A while back a new client was having a tough time and emailed me the following question:
“When does it stop being so hard?”
I immediately shot back:
“It stops being hard on June 17, 2024.
At 2:37 pm.
Eastern Time.”
I then quickly followed with this:
“It stops being hard when the process becomes routine and also kinda fun.”
That’s the honest truth. Not “when it’s over” or even “when you start seeing results.”
As I say far too often, you only control the process in the fat loss game.
And sadly, thats ALL you’ll ever control. There isn’t even anyone you can bribe (and yes I’ve checked).
So whenever possible, you want to make the process fun.
Play games. Geek out on the little things: eyeball your portion of rice and then put it on your food scale. How close was your guesstimation? See if you can do better next meal.
Experiment in the kitchen. Use different spices, rubs, and marinades. Bust out your new Air Fryer or even sous-vide your shit, you trendy SOB.
The same holds true for training. Changing exercises more than absolutely necessary is a really bad idea but there are plenty of other ways to keep things interesting.
Try different attachments, change the order of exercises, even play with your grip or stance.
Trying different rest intervals. See if resting a bit longer makes you a stronger. Though the real reason I love this is it tricks people into being engaged between sets rather than just watching people point at word bubbles to music on IG.
Whatever keeps you engaged & coming back tomorrow is fair game, and you coming back tomorrow is what will eventually turn all this new stuff you do into a flesh & blood part of you.
You’re not on a diet — this is just how you eat.
You don’t have to exercise every day — this is just how you live.
And on those occasions when it’s go time or things do get harder than usual — because, yeah, that happens — you won’t already be at the end of your rope and can turn things up a notch.
In other words, YOU will control when it starts and stops being hard.
So get to work. Do the stuff that gets the results.
Most importantly: do you.
– Coach Bryan