You're Doing Enough To Stay Exactly The Same But Not Enough To Change & Let's Fix That

In this episode, we’re talking about what happens when you’re doing enough to stay exactly where you are, but not enough to actually change your body. You feel like you’re putting in so much effort, showing up, working hard, and checking the boxes, but your body still isn’t changing the way you want it to. And that is frustrating because it feels like you’re doing everything. But the truth is, sometimes you’re working hard enough to maintain the same result, not hard enough or clearly enough to create a new one. We're fixing that in today's episode

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Transcript

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So you're doing enough to feel like you're putting in a lot of effort and feel like you're doing all of the right things, but not enough to actually elicit change. So unfortunately, you're doing enough to just stay exactly where you are. Welcome back to the embodiment lab. My name is Addy, and today we're gonna do a little bit of a touchy podcast. We're gonna get a little uncomfy. I'm gonna call you out. I'm gonna make you very aware of where the gaps are. And we're gonna fill those so that you can actually see progress because you deserve to see progress. Because let's face it, you are putting in effort. But we're gonna make sure that effort is actually going toward driving change happening in your body. So we're gonna jump right in immediately, okay? I know that you are showing up to the gym multiple times a week. I know that you are strength training. I know that you're doing your cardio. I know you're getting your steps in. I know you're drinking your water, you're prioritizing protein, you're trying to eat healthy. You have maybe, maybe you have a calorie target. Maybe you have some macro targets. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Either way, you're putting in effort, your fitness journey, you're not like starting it. It has been rolling, and maybe it's been rolling for several years, right? And what felt like easy progress in the beginning now feels like, okay, I've been doing the same shit that worked in the beginning. And now it feels like my body is just it's done. It's not moving, it's not getting any leaner, I'm not seeing any new muscle. Like what is happening? And I'll tell you what's happened. When you start a fitness journey or you change directions a little bit, maybe you get more clear about your food, you're following different protocols, you're following a different training program, your body is getting a different stimulus than what you were used to before. You get what's called newbie gains, which means that you see progress like fairly fast in the beginning. But what happens over time is that as your body adapts to that new stimulus, it's no longer a new stimulus. And therefore your body slows down, it slows down the rate that it responds, which means that now just showing up and checking boxes and doing the things where that was enough before, it is no longer enough. And in fact, just showing up and checking those boxes, it's like you're putting in about like 60, 65% effort, which is just enough to maintain where you're at right now, but not enough to actually push you in the direction of seeing change, whether that be fat loss, building muscle, building dump truck, any of that. All of that. I see this happen all the time with my clients. Shit, it even happens with me. Like it happened about a month ago. It happened in February when I initially started my growth phase when I had to snap myself out of my little just comfy, cozy comfort zone and was like, I get your life together. You're trying to build a dump truck, remember? We gotta, we gotta hone in on this. We gotta dial it in, we gotta lock in, we gotta do the dancing. So this is very, very normal. It's human nature to get in a routine and get comfortable and not start slacking, but just to like start letting things kind of just be comfy. We're not pushing ourselves. And the thing about that is that if our body is comfortable, if we are comfortable, we're not growing, we're not changing. You have to give your body a reason to change. Otherwise, it's just gonna stay put, it's just gonna stay right where it's at. Cause it's it's fine where it's at. You're not fine in your head with where it's at, because obviously here you are showing up every single day wanting to create this change. But your body, it's it's comfy, it's good. You got to give it a reason to change. Okay. So I'm gonna walk you through a few examples of where these gaps are that could be keeping you exactly in the same spot that you are right now, and how to fill them. So, first things first, let's talk about calories. Okay. I'll give myself, I'll use myself as an example, right? So this goes for if you are building muscle, if you are in a surplus, this goes for if you're in a deficit and you're wanting to lose fat. Either way, this rule applies. Let's take my my growth phase, for example, right? So my goal is, as we've talked about several episodes ago, is to hit 3,000 calories a day. And where I found myself falling short was I was letting myself fall into just an excuse of it's okay if I skip one of my meals today. It's okay. I'm running behind, I'm a little short on time. I'm not necessarily hungry enough for that meal. So it's it's okay if I skip this one today, I'll I'll get it in tomorrow. And then that turns into okay, maybe like three out of the seven days of the week. I'm not hitting my calories. And the thing about not hitting your calories, especially if you're in a surplus, is you could very well just fall into maintenance. So you're doing decent, right? The rest of your meals are spot on. You're following everything else to a T, but you're letting this one meal, I say you, I'm talking about me. I'm letting this one meal just slip. And so now my weekly average with my calories is it's lower. I'm not technically