YOU ALREADY HAVE THE TOOLS

 

A phrase taught to me by one of my mentors was “learned helplessness”, which effectively describes a phenomenon wherein a group of people, fully capable of solving their own problems with resources already available to them, find themselves in a state where they feel powerless to proceed.  They have, ultimately, learned how to shoot down their own approaches before they have a chance to succeed and, unless hand-held and stepped through the problem solving process, believe themselves to be powerless to being the masters of their own fate.  This is a situation that I frequently observe among trainees in the realm of physical transformation: this self-fulfilling prophecy that they lack the skills, tools and resources to be able to overcome whatever obstacles they face on their quest for transformation.  What I hope to be able to establish here is that we all already possess all the tools we need in order to achieve success: we may simply need to go about applying them in unconventional manners in order to obtain the results we seek.  Much like how one may find themselves screwing in screws with a butterknife because their screwdriver is MIA, or how they leave up their Nightmare Before Christmas Halloween decorations because they realize they can also double as Christmas Decorations (and if it’s Jack and Sally, you can leave them up through Valentine’s Day too!), or how Wendy’s figured out that it can make chili by taking unsold burger patties and letting them stew for a day, sometimes all it takes is a little creativity in order for us to effectively utilize the tools we ALREADY have in order to solve what appear to be “new” problems.  Allow me to demonstrate.

Hopefully with fewer mistakes

 

One of the earliest barriers to entry in the realm of physical transformation is, quite literally, the barrier to entry: the actual entering of the gym itself.  This is primarily because new trainees often find themselves intimidated at the prospect of physically entering the gym and being among a group of people that are advanced in the ways of physical transformation.  People that are bigger, stronger, leaner, fitter, and ultimately far more comfortable in the training environment are off-putting and intimidating to the new, soft trainee standing there in their Walmart mesh training shorts and bright white New Balance sneakers looking up “how to” lat pulldown videos on youtube.  Often, trainees want to train BEFORE they train: aiming to actually get in shape and comfortable with lifting weights BEFORE they actually join a gym, so that they can “be ready” to join a gym.

 

But folks, we already HAVE the skillset to overcome this anxiety.  I imagine the vast majority of my readers have received SOME manner of formal education (but I do allow for the possibility that some of you were raised by wolves and learned how to read through the help of missionaries, so good on you).  Think about the process of attending a school: when you show up, you are, quite literally, the STUPIDEST person there, SORROUNDED by people that are much smarter than you, because they’ve been going to that school for longer than you have.  You are completely out of your element, the lowest on the totem pole, starting from zero.  How did you overcome the anxiety of this situation?  What coping strategies did you employ?  Would that same strategy not work here, in the gym, under the same circumstance?  All these people that are fitter than you are no different than all those upperclassmen from before: they’re simply people that have been attending for longer than you have.  No one is a superhuman, no one was born that way.  SURE, there are some genetic outliers that had things come more NATURALLY to them, in much the same way that some folks are simply more intelligent than others, but in general: life grades on attendance, and so far yours is minimal.  Rack up a solid streak of no absences and you’ll be in a good way.  As Hank Hill said about Bobby “My boy here might not be the best test taker, but he’s got near perfect attendance”.

Plus he's got nutrition locked DOWN!

 

Note that I’m not saying WHAT that specific strategy is…because I genuinely don’t know how YOU overcame that.  I just know that, somehow, most of us did.  Very few of us showed up to day 1 of Kindergarten, completely melted down and got locked in a psych ward until we turned 18 (and those that did most likely aren’t reading a blog about physical transformation written weekly by a lunatic).  Or, for those of us that got an undergrad degree, show up on campus the first day, observe PhD students, and decided to just go quit and become tattoo artists instead.  And same with those of you that have every played some sort of organized sport (possibly as part of a team OF the very school we’re discussing): you showed up to practice on day 1, not knowing how to do anything, surrounded by people that were better than you, but somehow managed to keep attending and get better.  For me, it was the sheer enthusiasm of the prospect of self-improvement that compelled me forward: how awesome that I’m going to get to learn and do new things!  How awesome that I’m going to become better each and every day!  If that wasn’t what helped you succeed, just think about what you DID do to get there…and do that.

 

I find a similar situation occurs when it comes to nutritional compliance.  First, a discussion on language, because we talk about “cheat meals” or “cheat days”, in reference to “cheating on our diet”.  So here’s the thing: when we cheat in sports or a game, we refer to that to mean “breaking the rules to gain an advantage”.  When one cheats on their diet, they break the “rules” of the diet, but gain no advantage: they actually set themselves BACK.  They regress.  It’s more like cheating and getting CAUGHT: you get penalized.  So, instead, we must understand that a dietary “cheat” is more to be understood in the same manner as cheating in a relationship: it’s a violation of the sanctity of the bounds of the relationship.  It’s unfaithfulness.  One is not remaining faithful to the bounds of their way of eating.

