you are shooting for on a weekly basis.
00:16:05
Speaker
I'm always the person who says err on the side of less to begin with and then build that up over time. So maybe you do only start with two workouts per week, which is perfectly fine. I'd rather you be consistent with two times per week, then get in there four times one week and then zero times the next week and then one time the week after that, and then three times a week after that. It's just too hard to get into a groove when you're all over the place like that. I'd rather you be in there twice per week for eight weeks in a row. And then if you want to add a third day, then by all means, go ahead and do that. But that way you're able to actually stick to a good routine and you're actually able to train consistently and work with a good program, which brings me to my next point.
00:16:46
Speaker
Mistake number four that I see a lot of people make when it comes to not being able to actually look like they work out and just like have more muscle and look more fit, more toned, that sort of thing is they don't follow a good training plan or they don't follow any training plan at all. It's really hard to know if you're progressing in the same way that it's hard to know whether or not you're eating the things that you need to be eating to see the results that you want to see. Like if you're not tracking, you don't really know. Same thing goes for your workout. So if you're not tracking your workouts, like it's hard to know if you're actually progressing.
00:17:17
Speaker
How do you know if you're building muscle or getting stronger if you're not tracking your workouts? Because if you're just doing random workouts, you're probably going to be getting random results. And so you want to make sure that you're actually following a good training program. And to know if you have a good training program is there should be progression.
00:17:32
Speaker
You should have a plan where you can see progression throughout week one, week two, week three, week four. And if your workouts are different every single time you go into the gym, it's really hard to track progression. You want to have a plan where the workouts are pretty similar for at a minimum four weeks at a time. That way you can see I'm getting stronger in this exercise. I've added a little bit of weight to this exercise. I got more reps on this exercise. You wanna to be making sure that you're focusing on that progressive overload. So you're getting stronger, you're doing more reps with better technique over time. And if you're doing those things and getting stronger, that's a very good sign that you are building muscle.
00:18:09
Speaker
That's a great proxy to know that okay, I'm on the right track. I'm doing the things that I need to do because if you're having stronger workouts, like you're getting stronger within each exercise, you're building muscle. And that is exactly what we need when we want to look a certain way. We need a good amount of muscle. So making sure that you're following a good training program Super simple thing to do, but it's also going to help with that consistency piece as well. But just making sure that you're able to track your weights and track your reps and all those things and focus on progressive overload.
00:18:40
Speaker
The third mistake that I see with training is people are exercising and they're not really training. And what I mean by that is Exercise is just getting out, moving your body, kind of going through the motion. And there's tons of really good benefits. Like a lot of the things that I listed at the beginning of this podcast, you get a lot of those benefits from exercising. But there's a difference between exercising and training for a specific goal.
00:19:04
Speaker
And if you want to look a certain way, then you need to be training for a specific goal. And the problem that I see with this is that people just don't train with intensity if they don't have a specific goal. What happens a lot of times is that people will get in the gym and they go from doing nothing to just getting in the gym and getting some movement in and kind of doing random workouts or maybe working out with a buddy who's just kind of telling you a few things to do. And you see progress with pretty much anything. If you go from doing nothing to something, you're going to see some progress, no matter if you're doing random workouts or like whatever you're doing, you're going to see some sort of progress. You're probably going to get a little bit stronger. You're going to start to feel a little better. You feel like you're working harder. And so you do see a little bit of progress in the beginning. But if you're not following a good training program after a few weeks or maybe a month or so, the progress that you're seeing and the results that you're seeing in the beginning, Those start to wear off if you're not following a good program and if you're not training with the right intensity on the right things. So again, back to the point of wanting to get a good training program, make sure that you have some sort of good training program and then.
00:20:08
Speaker
Once you have that good training program, now it's important to really train intensely on the right things. Training to build muscle, which is important here, means that you are taking most of your sets close to failure and sometimes even all the way to failure. So majority of your sets, you want them to be about one to two reps shy of muscular failure.
