The Win On Purpose Podcast

When Time Is Short: Realistic Body Goals Before Swimsuit Season (Q&A Episode)

• Adam Kelley • Episode 23

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Coach Adam tackles the timely dilemma of whether to focus on fat loss or muscle building when summer is only 2-3 months away and you're coming back from a training hiatus.

• The reality of short timelines when preparing for summer physique goals
• Why losing 10-15 pounds in 2-3 months (1-1.5 pounds weekly) is more achievable than significant muscle gain
• How getting leaner can create the illusion of looking more muscular even without adding size
• The importance of resistance training during fat loss to maintain and "fill out" existing muscle
• Strategic planning for long-term physique development beyond just this summer
• Why combining consistent training with fat loss can deliver visible abs faster than trying to bulk first
• How proper planning can make next year's summer preparation easier and more effective

Share this episode with someone who's starting their fitness journey and wants to do things the right way.


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Speaker 1:

What's up guys, welcome back to the Win On Purpose podcast with coach Adam Kelly. Thank you guys for tuning in again this episode we're going to do another Q&A episode. It's been a while since we've done one and it's very relevant to the summer season that's coming up, our spring plans for what we want to do with our health. So you guys tune in.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to repeat the question right now because it's a little bit drawn out, because this gentleman provides a lot of context to his question, which is so great. It makes it so much easier to answer with more detail and more specifics. But you guys, I know there's guaranteed to be plenty of people out there that have the same question or in a very similar situation and not sure what the best route to take is. So you guys tune in, find out what it is, share it with somebody that you love, share it with somebody who's on their journey and wanting to do things the best way possible. And again, I appreciate you guys for tuning in, checking us out, and we will catch you on the other side.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Win On Purpose podcast From health and fitness, business, personal development, relationships and more. We promise you will find inspiration to help you win on purpose in all areas of your life journey. Now for your host, adam Kelly.

Speaker 1:

What's up everybody, what's up world. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks again, guys, for joining us on this beautiful. I'm actually recording this and releasing it once again on Monday. So this beautiful Monday, as we kick off another work week, you know a lot of us, especially here in Oklahoma, we're coming out of spring break so the kids have been out of school and we've probably been doing extra activities and running around and being out of our normal routine. So I know for a lot of people, especially people like me that are very routine, built and run very well off of structure, we're a little happy to kind of get back to the norm, even though it was fun, made a lot of memories, all that good stuff. But we are ready to get rocking back on track. So last week I actually took the week off of podcasting, didn't record, didn't release anything, wanted to just have a week to just kind of, you know, focus on the things that I needed to and really focus on, you know, spending time with my kids, things like that. So we are back in full force. So I figured what better way than to kick this off with a Q&A? It's been a while since we did a question and answer, so that's what the plan is today.

Speaker 1:

It is very time relevant. As all of you know, it's getting warm outside, it's springtime, Everything's starting to bud and blossom, including the allergy, so keep your Zyrtec on deck. But you know, everything is coming alive and the temperature's getting warm and we're feeling that sun on our skin. And you know we're starting to get gardens ready and people are thinking about summer plans and what they're going to do. And you know, maybe you're getting your swimming pool ready in advance, which is probably not a good idea, considering you know, oklahoma loves to throw some curve balls with the weather, so we're probably not done with the cold weather yet, but anyways, you know we're getting ready for summertime. So now we're starting to think about you know, how much time do I have left? What can I do with my health? How can I feel better in my skin? I know I'm going to be in a bathing suit this summer and if we're just now thinking about these things, well, here we are guys. So you know it's never too late to get better better than yesterday, no matter what your winter looked like, no matter how long it's taken you to actually get on board and get motivated to start your journey or restart your journey. You know there's plenty of time left, guys.

Speaker 1:

So, with that being said, let me do a little bit of house cleaning real quick, if you guys don't mind, please sharing this episode with somebody that you care about, getting this sound information out, some tips, some ideas, you know, maybe spark some motivation, some inspiration in people to start taking control of their health, to start bettering themselves. You know, no matter what walk of life that we're on, we all can do things to get better. So you guys please share this, like it. You know, drop a comment, even if it's just a thumbs up, on whatever platform you're listening to this on. That would be greatly, greatly appreciated, guys. Really helps us get out there, get to the forefront, you know, kind of fight through the weeds and the noise of, you know, pop, fitness and health and really just try to get to the practical stuff that's really going to help change lives. So I appreciate you guys there If we sound a little bit different and we I mean I I don't know why I'm talking in third person but if we sound a little different this week.