I am SO proud of myself for thinking of this image to tie that whole paragraph together

 

So, in THAT regard, let’s dig deeper there and talk about skillset.  Now, here, I AM being presumptuous of my readers, but I am hoping that many of you have had some manner of long term relationship with another human wherein there was an understanding of faithfulness shared between you.  It doesn’t have to be marriage, or even anything named, but simply an understanding.  Within this relationship, HOW did you manage to “endure” the temptations out there to cheat?  All the other beautiful people that exist in the world, all the other people that you could share a bond with, all the other people that you could have this similar relationship with, what strategies did you employ to SOMEHOW manage to remain faithful in spite of it all?

 

Can we not employ that exact same strategy when it comes to nutritional faithfulness?  Does that sound whacky?  Then maybe you’ve had some poor relationships, either with people or with food.  Think about it: if you have to “white-knuckle” your relationship (with food OR with a person), you KNOW it’s not going to last.  We’ve all seen OR been part of those relationships that are hanging on by a thread that EVERYONE else knows aren’t going to last, where it almost seems like an endurance race of spite between the two entities to see who is going to crack first.  In such an instance, cheating isn’t cheating: it’s an escape hatch.  It’s a way to get OUT.  The only REAL issue with cheating here is that it demonstrates a lack of maturity: an unwillingness to confront the REAL problem and to resolve it by officially terminating the relationship.  Instead, cheating is just seeking MOMENTS of escape before returning back to the failed relationship.

For anyone else, this is a cheat meal.  For Joey, this is remaining faithful.

 

In turn, we discover that the skillset for nutritional compliance is no different from the skillset for relationship compliance: picking the right partner.  Ultimately, we need a compatible relationship: we need to have a relationship with someone/something that we actually RESONATE with on a deep enough level that the prospect of cheating is undesirable, NOT because of the consequences of cheating (ala cheating in a game) but because the relationship itself is so rewarding that we gain NO advantage FROM cheating.  If you’ve ever been in a good human relationship, you understand the positive feeling associated with having another person in your life that is a joy to be with, who makes you better by nature of simply being with you, who evens out your odds and brings you balance as a person, such that your mind exists in a harmonious state wherein the notion of cheating never even enters your thoughtspace.  Much like those who fail diets speak of “food noise”, you have no “cheat noise” when you are in a GOOD relationship: it simply isn’t on your mind.  How we eat needs to model such a relationship: it needs to be an approach that is so infinitely sustainable and natural that we do not exist in a constant anxiety ridden state worried about “going off path” or living in a state of consistent FOMO and regret from restriction.  And much like how not everyday of a human relationship is sunshine and puppies, not every meal of a good way of eating is going to be the best food we’ve ever had in our lives, but it SHOULD be an approach wherein we exist with such inherent contentment that we feel no temptation TO cheat.  The successful strategy for relationship compliance isn’t some sort of psychological trick or biohack to prevent us from being hungry (looking at you GLP-1 agonist): it’s to have a relationship that is so right for who we are that we have no desire TO cheat.

 

And hey, let’s just keep this analogy going, because honestly this could be it’s own entire blog-post but I know that the ones that are just about nutrition tend to go over poorly.  But it’s true that we CAN sometimes intentionally enter into relationships that we KNOW aren’t going to work out for us.  On the human side of things, we refer to these as “flings”, or they could also be hook-ups or one-night-stands, but whatever we’re calling them, these are very much transactional/functional relationships where you’re effectively just extracting as much enjoyment as you can out of another person before you go your separate ways, knowing full well that whatever it is that you have is never going to go the distance.  We see these same things in the world of nutrition.  This is a bodybuilding prep diet, or a gallon of milk a day gaining diet: EXTREME nutritional approaches meant to accomplish a specific goal in a finite amount of time before moving on to the next new thing.  But in either case, we STILL need to employ the same strategy: we need to know when it’s time to call it off, move on, and not look back.  Because much like it’s painful to see one person in a relationship who never got the memo that it was just a fling and nothing serious, it’s VERY hard to observe the trainee who is STILL eating like it’s prep-mode months after the show has ended.  Or the dude who is PERMANANETLY in “gain mode”.  All of these approaches are going to have some short and long term damaging effects to one’s health: psychological or otherwise.  If we engage in these flings, we have to know them for what they are, and know when it’s time to call it quits. 

Because even the strongest men in history knew when to walk away from softshell crab

Holy cow this spiraled on me, and I actually feel like I can keep writing on it, so maybe that’s what I’ll do in the future, but I’ve already written twice as much as I usually do, so let me give you some short words of closing wisdom here.  Much like how the Greeks postulated all narratives are built upon a limited number of universal themes, the obstacles that we encounter in life aren’t nearly as unique as we would like to believe that they are.  Most likely, we have encountered SOMETHING similar before, much earlier in our lives, when we weren’t NEARLY as well equipped to deal with them as we are now, yet somehow we were able to triump THEN.  If we take those same skillsets and strategies and employ our even larger experience and knowledge base, we’re sure to come up with even more superior solutions.