00:20:29
Speaker
And I see this all the time. Like I've been helping people train. I've been coaching people for a really long time. And I've just seen at this point hundreds, probably thousands at this point, definitely thousands at this point of workouts, like people working out and different people, guys, girls, old, young. Like I've seen tons of people work out. And a huge thing across the board is that people don't train intensely enough. Like they don't actually get close to that one to two reps shy of muscular failure. And part of it is because it's hard, like it's a skill to train hard and it's uncomfortable, especially when you start to get strong, like taking a set close to muscular failure where your muscles are really screaming and you're sweating and you're burning a little bit and it's uncomfortable. Like you're on rep number eight or nine and a leg exercise and your legs are on fire like that's uncomfortable.
00:21:16
Speaker
But that's what you need to do if you really want to start to facilitate the growth that you need to actually get your body to change because your body is constantly adapting. And if you're not giving it a new stimulus and giving it a reason to change, it's not going to change. So you could come in the gym and kind of go through the motions and even train relatively hard, you know, say like a six or seven on a scale of one to ten. and feel like you're getting a decent workout. But unless you're really taking it to that level eight, level nine, level 10 every once in a while, and like really pushing yourself, then you're not going to get the changes that you want to see. And a really easy way to know this is like on the last couple reps of your set, those weights should be slowing down a little bit. You might start to get a little bit shaky in your arms or legs. probably making some pretty weird faces or maybe making some noises. Like you should feel like you are getting very close to not being able to lift that weight. And obviously you want to be safe with this and have spotters when you need them and all those sorts of things. But you'd be very surprised at how strong you are. People really underestimate how strong they are. And i again, I see this so often, like people will have a little bit of discomfort on a rep and then call it. Whereas like when you start to struggle a little bit, you probably have a good five to six reps left in the tank. when you start to feel a little bit of that discomfort.
00:22:33
Speaker
And there's been studies that have backed this up quite a bit too, where they ask people what they think they're their maximum is. Like, let's say they come in, they put a weight on and they're like, I want you to pick a weight that you think you can do for 10 reps.
00:22:44
Speaker
And people will pick their weight and expect to go 10 reps, but then they make these people go all the way to complete failure. And I want to say on average, they did like five or six reps more than what they thought they could do. And so people are always underestimating how strong they really are. Like I said, this is a skill and it is a little bit scary at times, like pushing yourself and maybe using more weight or going for more reps or going to failure but there's a lot of ways that you can do this really safely so you can push yourself like if you're using a machine lot of machines they're built in a way where you're not going to like hurt yourself if you're going really really close to failure even all the way to failure if using dumbbells it's pretty easy to do this safely you can always just drop the dumbbells if you're doing barbell exercises you know a bench or a squat or things like that like
00:23:28
Speaker
You want to make sure you're being safe, having a spotter, all those sorts of things, but you can push it as long as you are being safe with these things. And that's where you're going to get the best adaptations. And that's where you're going to see the most progress.
00:23:40
Speaker
The other thing that I would say about this is don't confuse intensity with doing the wrong things. So sometimes people will go in the gym and like they'll just not rest at all in between their sets. And so they're sweating, they're breathing hard. They feel like they're working hard, but they're not really using a bunch of weight. And so it's more like a HIIT style versus like a traditional strength training type of workout. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're really trying to build a significant amount of muscle, there's no better way to do that than your traditional strength training, where you're taking your sets close to muscular failure, and then you're giving your body 90 seconds, two minutes, three minutes, sometimes even more in between sets so that it can recover and so that you can really push yourself again. Because if you're only taking 15 seconds, 30 seconds, to hit your next exercise, I can guarantee you, you're not using super heavy weights and you're probably not pushing close to that muscular failure. Like I can give you a really intense workout that burns or that builds you no muscle at all. Like if I tell you to go a hundred burpees in a row, that's going to be pretty intense. You're going be sweating a lot. You're going be tired. You're going to be super sore the next day, but you didn't build any muscle from doing that. You have to make sure that you're doing the right exercises
00:24:50
Speaker
and also doing it with the right style of program as well, which again goes back to that second point of if you follow a good program, that is super essential in actually helping you to get the results that you want to get. And then once you start training with good intensity,
00:25:05
Speaker
then you can start to see those results. And so the practical takeaway here is make sure you're following a good plan, focusing on more traditional type of strength training. Like you can obviously add in some of that HIIT stuff or do cardio or different things like that. But when it comes to building muscle, which is essential and this whole process of looking like somebody who works out, you want to make sure you're at the very minimum getting at least two heavy, intense strength training days in there to help facilitate building a good amount of muscle. And then taking those sets within those workouts, one to two reps shy of muscular failure, or even all the way to failure every once in a while, And then the third thing to do is just to make sure that you're tracking your progress. So are you getting stronger? Are you able to lift more weight for more reps with better technique over time?