Speaker 1:

I'm actually switching back to the mic that I started with. I upgraded my mic, I upgraded some equipment and for some reason the sound just does not sound very good to me. It sounds like there's a lot of background noise, which is crazy, I don't know why, because again I upgraded equipment. So we're going to try this one back out. If it works better, then I'll just keep the other mics for when I do live podcast episodes and record with people and then use this one.

Speaker 1:

So hopefully it sounds better and I appreciate you guys for bearing with me as I'm trying to slowly but surely improve the sound and quality and things like that to make it, you know, a little bit more enjoyable to listen to without the extra static and noise. So, with all that being said, let's get into the question and answer. So I'm not going to put anybody on blast anytime. I answer your question directly. If you submit a question, you can submit it to me. Social media is going to be your best bet, coach Adam Kelly. On all platforms, k-e-l-l-e-y. You can submit it there, you can submit it to add your comment on whatever platform you're listening to this on. But there's some ways to get your questions in there so we can get you an answer. And I don't put people on blast unless you request for your name to be said or whatever. Outside of that, I keep it anonymous because it's really no one's business who's asking the question and I guarantee you, whatever question we're going to answer, there's going to be multiple people who have the same question. So, with this, I'm going to read you the question you know, because they added some kind of background, you know, information into this. For context sake, I'm going to read it to you and then, basically, I'm just going to answer it straight up as if, like someone walked into my gym. By the way, transform Health Initiative here in Moore, oklahoma, if you're looking for one-on-one private training with coaches who are compassionate and passionate about helping transform lives and transform health. But if someone wants to walk in here and ask me one of these questions, or if I was at the grocery store and someone saw my merch that I'm wearing and they say, hey, I had a question, if you do fitness or whatever it may be, this is exactly how I would answer. I don't typically like to research on these and provide extra information or anything like that. Just kind of tell you what's on my heart and how I would answer you.

Speaker 1:

So here we go, guys, starting with the question. So I realize summer is not far away and I've probably started a little too late. That's a good, just kind of pre-analysis of the situation, but I'm not sure what to do. I haven't been exercising for the last few months, probably since last fall or so, so about last year, 2024. I have about 10 to 15 pounds I really want to lose, but I've lost a lot of muscle since taking time away from the gym and don't like how I can't see much muscle definition anymore. I feel you there. Take some time off if you've been building for a while. That's a harsh reality to go through, but there's hope on the other side. All right, continuing. I'm not sure if I should just settle for the fact that I won't be as lean as I want and try to just put on more muscle until summer, or if I should focus strictly on fat loss to be leaner and build muscle later on. I would also like to have some summer abs showing instead of flab. So is this a fat loss or ab muscle issue? Thank you All right, so there's the question, guys, with the context behind it. So I appreciate your submission and, yeah, let's get into this, because that's a great question.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people find themselves in this situation. That's why I started this episode by saying you know it's going to be a very relevant topic to the time that we're in, because it's starting to get warm. A lot of us came out of sick season. You know our families were dealing with sicknesses or we were dealing with it, and then we had some crazy weather here in the Midwest and you know that wasn't very fun and you know, all these things just kind of hitting during this cold dreary, you know, nasty winter season, and now that it's starting to get sunny, a lot of this stuff is starting to die off as far as the sicknesses, everybody's starting to feel better, get back outdoors, starting to, you know, kickstart their life back up.

Speaker 1:

Now a lot of people are in this situation of like, oh crap, like normally I would have started working out and eating better a long time ago and I've been distracted with everything else you know, including election year, all that good stuff. So, um, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do now. Like I don't have a lot of time and you know, right now we're at the very end of March. So if we're our goal, if we have goals for summertime, we're talking about only about two to three months worth of time to get anything done. So we have to keep that in context because that's really going to affect how we can answer this and really what your best bet is at this point. So, like I said, I appreciate the submission, so let's kind of break this down a little bit, all right? Um, we're kind of stuck between this place of we're not sure if we should go on a fat loss phase and try to lose body fat and just get as lean as we can, or if we should just say, hey, you know what, I might have a little flab around the stomach or the love handles, but if I can build some more muscle and fill this skin out and look fuller, you know it's going to look more muscular rather than just like a dad bod.

Speaker 1:

This is a male, by the way, so no, no shade being thrown. Sorry, ladies, but the same information applies to you, but anyways. So that's kind of the situation that this gentleman has found himself in, and this is a situation a lot of people find themselves in, because a lot of people, you know they don't have a super long way to go. They're kind of in between goals and like I don't really know which option is better for x, y and z. Maybe it's a wedding or a vacation or summertime or you know, whatever it may be. They're kind of caught in this, you know, between a rock and a hard place.

