IT’S NOT A ZERO SUM GAME

I was first introduced to the idea of a “zero sum game” from a buddy of mine that worked on Navy submarines, informing me that, once the submarine was “underway” (below water for a sustained and unbroken duration), happiness was a “zero sum game”.  “In order for me to be happy, I have to take away someone elses’ happiness”.  Wikipedia gives a more official sounding explanation, explaining it as “a situation that involves two competing entities, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other.”  Truthfully, the Navy explanation tends to stick the landing a bit better, and is especially relevant in the discussion of physical transformation, for my observation is that it needs to be explained that this endeavor is NOT a zero sum game and that, instead, we are all boats benefitting from the rising tide.  Because I frequently observe individuals within this sphere in a RUSH to “disprove” those who espouse opinions, viewpoints, perspectives and findings that run counter to what they “know”, which you’ll note my annoying and frequent utilization of quotations because, as a formally trained scientist* (*political, please note full degree of tongue-in-cheek) I can appreciate and understand the difference between observations and findings vs facts and proof, whereas many other social media junkies are content to hear a talking head discuss an abstract and never once actually glance at the study they hold in such high esteem.  But, as is typical of me: I’ve digressed.  Call off your dogs, put your studies back in your trapperkeepers, close your 47 fitfluencer Instagram reels and come back to Earth with us: this is NOT a zero sum game.

Don't ACT like you don't keep your studies in one JUST like this

 

What ultimately inspired this discussion is someone I’ve been following on Facebook, which in and of itself is proof of concept that I myself am not immune to the dopamine blitz that is social media.  But this individual started off at 375lbs with a sole mission to “eat carnivore everyday until I’m 200lbs”.  And that’s it.  They’re some sort of video game streamer, and that’s what they do when they’re not eating meat on camera: very little physical activity or investment in physical transformation otherwise.  He recently eclipsed 300 days and has lost 85lbs: an average of 8.5lbs per month, or 2.125lbs per week.  By almost all accounts, that’s right around the top range of the number that is constantly quoted as the “safe”/ideal rate of weight loss, in order to preserve lean tissue, maximize fat loss, and be sustainable (not a “crash diet” with a massive drop followed by an even bigger rebound).  And boy: if you read the comments this dude received, you’d swear he was setting puppies on fire every day.  People are legitimately wishing death upon him (by way of heart attack), they are hoping that he will fail soon or that he’ll put all the weight back on, they’re posting studies and reels “proving” how he isn’t actually losing the weight that he’s losing, they’re proposing conspiracy theories that his weigh ins are faked and this is all a social media stunt, etc etc.

 

And this reaction is NOT atypical in the realm of physical transformation: pretty much ANY time someone demonstrates any manner of success with ANY approach, the volume from the crowd of detractors almost always drowns out the crowd of supporters.  Those who employ conventional approaches are shouted down by those on the fringe, and those on the fringe are shouted down by those employing the conventional approaches.  Science argues against alchemy, evidence argues with anecdote, theory argues with experience, etc etc.  Why?  For what purpose?  It’s NOT a zero sum game.  The success of others does NOT rob you of your own success: it affords even MORE avenues for success.  That is a GOOD thing.  Having more tools available in the toolbox allows us an even GREATER potential to succeed, because it means we can actually succeed by accident!  We can STUMBLE blindly into success, not realizing that some crackpot idea we set off on is actually an established means of achieving success.

Like these two brave adventurers! 

 

We need MORE stories around the campfire: not fewer.  When we observe someone achieving success with a method that does NOT match with our worldview, experience, understanding or knowledge, our first reaction shouldn’t be to “disprove it”: it should be curiosity.  Explain more to me.  How does it work, WHY does it work, why do you do it?  And if none of those explanations make sense, this should be EXCITING, not upsetting!  Can you imagine how dull existence would be if we already had everything figured out and it always made sense?  Don’t you know that joy when you’ve been playing a game since the day it came out, only to discover that there was a whole hidden section to it that you’ve never explored before?  Or if you thought you’d read ALL the books from your favorite author, only to learn there was a whole series kept hidden away in a vault somewhere that you can FINALLY access? 

