This post was inspired by a friend of mine.
You see, my friend wants to be Skinny. She has a perception of perfection with regards to her body.
Physically she cannot attain this ‘perfection’, but she craves it anyway.
My assessment of her is that she is super fit and can outpace the majority of the men in circuit sessions, she is extremely dedicated and is constantly looking for ways to improve.
She has energy in abundance! She is a mother of 2 (or 3 if you count the dog, which is her little baby) and runs her own business. Both kids have 3 or 4 classes a week, which she also attends n support of them and she will drop whatever she is doing at the drop of a hat to go and help someone.
She is an amazing person and mother, and 99% of people would love to have half the attributes she has.
The issue is she wants that 1% that she can NEVER have.
She wants something that is physically impossible as she is born of a certain body shape but desires what is advertised as sexy and what is socially perfect in terms of female physique.
My question to her, although I have not asked it yet……is why?
At this point, I turn to myself for some hard learned lessons.
As a teenager, I was overweight. People used to tell me that it was ‘puppy fat’ and that I would grow out of it. The problem is, I wasn’t a puppy and when I grew up I was still fatter than I wanted to be, which really got me down. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shift it and this became extremely frustrating.
When I turned 16, I joined the Army. I thought this would end my troubles and get me super lean. Only it didn’t. I spent the first year of my Army career on what we called ‘remedial PT’, which is extra exercise sessions due to not being able to pass the minimum standard required.
Not only was I overweight but I wasn’t strong enough either.
As you can imagine, this added to my frustrations and struggles. To compound the issue, I was one of only 2 guys on this extra training, which brought ridicule and torment from the other lads.
Eventually, through hard work and commitment, I passed the test, allowing me to progress with my Army career. This solidified the need to be lean and strong. This episode of my young life fuelled my fire and my desire to be strong, muscular and shredded.
In my late teens and as I went through my 20’s, I flirted with strength training and dieting. I wanted to look like these models you see on the front of cover magazines, as I believed that this was ‘perfection’.
Using the latest and greatest ‘diet secrets’ and ‘advanced training formula’s’, which promised to give me amazing progress in 28 days. I also spent a small fortune on supplements that again, promised to work wonders on my belly fat.
Unsurprisingly, none of this worked and I soon lost motivation to stick with a plan for any period of time and I could never really get to where I wanted to be. This continued for years.
Being in the Army, I was fit. I could run all day and played sports, but that wasn’t enough for me.
People would tell me that I looked fine, that I didn’t need to lose weight. But these people were not me. These people were not feeling my frustrations. They did not understand my struggles, my wants and my desires.
Before I knew it, I was in my mid-thirties. I looked at myself one day and said to myself ‘right, it’s now of never sunshine. Get your backside in gear and do something about it’.
So I did.
I decided that this time would be different though. I don’t know which switch I flicked inside my head, but I decided that I would go out and search for real information, from credible sources on how to make a difference and how to shift this layer of fat which had plagued me since the time when I could remember.
A long story short, this is exactly what I did. I scoured books, sought out people who knew their thing and gained as much information as possible to make things work. And work they did.
I lost the most amount of fat I had ever lost in my life and I felt great. Once I got there though, I decided I would ‘bulk up’ and proceeded to put quite a bit of fat back on in the process.
Thus started a period of time where I yo-yo’d up and down with my fat loss in an attempt to look like one of these cover models you have seen on the front of popular men’s magazines.
In 2012 I got in great shape, but couldn’t maintain it and so the cycle continued
In 2014 I cracked it! Not only did I lose the fat but I also managed to pack on muscle (in my late 30’s) without piling the weight back on.
As a result, I decided I would go even further and diet down so that I was ‘shredded’! In March 2015 I got to a really low body fat percentage. A BOD POD machine (an extremely expensive and complicated machine which is apparently very accurate), informed me that I was 6% body-fat.
I had finally achieved my goal of what I always told myself I wanted from being a young lad. Almost 3 decades down the line, having crossed many hurdles and trod many false paths I had achieved what I wanted.
I should have been over the moon right? So why wasn’t I?
When I looked back at the path I had travelled, I recalled the recent years.
- The time I spent counting out each shell of pasta to ensure I got exactly 400 calories in that meal.
- The arguments with my long suffering wife as I demanded that I needed a separate meal otherwise fat would bolt itself to me
- A number of social occasions I missed out on because I didn’t want the temptation to drag me in and steer me from my dream goal.
I looked back and realised that this is not what I wanted at all. I never wanted to be the uncompromising Ogre who was difficult to live with. I didn’t want to sacrifice the time I had with my friends and family and I certainly didn’t want to be chained to the Kitchen as I turned 40.
But this is exactly what I had turned into, and it was my obsession with attaining what I thought was perfection and something that didn’t really matter when it came down to it.
- Was I going to get a modeling contract, which would set me up for life? No.
- Was I competing at physique competitions where there were thousands of pounds on the line? No.
- Was I trying to attract members of the opposite sex? I hope not as I am happily married. And even if I was free and single, how many women demand that the guy MUST have a muscular, shredded body? Not too many really.
It was only when I got to the top of the mountain, did I realise that it was not my mountain at all.
It was the mountain built in my mind by all the influence I had assimilated throughout my life. Through the media, my own insecurities and what I thought other people wanted of me, I had created a beast which I was not actually in control of.
It was at this time that I realised that it was time to let the beast go and concentrate what was actually important.
Sure, I wanted to be lean. But not at the expense of my life and those I hold dear.
I wanted to look great in the mirror and feel great moving around. But not if it meant that I would never get out and about to appreciate those feelings.
It was only when I asked myself these questions did I realise:
- Why did I have to be so lean?
- Why did I have to sacrifice friendships and miss out on fun stuff?
- Why did I believe that I had to look perfect to gain respect from others?
- What was it I was trying to achieve from it?
- What was it I was willing to sacrifice to get there?
It is the answers to the why and the what that made me realised:
That the media was telling me what I should look like, not what I felt great looking like.
My inner demons had driven me to obsession and I am sure I am not only with this.
It took me the best part of 18 years to realise those inner demons were not actually worth listening to in the first place and that I had much better voices in my head, with the potential to carry me much further and leave me much happier.
It took me that long to realise that I did not have to chase perfection at all.
But then what is perfection anyway? If you listen to the media you will see that it is stereotyped.
Everyone seems to have different ideas though but it all boils down to what you are willing to accept when you look in the mirror.
I am now able to accept a body that is not ‘perfect’ and still be ultra happy with the results.
Now don’t get me wrong. My story is not one of extreme change from really ‘big’ guy to Mr Universe. My change was comparatively small from an outsider’s point of view, but inside, the chasm was huge and it had remained huge for decades. This is what made this so significant to me.
Some people will say I was stupid or silly to quest after such things. In hindsight, they are probably right. But at the time, I was not to be swayed and it was only much later in life have I realised that perfection is not possible, nor is it even required.
Today, satisfied that I look great without the need to be super shredded, I now have more energy, I have more time to spend with friends and family and I am no longer chained to the kitchen preparing my next meal (or seven) or stopping myself from going to a restaurant because I can’t control what is being served to me.
I realised my why and my what for, and I am comfortable with that.
I now work with others to try and get them to understand their why.
Sure, I am all about helping people transform their lives to reach a goal they want. But it is a goal they have stopped, considered and asked themselves ‘the why’ many times before they agree it is worth chasing and WE set off towards it.
Why don’t you ask yourself your reason why….
I must go and ask my friend her why because I am letting her down by not doing so.
Speak soon, Gaz