Speaker 1:

So how I would basically approach this is he was kind of going into it as well like as he's contemplating which one's going to be better, which option is going to be better, what's the drawbacks, what's the pros and cons? That's what I would say, to really hone in on and figure out. Like, what exactly do you want to see the most? You know, we like the idea of being able to build a muscle and being, as you know, big and, you know, jacked as possible. We like the idea of being shredded and having abs and everybody being amazed at how lean we are. Both of those ideas sound great, but when we only have, like I said, two to three months or so to really make any impact, we can't always get what we want. We have to choose.

Speaker 1:

At this point, you really can't have your cake and eat it too, whatever that phrase means, but you can't really have it both ways. So now, if you were somebody who has never trained before, you've never lifted before and you're just getting started, or maybe it's been, you know, years or decades since you've been in the gym to do some good body recomposition, where, basically, you start losing body fat while building muscle at the same time, which is going to help improve the way your physique looks a lot faster. But if you know, you've only been out of the gym for a month or two or you have a long, extensive training history, or you've been training and you're just like, hey, I kind of want to lose fat and I kind of want to build muscle. You know you're probably not going to have the ability to do so outside of being a brand new beginner to lifting. So, with that being said, we really do have to choose which route we want to go. So what I'm going to say to you is this it sounds like you really want to get leaner and that sounds very important to you, and also you care about what that looks like. You know the presentation of that. You don't want to obviously be like, you know, skinny fat, where you're just kind of look small but you're soft and just kind of flabby and you know just don't look the way you want to look.

Speaker 1:

So, again, this draws us back to how much time that we're talking about, cause anytime we set a goal, we have to have a timeline. It's a super important to setting a goal. A goal means nothing If there's no deadline. It's super easy to push things back, make excuses, you know, ease up, compromise when we don't have a true deadline that we're looking for. And when we set that deadline, we want to make sure that that deadline is feasible and it's achievable. And when we set that deadline, we want to make sure that that deadline is feasible and it's achievable.

Speaker 1:

If you've got, you know, if you're trying to lose 25 pounds and add on 10 pounds of muscle by summertime and you've got two months, you're, it's probably not going to happen. Even the even with the fact that you have a deadline to keep you on track, it's just not enough time to make those adaptations. So, with that being said, you can kind of look at it this way okay, which option if you were talking about building more muscle or if you're talking about just getting lean, which option can be done in this amount of time? Okay, that's your first step, because that's going to let you know if your timeline can even line up with your goal. And the truth is, we all know that building muscle takes quite some time.

Speaker 1:

Again, if you're a fresh beginner, or it's been years and years and years since you've been in the gym and you start on a very good progressive overload plan, where you're actually, you know, pushing training each week and you're getting in your food and all that you know, you may be able to see some, you know decent muscle gains within that amount of time, but that doesn't sound like that's your situation. So I wouldn't try to bet on that, because you can bet on that and then get till summertime and maybe you gain some body fat or maybe you add a little bit of muscle, but it doesn't really make an impact and you could have did something differently to feel a little bit better about your outcome. So, like I said, building muscle takes quite some time. It's not something that you want to map out for a month or two months or three months. We're talking six months a year, multiple years to get adequate, you know good, high quality muscle tissue added onto your frame. So obviously that doesn't really lean us towards that option when we only have two to three months till summertime.

Speaker 1:

So our other option is going to be just saying, hey, you know what the muscle mass that I have is the muscle mass that I have, and so I'm just going to focus on getting as lean as I can and at least if I'm shredded when I take my shirt off, I'm going to feel really good about myself. And this is a lot more obtainable because, again, we're only talking about 10 to 15 pounds of body fat, although that's a large amount of body fat. When you break that down to two to three months, you're looking at around five pounds or less per month, give or take, depending on if it's 10 or 15 pounds. Let's just say it's 10 pounds, then you're looking at less than five pounds per month. That's a little bit over a pound per week that you need to lose. That's doable.

Speaker 1:

Now it's not going to be easy, most likely because you're not far from there. You don't have a lot to lose, but it's very, very doable and you can totally achieve that or get really close to it and at least have something that you can look at and be like hey, this last two to three months I devoted this time and this is the results I got. I can see differences and you can be happy with that, versus not seeing any differences because you're trying to put on muscle and then you just feel like you look the exact same. So that's why I would lean more towards hey, just get lean, get healthy, so you feel better, so you have more energy to enjoy the summer, because it sounds like summer is a bit like we're talking about abs showing, we're talking about summertime. So most likely it sounds like you're going to be at the pool or the beach or on vacation or outdoors a lot with your family, whatever that may look like. So obviously it's a big deal on what you're going to look like when you get there.

