Progress
Last updated
Last updated
Sometimes people get demotivated because they think they aren't making enough progress. Having realistic expectations of what progress is going to be like is extremely important!
The most important framework for evaluating progress is what you're comparing it to. Very often, this is other people, and this is what makes so many fail.
The only competition is yourself. Yes, very cliche, and you heard it a thousand times. It doesn't matter, it's still true and still massively important.
Don't compare yourself with other people. They are different from you, they have different lives, different environments, different support systems, etc. It's pointless.
Focus on yourself. Focus on being better than what you used to be. This is all that matters.
Results take time, there is no way around it. It takes several weeks to start noticing changes in your body when losing fat, and to notice it with your clothing on it takes even longer. There is nothing wrong with this, it's part of the journey; you just have to be patient. Everyone wants results now, but that doesn't exist.
The valley of disappointment refers to the fact that progress takes time to show when trying to improve at something new, and it's generally when people quit. Of course, don't take the image literally and how beginners progress depends on several factors, but it's a good illustration of the core concept. Just remember that results often take time to show up!
Progress is certainly not linear. First of all, everyone encounters bumps in the road, which will slow down their progress at times, but that's normal and expected.
Your bodyweight progress will also not be linear, even if you're losing fat and 100% on track. Many different variables affect your body weight besides fat loss, such as:
Sleep
Carbohydrate intake
Sodium intake
Fiber
Menstrual cycle
Food volume
Constipation
Stress
Hydration
Therefore, your weight will vary day to day, usually 1-3lbs. What matters is your weekly average, which is why you need to weigh yourself several times per week so that there is enough data to get an accurate picture of the trend and eliminate noise.
Another pitfall of unrealistic expectations is the standard that people have. Often our body image is shaped by the media we consume, which provides a very distorted view. There are several factors that play a role in this.
Look at this transformation:
Pretty impressive, right?
Even more so given the before and after pictures are taken on the same day. It's simply the result of good lighting and posing. This can be made even more dramatic if the "before" picture is the "after" picture, taken after many big meals with plenty of carbs and sodium, which will make one look very bloated. This strategy is very often used for (deceptive) marketing.
For a female reference, here is a photo from Ree Lenehan, one of my favorite accounts on Instagram. She has way more of these, so if you resonate with the message, check their page and her other posts.
What would always see in the media and online are the left pictures, the ideal ones under ideal conditions. But that's not her true body. This applies to every fit person you ever saw.
This does not mean that you can't look better, you can. But make sure you're chasing something real.
Furthermore, most people that you see in the media are professionals. It's normal that they will have a better body than most people!
They have been training and dieting for many, many years
They often have little else to worry about, especially young fitness models
They have more time than anyone else since this is their life
This doesn't mean it's realistic for most people!
Most pictures that you see, especially in ads, magazines, etc, are photoshopped. And because apps have gotten so good and user-friendly, even common photos on Instagram, even if they aren't professional models, are re-touched. The waist can be made slimmer, abs more defined, arms bigger, the glutes bigger, etc.
To put it bluntly, many fitness professionals are on drugs. Both drugs that make muscle gain much easier, and also fat burners that make fat loss easier. This doesn't mean that their bodies are easily achieved with drugs, they still have put in a tremendous amount of work, and drugs simply amplify their results.
Nevertheless, this once again creates unrealistic expectations since most people that are not using drugs won't be able to achieve what they achieved and not have a similar rate of progress. To top it off, they are obviously incurring a health cost in order to get that extra edge.
It's a harsh reality that people have massively different natural aptitudes for a variety of things, and this includes fitness. Some people are just naturally really good at music or math. And some people just naturally gain much more muscle and strength, or have an easier time staying lean.
Genetics generally follows a bell curve (a normal distribution), meaning that most people are average, while some people are way better and some people are way worse. The latter two are rarer, and the greater the deviation, the rarer it is.
Naturally, the people that are good at things are the ones you tend to see. If you turn your television for a basketball game, that's not an accurate representation of average talent. Of course, all the players have tons of training under their belt which makes them as good as they are, but nevertheless, they are genetic outliers.
The higher the level of anything, the more talented people are. For example, in a small local competition, the winner might be in the top 10%. In a regional competition, 1%, national competition 0.1%, and an international competition, 0.01%. These numbers might sound exaggerated, but they are not. Keep in mind that even 0.001% would represent 70000 people in our world population!
There is nothing you can do about this, and it's pointless to even consider it except as a reminder of how counter-productive it is to compare yourself to others. Remember that most people you see are in the top range for their genetic ability, and their results are not standard for someone who is average.
While genetics does play a role in how easy and how good you can get at things, they rarely prevent you from getting good at something. They just prevent you from being among the best. For example, not everyone can compete in the Olympics for 100m. But everyone (disabilities aside) can train to be very fast. Everyone can look great, have a fantastic physique with good musculature and be very lean, just not at the level of someone in a fitness magazine or physique competition.
Furthermore, it's also good to keep in mind that it's hard to know your genetics until you have put a good amount of time into something. Michael Phelps is one of the best swimmers to have ever lived, but he couldn't possibly know that until he actually trained for a good while at swimming. If he ever picked up golf instead, maybe he would suck and never dream how good he could be at swimming.
Furthermore, it's hard to determine genetic ability alone from the results you are getting in the short term because so many other factors play into it as well. For example, someone might genetically be prone to be lean, but they aren't lean because the environment they are in and the behaviors they adapted go so against it. The person may think they are below average when in fact, they are above average! But that only shows once the other factors have been taken care of.
If you haven't put serious effort into something, you can't determine if you have good genetics. Yes, even if it seems really hard and slow at first!