 

Because the truth that no one likes to hear is that the road to physical transformation is a simple road: it’s just not an EASY road.  All we honestly need to do is something DIFFERENT in order to set in motion the mechanism that is physical transformation.  Our body exists in a state of stasis and status quo until we act upon it in a manner that is different, and upon that action it reacts and adapts.  Because of this, literally ANY manner of intervention is bound to achieve SOME manner of outcome, and rather than try to tear down others who “aren’t doing it right”, we owe it to encourage their own curiosity and self-discover, in hopes that maybe THEY will learn something that we simply have shut ourselves out of.  In martial arts, this is known as “white belt magic”, where someone new to the art ends up coming up with stuff out of thin air that NO ONE could possibly see coming because it exists so far outside the confines of the martial art that it never occurred to anyone to actually TRY it, resulting in them getting the upper hand on senior students that have been training for YEARS.  And when that happens, it’s not our place to say “you’re doing the martial art wrong”: it’s on us to say “why didn’t my training prepare me for THAT?!” 

Being one of the greatest grapplers in the world can't prepare you for facing a minotaur

 

This is not a zero sum game.  We can all win.  Let’s try to make that happen.          

 

OPTIONAL TRAITS AND MIN/MAXING

In 1997, the original “Fallout” game was released on PC and went on to subsequently blow my mind and influence my life to this day, to the point that I STILL have a file I’m playing through right now.  At the time, I had grown up on a steady diet of Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs) which, though quite enjoyable, were very much an “on rails” experience: you played with the characters you were given and followed the story set before you.  Fallout was billed as a game where you could be anybody and do anything, which, of course, meant that I IMMEDIATELY built the physically strongest character I possibly could and punched everyone I met in the groin with a pair of brass knuckles.  And when I say “physically strongest possible”, I wholly mean that, because central to the character creation process of Fallout are “optional traits”: quirks you can pick that help further define your character by offering them a trait/quality that has an element of “give and take” to it.  You gain advantages in one area at the expense of disadvantages in the other.  The one I immediately keyed in on was called “Bruiser”, which was described as “"A little slower, but a little bigger. You may not hit as often, but they will feel it when you do! Your total action points are lowered, but your Strength is increased.”  Oh my goodness yes, how do I take this one twice?  I actually BROKE the system by first increasing my strength score to 10 and THEN selecting Bruiser, netting me a strength score of 12, which the game informed me was “outside the limits” (“be anything” my ass!), which I’m sure is of no surprise to my regular readers who understand my propensity to love strength AND not follow rules.  But longwinded nostalgia bloviation aside, I bring ALL of this up for us to understand that life imitates art and that we are all playing our own game of Fallout right there, and for many of us, those things that we perceive to be “flaws” are, most likely, simply optional traits. And like any good little munchkin, it’s up to US to engage in the time honored tradition of “min/maxing”.

If you knew me in 1997, or you know me now, you know I'm always picking this

Ok, so now what is “min/maxing”?  Min/maxing is the dirty trick that “powergamers” engage in where they select traits that ALLEGEDLY have flaws to coincide with their bonuses and find ways to maximize the bonuses while obviating the flaws.  In Fallout, a classic approach to this is to select the “Fast Shot” optional trait, which allows you to shoot more times per round at the expense of not being able to do targeted shots to specific bodyparts, and then specializing in big guns, which don’t allow you to do targeted shots anyway.  All the advantages and none of the consequences.  It breaks the spirit of the optional traits without actually breaking any of the rules: fully “suffering” the consequences without actually suffering.  This is why min/maxers frustrate dungeon masters and game developers, but for us, the player: we’re just looking out for number 1.

