I was on holiday last week and ended up watching a couple of builders repair an old stone building.
Rock and roll, I know.
There wasn’t much to it.
One bloke laid the brick.
The other checked it.
Brick after brick.
Then one went in wrong.
He looked at it for about two seconds, pulled it back out, scraped a bit of mortar off, put it back in and carried on.
No hissy fit.
No kicking the wall over.
No “we’ll start again Monday.”
Just one small correction and on with the job.
It made me laugh because that’s the complete opposite of how most people treat fat loss.
One biscuit with your brew.
“Sod it.”
Miss one gym session because work ran over.
“I’ve fallen off.”
Go away for the weekend.
“I’ll get back on it Monday.”
You haven’t fallen off anything.
You’ve just laid one wonky brick.
The mistake isn’t the biscuit.
It isn’t missing one session.
It isn’t the takeaway.
The mistake is convincing yourself you’ve ruined everything.
That’s the bit that keeps people overweight.
Not the pizza.
The three-day pity party afterwards.
I’ve done exactly the same.
Years ago I’d miss one workout and think I’d broken my routine.
Looking back, it’s daft.
As if one Tuesday off somehow erased years of training.
It didn’t then.
It doesn’t now.
Your body doesn’t care about one meal.
It cares what you do over the next month.
One Chinese on a Saturday won’t make you fat.
Eating like it’s still Saturday on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday probably will.
That’s the difference.
The members who get the best results aren’t the ones with the most willpower.
They’re usually the ones who recover the quickest.
They don’t waste time feeling guilty.
They don’t try and starve themselves the next day.
They don’t spend Monday “being good” because they were “bad” at the weekend.
They just get straight back to normal.
That’s the trick.
Not a detox.
Not fasting for 18 hours because you had dessert.
Not smashing yourself with an extra hour on the treadmill.
Just…
Eat your normal breakfast.
Hit your protein.
Drink your water.
Go for your walk.
Turn up to your next session.
Repeat.
That’s it.
It’s boring.
But boring works.
Life is always going to get in the way.
The kid keeps you awake half the night.
Your boss wants something at five o’clock.
Your mates book a curry.
Someone brings a box of Krispy Kremes into work.
None of that is unusual.
It’s normal.
So your response needs to become normal as well.
Have the meal.
Enjoy the birthday.
Miss the odd session if you genuinely have to.
Then crack on.
Don’t spend three days beating yourself up over one decision.
The builders weren’t trying to lay the perfect brick.
They were trying to finish the wall.
You should think about your body the same way.
One meal won’t build it.
One meal won’t ruin it.
One workout won’t transform it.
One missed workout won’t wreck it.
Keep laying bricks.
Eventually, you stop looking at the wall and realise you’ve built a house.
One bad day never got anyone stuck.
Giving up after it has.
-Ryan