If you are preparing for a bodybuilding show, you have to diet. The diet will be extremely hard in the end. You’ll end up eating like 1200 kcal to shed that last bit of stubborn body fat, so you can look ultra lean on show day. Does this sound unpleasant?
In my opinion, only certain types of people are crazy enough to do this. And, dear reader, I am not one of them. Not in that aspect of life, anyway. I have done like 3 fat loss phases in my life, and they were very gentle compared to what bodybuilders in competition prep are doing. I already thought my gentle fat loss phases sucked, so that rules out me ever setting foot on a bodybuilding stage.
However, I am very interested in the mindset of people who do things like this.
They find ways to embrace the suck.
Harsh fat loss phases suck in multiple ways:
you’ll be hungry. No human being likes to be hungry. Most people who are hungry, are hungry involuntarily (and this is a shame upon humanity!)
your sleep and sleep quality will suck. You’ll wake up because of hunger pangs. Which you then have to ignore.
you have to train extremely hard in the gym, to avoid muscle loss as much as possible.
mentally, you have to find ways to deal with the hunger. You’ll constantly have to overrule your body’s desire to eat more.
The more you are constantly aware of these awful effects of the harsh fat loss phase, the more you will hate it.
You have to find a way to embrace the suck.
I think it’s possible for people who are highly goal motivated. They keep their goal in mind, and realize this diet is temporary. That makes them able to embrace the suck.
A head down, eyes forward kind of vibe.
What, however, if you’re not a goal oriented person?
Raise your hand if you are a process oriented person!
(I just raised my hand).
I have trouble embracing the suck because I am more interested in the process to get to a goal. Reaching a goal is such a fleeting moment, and it’s so often accompanied by a ceremony that I am not interested in! (For example, I have not gone to the diploma ceremony when I graduated from university. I just collected the paper from the reception. Kthxbye.)
Rather than embracing the suck, I’d prefer to find ways to make the process more pleasant.
Work related: Crunching before a deadline sadline1? Awful, because I don’t feel any relief (or otherwise positive emotions) when the sadline is reached. I only feel exploited because the process to reach the sadline was bad on the team and team morale.
Sport & exercise related: I want to feel joy during most of my powerlifting training sessions, I cannot justify to myself feeling awful, just because a competition is around the corner. The ratio of training versus competitions is about 99/1. Even though powerlifting is an outcome focused sport, the outcome of feeling happy during training is more important to me. The same goes for fat loss phases to improve my body composition (amount of body fat versus the amount of lean mass you have). I rather do a gentle fat loss phase that doesn’t make me hate life than a super strict diet that makes me feel hungry all the time.
I guess that means I have trouble embracing the suck. Not only that, but I prefer to find ways to minimize the suck.
What about you?
When no one actually dies, I refuse to call it a deadline. It’s a sadline. FIGHT ME!