 

Which means you need to recognize WHAT your optional trait is, what the alleged “consequence” is of it, and how to obviate yourself from that consequence.  I grew up a fat kid (a fact I’ve shared often), and frequently lamented an ever present voracious appetite AND capacity for food.  I was always hungry AND whenever I ate, I could eat a LOT of food without really feeling “full”.  For those of you that remember my write-up of eating the Stellanator, a 5lb cheeseburger, in 31 minutes, this was a fantastic demonstration of these abilities, especially when considering I am NOT a professional eater, and was just a dude that showed up on a Thursday and ate a burger that over 1000 people have tried and only 70 have succeeded on.  I viewed this wholly as a curse at the time, until I got into lifting, and suddenly discovered that I had a super power.  I NEVER had to worry about recovery, the notion of “overtraining” seemed like a myth to me, and I could take on RIDICULOUS training schedules and volumes, because the amount of food I could put away at any given time was more than adequate to replace whatever the energy demands were being placed upon my body.  And this created a positive feedback loop, wherein the ridiculous training volume and intensity significantly increased my work capacity and conditioning, which allowed me to train even harder and with more volume, which drove up appetite, which permitted me to eat even more to fuel the whole process.  It was effectively the Bruce Randall story, only stopping “halfway” (more around 220lbs than 402lbs).  And, of course, I didn’t really come to understand I HAD this superpower until I got online and observed other trainees who did NOT possess this ability: their appetite and capacity limited their ability to grow and recover from their training, as they simply could NOT eat enough food to maximize their results.

Laugh it up: we could honestly all learn a few lessons from Fred Dukes

But there’s a downside right?  Not feeling full until you’ve eaten a lot of food is pretty much WHY we have an obesity epidemic right?  Yes, that certainly CAN be a consequence, IF one does not employ min/maxing.  Because I’ve learned that my strength in the realm of eating ALSO makes it that I’m one of the few people out there that can successfully employ eating one meal a day while STILL meeting whatever protein threshold I have in order to spare/build lean tissue.  Because, again, one meal a day, in and of itself, often has the consequence that attempting to employ this manner of eating prevents people from eating adequate nutrients because they simply don’t have the stomach capacity or appetite to eat enough food to fuel hard training.  But tapping into my optional trait, I’m able to leverage my strength in a manner to obviate my flaw, sitting down to one meal and putting away enough food and nutrients to satisfy whatever demands I have.  And because of the timing of eating AND the foods that I’m choosing to eat, I find a way to quell the voracious appetite portion of the optional trait while still leaning into the “near unlimited capacity” for food element of it.  I’ve become a dirty powergamer.

 

And once again: life imitates art.  In Fallout, pretty much each optional trait had its dualistic counterpart.  For Bruiser, it was “small framed”, wherein one had an extra point of agility at the expense of how much weight they could carry (THIS trait was ripe for min/maxing, and a popular choice for powergamers), and in the realm of physical transformation, we’ve seen my opposites: either the people that have no natural appetite OR the people that can eat massive quantities and NOT put on weight.  I interact with these people frequently on the internet, as I have always been a fan of the prospect of transformation by way of eating big, training hard and growing, and look to encourage it whenever possible.  And, in turn, the min/max strategy I convey to these individuals is always the same: they have ZERO concern of ever getting “too fat” in a gaining phase, because they have the superpower of effortlessly existing/achieving leanness that, as soon as they are ready to get BACK there, all they have to do is get back to being “normal” and it’ll happen.  For so many OTHER trainees, the prospect of a cut is terrifying because it sounds like existing in a state of perpetual willpower and denial (which, I’ve written on many occasions, is the sign of a dysfunctional diet, but among the calorie counters and IIFYM crowd, it’s the ONLY way they know how to lose weight).  This prospect is so terrifying that these trainees will try to engineer the gaining phase in such a manner that there IS no follow-on cutting phase: they only gain “pure muscle” the entire time and, when it’s done, can just transition to maintenance.  Yeah, that NEVER works, and they just end up spinning their wheels the entire time because they’re too afraid to eat to grow.  Which is why, for these alleged “hardgainers”, I inform them that their optional trait is that they can “full send” in the gaining phase, drinking heavy cream mixed with melted ice cream mixed with ghee in order to get in the calories and REALLY live the Bruce Randall story, because they’ll very easily achieve the SECOND arc of the Bruce Randall story where he lost half his bodyweight to become one of the most jacked men on the planet.  And meanwhile, DURING that gaining phase, these dudes are going to be absolutely CRUSHING their workouts, because their effectively going to have rocket fuel running through their bodies through the sheer amount of calories put down, with no doubt whatsoever that they’ve consumed enough energy to maximize protein synthesis and achieve full muscular development.  Yeah yeah: science has determined that we don’t need “that much” in order to grow…but isn’t it awesome when you have NO doubt whatsoever that you’ve hit that mark?  THAT is your min/max: now YOU’RE a powergamer too.