Speaker 1:

So this is really how you can make the biggest impact by, you know, pulling off as much body fat as you can in a healthy, sustainable way and then focusing on muscle later on, you know, maybe start slowly building muscle during the summer, increase a little bit during the fall and the winter and then that way, next summer, when you lean out again and take off any fluff you may have added while you were gaining muscle. Now you're going to have a whole different looking physique because you gave your body enough time to, you know, have the adaptations that you really want. But again, dealing with a short period, man, just you know, buckle down, get lean and you're going to be surprised at how you look, because what you see now is not going to be what it looks like once you lose 10 to 15 pounds. If that's, if you now, you may have been there before or maybe it's just a really you know, a guesstimate on what you're going to look like after that 10 to 15 pounds. If you think you're going to have visible abs showing after losing 10 to 15 pounds, you're really not that far off. So like you're going to see some substantial changes in your physique by pulling that body fat off to get lean enough to have abs showing. So that's one thing.

Speaker 1:

And whenever we lose body fat, if you have any type of muscle definition muscle, you know quality muscle tissue under your body fat. Once you pull body fat off, there's this like weird illusion that happens to, where, as people get leaner, they tend to look a lot bigger muscle wise. So you know, you see them in person and they look like they're smaller when they have clothes on. But then you see a photo of them training in the gym and you're like, oh my goodness, dude, you look huge. Like how much muscle have you put on? And you're like I actually lost 10 pounds last few months and so it's crazy how it has that effect on what we see, but it really works like that. And then now, if you're smart about this and you're coupling good nutrition with your diet, getting an adequate protein, and you add in resistance training, you get back in the gym, get back to lifting or lifting at home or whatever it looks like for you. But you get back to consistent training Now, even if you're not putting on adequate muscle size, just because you're utilizing the muscle again, because you're pumping blood muscle again, because you're pumping blood into it, you're pumping nutrients into it, you're going through that process.

Speaker 1:

Even if you're not going to add a bunch of size as far as muscle tissue, by the time summer comes you can really start. You know, making the muscle harder and fuller and absorb more glycogen, so it pushes more against the skin. So, although you have the same amount of muscle mass, the muscles look larger once again, creating that illusion because you're not. As far as I can see, your goal isn't to compete in like a bodybuilding competition or anything athletic or sports related. It's just more of the you know, physique side of I just want to look good and feel good during the summer. So you know, with that being said, just filling out your muscles, some making your muscles more dense and hard, from some quality training for a few months, on top of getting leaner, is really going to change the way you look and it's probably going to give you everything that you want to see. And then again, if you get there and you're like man, I really want to be bigger than this, muscle wise, I really want to be more jacked Then you, then you can formulate a plan where you have time to add that muscle tissue, where you can do it in a way that you minimize body fat gain as much as possible so you keep that level of leanness or at least close to that level of leanness.

Speaker 1:

So say, if you shut it down at the end of summer, let's say September, and then you go through a massing phase where you're trying to add muscle tissue and you do that through March you know we're talking about that's six months, right there. Or maybe you push it to April even that's seven months of building muscle tissue and even though it's at a slower rate, you're adding less body fat. So when April comes around 2026, and now you're like, hey, it's time to get summer ready you're already pretty. Maybe. Now you only have five pounds of body fat to lose, rather than that 10 to 15 that you started with this year. So now you don't have to diet as hard, you can keep more muscle mass that you built throughout that year and you may be even leaner because of the fact you stayed leaner as you built that muscle, so now your metabolism is higher. You're burning more calories at rest, so your dieting again is easier. You get leaner faster, with less stress, less fatigue, and all these things are very, very good things to make your outcome next summer look substantially better than your outcome this summer, even if you have really good results over the next couple months.

Speaker 1:

So we always want to be looking towards the future and planning what that's going to look like along the way, with short term goals that are leading towards large long term goals, and that's how, each year, you get better and better and better. So, like I said, that's my recommendation. I hope that answered your question. You know this is an easy decision to make, especially when we're dealing with a time restraint, but at the end of the day, it's always better to have some result from your efforts rather than you know no results or at least results that you can't see Now. Again, if you were sitting down for a long term plan, you're like, hey, I have two to three years that I'm wanting to accomplish such and such. That's completely different. But when you're talking about only have two to three months to accomplish something you know, I feel like it's just better to focus on what you can actually affect in that short amount of time and then focus on the rest with your long term plan, what you're working towards in the future, all right, so hopefully this helps somebody out there.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, this is an individual situation that each person wants to address, based on their lifestyle, based on what they really want, to see how much work they're willing to put into it, what type of sacrifices they're going to make or need to make, and what's even practical to begin with. All right, so cover those bases and you're going to be in a good place, guys. So, whatever you do with this information, do something good for yourself, something good for your health, something good for those you care about and, whatever you do, make sure you win on purpose. Talk at you next time.