00:25:49
Speaker
Yes, that means you're building strength and In turn, you're building some muscle. Take some progress pictures every month or so. Take a progress picture and compare them. Do you see more definition? Are you building muscle in certain areas, losing a little bit of fat? That's going to let you know that you're doing some good things.
00:26:05
Speaker
And then just pay attention to how your clothes are fitting. So from a month to month basis, like, do you feel like your clothes are fitting better in certain areas? So maybe they're a little bit tighter in the shoulder area or arm area, back area. And then it's getting a little bit slimmer around your stomach area where your jeans are fitting a little bit more snug around the thighs and the butt, but the waist is getting a little bit looser. Like those are all good signs that you're losing fat and building muscles. So making sure that you're actually tracking because it's kind of tough to know especially around appearance goals if you're changing because you see yourself every single day and you look in the mirror every single day so you're not going to really notice those changes but if you take a picture every month and compare those side by side or pay attention to how your clothes are fitting paying attention to okay week one I was lifting this much weight and now week four, I'm lifting this much weight. Oh, I must be gaining muscle because I'm lifting much more weight or I'm hitting new PRs, that sort of
Setting Realistic Fitness Expectations and Commitments
00:27:00
Speaker
thing. And a lot of times other people will start to notice your changes in your body and in your like physique before you do. This happened to me quite a bit. And if you've ever lost any amount of weight, you probably had this happen to you as well, but you don't really see the changes. Like you don't really feel like too much has happened, but then you'll have somebody make a comment like, Oh, have you lost weight? Or
00:27:20
Speaker
are you you're looking a little bit leaner like are you doing something different or like you're looking a little bit more muscular because it's easier for other people to see it in you because they probably don't see it quite they don't see you quite as often like they don't see you as much as you see yourself so they can see those changes like show up but you you're seeing yourself multiple times per day so it's really hard to see those changes so again just making sure that you're tracking in some different ways so that you can make sure that you're on the right track with this and then the last category just some lifestyle factors and these will be a little bit similar to last week's but lack of sleep is a big one if you're not getting enough sleep this is going to mess with your workouts your workouts aren't going to be as good and it's going to make it hard to actually train intensely enough and also just from a recovery standpoint like if you're not recovering in between those intense workouts
00:28:07
Speaker
makes it harder to push yourself in the gym. And if you're not able to push yourself in the gym, you're not getting the changes, you're not getting the stimulus, you're not building the muscle. So it just gets into a really bad place that way.
00:28:18
Speaker
It also hinders your ability to actually lose fat and build muscle. It's just not as good if you're not getting enough sleep, making good food choices become harder. Like your satiety is a little bit more dampened. Your cravings might be a little bit higher. You might have more hunger You might start to have more stress if your sleep is bad, which again, it just turns into this really bad cycle where not getting enough sleep just makes everything more difficult. So the practical takeaway with this is obviously just to get a good amount of sleep, prioritize it, get that seven, eight hours if you can, and then just be consistent with a good sleep schedule. And then the last one that I wanted to mention was
00:28:56
Speaker
poor expectations around what this whole process looks like. And this is another one that is very common because there's kind of two different sides that I see quite a bit. So people often think that they need to be doing absolutely everything right in order to see changes, which that's not true. Like you obviously need to be consistent, but you don't need to be perfect with everything in order to see good progress. So you have the people on that end, and then you have the other people who they feel like they're doing the things that they need to be doing but they're not actually doing it consistent enough to see meaningful change. And what I mean by that is that you have the person who works out a couple of times this week and then they fall off for a week and then they work out a couple times, fall off, work out, or maybe their diet is on point for from Monday through Friday. But then on the weekend, they go a little bit crazy or they have one or two, maybe three days throughout the week where they're just eating too much. Like they're going out to eat a couple times or they're having a couple extra drinks every night or whatever, where these calories are just kind of stacking up. So again, they look back and they're like, Oh, i work out. I eat pretty decently, but they're just not doing it on a consistent enough basis to actually see any sort of tangible change. And so they're kind of like in that space where they're taking two steps forward, but then they're just taking two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back. So they're just kind of in the same spot, just spinning their wheels. And again, they're not really seeing the progress they want to see, which is very frustrating because if you feel like you're doing the things that you should be doing and need to be doing, but not seeing the progress, that can be pretty unmotivating. So making sure that you are setting yourself up with the right expectations and just being honest with yourself about how consistent you are. When it comes to this whole process, this takes time.
