It's All About Balance
I get asked several times a week, “what do you do when you go out to dinner?” My answer is always, “I go to a steak restaurant. I take 250g out my daily amount and I order a 250g steak. Plain steak. No sauce. No sides. Medium rare. Covered in salt. My idea of dining heaven.”
The follow up question is normally, “but what if you go somewhere that doesn’t serve steak?” To which I counter, “Why would I go to a restaurant that doesn’t serve steak?”
I don’t have any desire to eat exotic foods. I don’t drink. I don’t have a sweet tooth. I do not crave any other food than the food I eat. I actually don’t really crave my food other than when I’m hungry. Which is every 2 hours and 15 minutes.
On a daily basis I eat large quantities of steak, rice, eggs, almonds with protein shakes to keep myself hydrated.
If you were to put a chocolate cake in front of me I would look at it with disinterest and walk away.
However if you were to attempt to place a 3” thick eye fillet in front of me, I’m likely to have eaten half of it before it touches the table.
It’s hard to describe how little interest I have in eating other food than what is in my diet.
I guess a good way would be to liken it to my interest in gay sex. Which is to say I have none. As I’m not gay. So I’m not interested.
I’ll give everyone 30 seconds to get their “bullshit, you love the cock” jokes out.
A year or so ago I posted the results of a client who in 12 weeks lost 10% going from 19% to 8.8%. He then went to Bali for a weekend and drank a ton of alcohol and came back at 14.4% with a 5.4kg fat increase. It then took him over 5 months to get back to 8.8%. 3 months work ruined in 3 days and took over 5months to fix. Worth it? You decide.
I said at the time this is what happens when people drink.
This isn’t the first time I’ve said it. Nor is it the first time it’s happened which is why I say it to every new client who sits in front of me. If you drink alcohol you will most probably destroy your body composition.
The post was shared and commented on by many. One trainer in particular wrote a large post on it saying that telling people they can’t drink is destroying their lifestyle balance. People should be free to do as they please. Our job as trainers and coaches is to teach people about balance and make working out fun and blah blah blah
People don’t come to me seeking a balanced lifestyle. They come to me complaining about how they look and feel. They complain about everything BECAUSE of their lifestyle.
The majority of guys who come to me want visible abs. They want lean defined arms, a big thick chest, V-taper and abs. They come to me purely for aesthetic and performance reasons. None of them come to me seeking balance. They came because they want to look better.
Girls who come to me want a better butt, nice legs, defined shoulders and arms and a flat stomach. They certainly didn’t come for the conversation. They want to look better. Don’t argue that not everyone cares about how they look. These people come to me. I don’t go in search of them.
Every one of them is a result of how they live and what they do.
More often than not people’s lives consist of working during the week and going out Friday and Saturday night. Drinking and eating what ever they want on the weekend. They like to balance out the hard working week. They like to balance eating clean during the week by letting their hair down on the weekend. It’s all about balance.
Now they sit in front of me complaining how that balanced lifestyle means they achieve nothing and got them where they are, making them frustrated and unhappy.
It’s not my job to teach people about balance. Most people know about balance and they hate the results.
My job is to measure what people do. I never say don’t do it. I say if you’re not happy with how you look and feel, perhaps stop doing the things that are making you look and feel that way. If you can do all those things and be happy then keep doing them!
Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t. I’ve lived a balanced lifestyle and got exceptionally fat from it.
Achieving anything requires a single-minded focus. Ask anyone who has achieved anything of significance and none will say they had their attention spread across various things. There is no balance in achievement.
Just remember, doing the complete opposite to what you’re trying to achieve in order to balance out your life is kind of like shooting yourself in the foot while running a race. You’re only making the outcome that much harder to achieve and it’s going to take a lot longer to get there.
If you do at all.