Bruce Min/Maxed so hard it honestly looked liked cheating

And there are SO many more optional traits that can be discussed in this regard.  Anatomical structure, food preferences/aversions, sleep habits, etc etc.  The point is, in an era where kids will legit upload photos of themselves online to have their “genetics” evaluated while asking if they have any hope of a future in the pursuit of physical transformation, let’s take a step back and appreciate these optional traits for what they are.  They were put into the game to give a little character to our character: make them stand out beyond simply being the guy with the gun.  And they DO give us character, they DO make us unique, but they are also RIFE for exploitation by those who are willing to be creative IN a game where we are TOLD to explore our endless creativity.  Find your optional trait and find ways to min/max it, so that the rest of the world playing the game normally can get upset with you for being a powergamer while you coast toward the next level up and perk.      

TIME IS NOT ON YOUR SIDE: THE VALUE OF DEADLINES

In nearly 14 years of writing over 1000 words a week on physical transformation, I feel like one of the very few legitimately beneficial/revolutionary ideas I’ve introduced to the conversation is the notion of having training lead and nutrition follow, rather than the other way around.  I know I did not come UP with this idea, moreso I re-introduced it, for I myself grew up with this notion and it seemed to be “the norm” to me, only for me to wander out of my cave of shadows into reality and discover that the whole world was doing it the other way around (holy cow I’m doing this allegory backwards, but whatever).  With this post, I am hoping to (re)introduce a SECOND concept that may prove beneficial in the realm of physical transformation: operating off of deadlines based on time, rather than outcome.  And again, this is an idea that has existed WELL before my discussion here, along with my own rediscovery of it: this is a notion that perpetuates the realm of REAL athletes, who operate with seasons and periodization.  However, this notion has eluded those whose “education” subsists entirely of talking heads on social media, and most likely because it does not sell WELL on social media to tell people to operate based off a timeline, because it necessitates SOME degree of patience along with actually sitting back and observing the results roll in, compared to FORCING the results to come irrespective of if they’re ready or not.  But I’m already digressing here: what I intend to discuss is that, in the pursuit of physical goals, instead of basing our training and nutrition decisions on the ACHIEVEMENT of said goals, we need to base our decisions on how much time we will spend PURSUING those goals.  Time is NOT on our side: let’s make the most of that fact.

Our relationship with time perfectly demonstrated

To begin, let’s discuss what a lotta folks are doing right now, which is what I take issue with.  Let’s take a trainee who is unsatisfied with the amount of bodyfat they have.  They decide they’re going to go on a cut.  Quite often, they decide that they have a goal weight or a goal bodyfat percentage (the latter of which they measure using ridiculous methods, to include having AI evaluate a photo of them, using a bioimpedance scale, etc) and, from here, decide that the cut ends once they’ve reached their goal.  Because, quite often, one only decides to cut when bodyfat has becomes a “crisis”, these cuts tend to start with a LOT of steam, rapidly slashing caloric intake and engaging in some serious intense training, which, in turn, results in some metabolic slowdown and burnout, leading to a cycle of binging due to starvation, doubling down on the starving and training, and frequently failing to meet the objective of fat loss.  The “cut” goes on for MONTHS, and possibly even a year, and when it’s done, the trainee may have FINALLY reached the goal number, only to be stringy, burnt out, weak, fried, and with crashed hormones. 

 

And to keep this post from getting too long, let’s do a quick summary of the bulking trap.  Because trainees want to avoid that situation above, they’re so absolutely terrified of putting on ANY fat during a gaining phase that they handcuff themselves to the SMALLEST of bodyweight gains on a fixed weekly progression while aiming for a final bodyweight goal, only to frequently fail to put on ANY actual tissue in the muscle building process, spending months and months spinning their wheels while effectively “reverse dieting” by slowly upping their calories to the point that the body just keeps revving up NEAT and metabolic processes, eventually getting to a point where 3500+ calories per day is NOT moving the needle on the scale, their guts are exhausted from having to process SO much chicken and rice daily, their body is worn out from training hard to build muscle without enough actual nutrition to support it, and people STILL have to ask them if they lift weights, because it’s not readily apparent to any outside observer.  …I guess I didn’t actually do a quick summary there.