00:30:36
Speaker
I think about my own process of how long this took to get to the body that I really wanted to build. And it was not a few months, not a single year. It was like a multi-year project. And especially if you have a good amount of weight to lose or you're kind of starting from ground zero where you been somebody who just hasn't been in the gym for a while, you need to build muscle, you need to lose fat. Like it's probably not going to be something that just happens in three months or six months or even a year for a lot of people. Like for most people to really build a solid body that they're really looking for, it's a multi-year project because you have to spend some time cutting. You have to spend some time actually bulking and building muscle. And both of those processes take some time. And you're also going to have some stages in there where you're just maintaining because Life is going on and we don't just always focus on our fitness goals like we have other priorities at different times. And so you throw all those things into the mix and this might be a two, three, five year process. Like for me, I would say it was probably like a good five year process for me to where I got to a point of where I really was happy with the physique that I had built. Now, I lost a bunch of weight in that first year. i lost 60 pounds and I built some muscle. And so like you can see very drastic changes in six months of solid work, but it's probably not going to be exactly where you want to be or the ultimate goal or the picture that you have in your head. Like it's probably going to take a little bit longer than you want, but
00:31:59
Speaker
Again, this whole fitness thing is supposed to be a lifelong thing. So there's no reason to be in a rush. Like if you plan on working out for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years and working out consistently two, three, four times per week and eating a high protein diet, prioritizing the right things, then you can see really good progress if you're consistent with that stuff over a long enough time period. But I think just setting yourself up with the right expectations is a big part of this whole process. And that's a part that I think a lot of people miss. Like they think I get in the gym, I've been in here for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, and I'm not really seeing the change I want to see. Like, well, welcome to lifting weights. Welcome to fitness transformations. Welcome to like just the real world. That's just, it takes time. Like all this stuff takes time and anything worthwhile takes a good amount of time. And this is no different. It takes time, but it is 100% worth it And so putting all this together in conclusion,
00:32:54
Speaker
So what it really takes is like, if you want to see some tangible changes, I would say give yourself a six month commitment of doing these things and just being very consistent with them. You don't have to be perfect. That's not the goal. You don't have to be completely dialed in every single day, but like trying to be that 80 to 90% consistent for a good six months diet is on point. You're hitting your calorie goal. you're eating enough protein, you're working out three or four times per week consistently, most weeks you're getting seven to eight hours of sleep, like doing that for a six month period, you will definitely see some changes. And when you know that you're heading in the right direction, you're seeing like, once you actually put these things in place and you do them consistently, like, you know, that the steps that you have to take, and then you're seeing that progress, that's super motivating. And then you
00:33:43
Speaker
really believe that you can do this whole thing. And so I think just being aware about like what this process entails and then just having some steps in place in order to help you do the right things is going to be really helpful in this. And so any of these areas that I mentioned in this podcast, if you feel like, okay, yeah, that's probably where I'm missing the boat. Like just take a look at that and just start to figure out some ways that you can improve that think about implementing some of those practical takeaways that we talked about in this episode and you'll be well on your way to getting there because i think people often do a lot of good things but they're just missing a couple tweaks here or they're just not quite as consistent as need to be or diet is just a little bit off and when you start to put all those pieces to the puzzle together and start to do them all at the same time
00:34:31
Speaker
Then you really start to get that ball rolling and you start to see the most progress possible. So hopefully this was helpful. If you have specific questions about any of this stuff, you can always shoot me a message. i'm always happy to help or talk with people or give a little bit of insight about your personal situation. One-on-one coaching link is in the show notes. If you're somebody who actually just wants some hands-on help with this kind of stuff, I'm here to help with that as well. But as always, I appreciate you listening and we will see you next