Author: Florian Wüest / Source: Lifehack
“Can I look like you in 3 months?”
The teenager stared at me, waiting eagerly for a response. It’s a normal day as a certified fitness coach and yet again, I had to grab some flying feet and put them down on the ground of reality again.
“If I would be able to reach this body in 3 months, you think it would’ve taken me 5 years?
” I responded smilingly.In the same moment I tapped the teenager on the shoulder and we both went to the training floor together. Fast forward to today, he eventually reached his dream body. But it took him a little bit longer than 3 months.
In this article, I want to give you a broad overview and answer to the commonly asked question: how long does it take to build muscle and increase fat loss?
Your biggest enemy for building muscle and fat loss
I remember when I joined my first gym years back. After two weeks of continuous training, I saw absolutely no difference in the mirror.
I googled “2 weeks body transformation” and was frustrated by seeing all these pictures by savvy marketers.
We human beings have evolved to seek instant gratification. We can’t wait for things to happen tomorrow. We want them today or even better, yesterday.
It doesn’t matter if we talk about business or our fitness results. If we truly want to make a long-lasting change, we have to delay our innate need to crave gratification instantly and focus on the big picture.
In the book called Grit by Angela Duckworth, a predictor for future success in children was the so called ‘Marshmallow Test’.
The Marshmallow Test works this way. Children are basically given two options:
- Eat the marshmallow in front of them right now.
- Wait 10 minutes without eating the first marshmallow and get a second marshmallow to eat on top.
This is an insane test of willpower and the ability to delay gratification for an even bigger payoff, as a 10-year old school child. If the child already mastered that crucial skill at such a young age, it was a strong predictor for future success.
We all have to learn how to delay gratification better. Most people overestimate what they can do in one month, but totally underestimate what they can do in 10 years.
What you really need to build muscle fast
Your ground zero
It all matters on which point we start off. Because the reality is:
Everyone has to start somewhere.
A former Olympic athlete will have an easier time building muscles and losing fat than an avid couch potato. There are mainly two reasons for this:
- The pre-selected genetic blueprint of the athlete.
- Work ethic of a professional.
While countless of variables play a role in influencing your success in the gym, it all can be traced back to those crucial points. And the saying still holds merit:
Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard. — Tim Notke
A mentor of mine told me years ago that you can succeed in life if you just don’t give up.
You can have average skills, average genetics and average work ethic. As long as you keep improving on your craft, you will succeed.
Not immediately – but definitely and finally.
Setting the right expectations
I’m great at setting unrealistic goals and having the wrong expectations. I wanted to have 100,000 subscribers on my Youtube Channel and at the end of my first year when I started, back in 2015, I ended up with 30.
This is an embarrassing story, but I hope it gets one point across:
Your goals need to be realistic if you can’t deal with the setbacks of not reaching them.
Ending up with 30 subscribers even after pulling frequent all-nighters to get this endeavor rolling was soul-crushing. I contemplated throwing in the towel.
With the right support from my network and discipline, I managed to keep going. The channel has now grown 100-fold in those 3 years.
To find out what…
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