I'm sure you're used to this by now

 

What is it that I am observing as the flaw in these “plans”?  A lack of deadline.  “We’re done when we’re done” seems noble when understood from the lens of “we’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done”, but frequently a lack of established deadline means that projects can meander WELL beyond any reasonable measure of time to accomplish the objective.  A lack of urgency tends to result in a lack of focus and intensity, something that anyone who has ever written an academic paper can appreciate.  Hell, it’s why this very blog is written weekly: I force myself to come up with SOMETHING to write once a week, because if it was just “whenever I felt like writing something”, this would have significantly fewer posts (which, for some of you, may actually be a blessing, but again, I digress).  In the case of the fat loss trainee, because the objective was simply to hit a number on the scale, and there was no timeline associated with it, those binges were just met with a shrug and the thought “whelp, next week I’ll do better”, only for the cycle to repeat.  For the bulker, with each passing week wherein the scale didn’t budge, they just consoled themselves “well at least I didn’t get fatter: I’ll do better next week”.

 

We have to be able to run out of “next weeks” so that we CAN’T rely on them.  Just like Apollo Creed said in Rocky III “there IS no tomorrow”.  This is why signing up for a competition does such a great job of producing changes: we have a deadline wherein we NEED to be able to perform, and if we show up and we’re not ready, we don’t get to move the date back.  I’ve written many times how I got the strongest I’d ever been when I had 12 weeks to add 75lbs to my keg clean and press: a challenge that seems patently insane, but by having it in front of me it vectored all of my other training decisions and had me locked in and “on point”.  My time with Super Squats proved effective in a similar manner: knowing I had 6 weeks to make the most of the training phase, I dutifully drank my gallon of milk a day and breathed so hard my teeth hurt on those squats to watch my bodyweight climb 12lbs in 6 weeks.  Same with my 6 week run with Building the Monolith, same with my 12 weeks of Deep Water Beginner and Intermediate, and same with my 26 week “ultimate mass building block”

Locking in is locking in

Talking around the topic up until this point, let me lay this out into something actionable.  It’s totally fine to have goals based around outcomes (“I want to be leaner, I want to be more muscular, etc”), but we’re going to structure the PURSUIT of these goals based around time.  “I’m going to allow myself 12 weeks to get leaner”, “I’m going to allow myself 16 weeks to become more muscular”.  This is going to have multiple benefits.  First is the aforementioned artificially induced urgency: we know we ONLY have so many weeks to pursue this goal, and if we don’t achieve our desired outcome in time, we “lose”.  BUT, in something of a twist, having a finish line ALSO makes the pursuit of these goals far more endurable.  If I just tell you “go run” and never give you an idea of how far we’re going, you’ll have no idea how to pace yourself, if you need to conserve energy, etc.  If I say “go run 20 miles”, as much as that amount SUCKS, at least you know WHAT the end is, and once you get to mile 18 you can tell yourself “2 more miles: I got this”.  It’s no different when you’re deep in a fat loss phase OR completely exhausted in the pursuit of building muscle: if there is a finishline in sight, you can bear down for a few more weeks, make it to the end, and then ease off the throttle.  And finally, having predetermined and fixed periods of pursuit prevent us from allowing these pursuits to meander to UNREASONABLE stretches of time to the point that they start having deleterious impacts on our health.  Even if we’re frequently FAILING in the pursuit of losing fat, LIVING in a persistently restricted state is going to have negative impacts on our psychology and physiology, and trying to “bulk” for a year, irrespective of if the scale is moving, it just going to exhaust us.  By having an established timeline, we give our body and mind some necessary breaks along the way, allowing us to recover and revive between attempts, so that we can charge in full of vim and vigor for the next go round.

 

And therein lies my contribution to this dialog.  Let training lead the way, let nutrition follow, and structure the pursuit of that training and nutrition around time, rather than outcome.