in a surplus anymore, which means I'm not falling behind. I'm just staying put. And in order to push and in order to grow, build some muscle, and put a little bit more weight on, I have to be in a surplus, which means that I have to hit my meals, my calories, my macros, I gotta hit that at a minimum of six times a week out of seven. So I had to dial that in. I'd be like, okay, listen, one way or another, I'm getting in all of these meals. One way or another, I'm gonna do it. And the second that I locked in, like I'm not even kidding you, the next week, I saw the scale go up again. I saw my glutes starting to be more full, starting to grow. I felt my strength improve. Like all of this happened in a matter of a week of just tightening it up and making sure that I was following through on completing my calories for the day. Same thing for if you're in a deficit, right? If you are a deficit, let's say, for example, your deficit is 1800 calories. And so for the entire week, you need to hit 1800 calories across the board to be in a deficit. But let's say, for example, maybe you go out to eat, like you have a guideline with yourself that you are going to have like fun free meals maybe twice a week, and you have those scheduled in. And you have a week where maybe you have an extra dinner with the girls plant and you go a little nuts and you go over your calories by about 200. And then maybe you go out to lunch in the middle of the workday and you grab some food, and that pushes your calories up on another day, about 200, right? So now you have like two out of the seven days that you are not in a deficit. And so your average for the week is now higher. Now your calories are all janky. So it's not about being absolutely perfect. It's about setting up the guidelines in your week to make sure that you are set up for success, right? So, what do your meals look like? What are your snacks look like? Where are you gonna go out to eat? Make sure that you plan ahead when you're going to go out to eat and adjust your calories for that day accordingly. It's making less emotional decisions of like, oh, I deserve this. This feels good. I've done so good all week. Let me just chill out. Hashtag balance. I'm just kidding. Or even just like after work when you feel tired, right? That's an emotional decision. Like, I'm tired. I don't have time to make dinner. I don't have the energy. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You have an air fryer, throw some food in the air fryer, go take a shower, and your dinner is ready when you get out of the shower. You don't even have to put any effort into it. You just assemble and you eat, right? So making less emotional decisions, less last-minute decisions, and making more intentional decisions so that your food lines up to actually be in that deficit. Because the truth is, if you are not in a deficit six out of the seven days of the week, and even that seventh day, I'm just given a little bit of lee room, right? That seventh day also cannot be a complete free-for-all. But if it's off by a hundred calories, 200 calories on that one day, but the rest of your week is locked in, you're in business, right? It's when we start stretching the boundaries just a little bit further and we start getting more lax with our protocols that your body stays stagnant. Okay, so that's food. Now let's talk about the gym. This happens to the best of us. It happens to me all the time, right? If you are showing up to the gym and you're doing the same workouts, which I'm just gonna preface, there's nothing wrong with doing the same workouts. In fact, I would prefer that you do the same workouts. But if you're doing the same workouts with the same weights that you've used for the last six months, let's say, for example, with hip thrust, and you're putting 45 plates on that hip thrust machine, and you've been doing that for the last six months, and you're like, it's yeah, I feel a burn. Yeah, I feel it. But let's be so real. You've been hitting 12 reps with that 45 pound, that 45 pound plate for the last six months, you are not giving your body a reason to change. If you can hit 12 reps with a specific kind of weight, you need to increase that weight ASAP. Anytime, that's my rule of thumb with my training and with my clients in the program. Once you hit 12 reps with a weight, you go up in weight and you go down in reps, and you work that weight until you can hit 12 reps again. And then the cycle repeats. You go up in weight, you drop the reps until you can complete 12 reps. If you are not actually pushing your body in the gym, your body will not change. And I'm going to make this so clear, but feeling a burn is not the same thing as building muscle and getting stronger and creating new tissue. It's just not. Feeling sore, I just got this in a message today. Oh my gosh. Feeling sore is not an indicator that your body is growing and changing. Feeling sore is a great indicator that your workouts might not be the best for you unless you are brand new at doing these workouts. That's the exception. But if you are feeling sore every single time that you train, that is a great sign that you are over-training, which will limit muscle growth. Or, andor, we'll add that in, your nutrition does not support your body. Because if you are not giving your body the tools and resources, I mean food, the calories, to repair and recover your muscles, then you are underfueled and you will not build muscle. So, in fact, that soreness is actually counterintuitive to what you think that it is doing for your body, that soreness does not indicate growth. I wish that I could tell the entire world that soreness does not freaking matter when it comes to building muscle. Because when you are chasing soreness, we're gonna go off on a side tangent here. When you're chasing soreness, you are training like a crazy person. And that's not what you need to be doing to get strong. It's just not. Chasing soreness is you basically trying to beat your body up to get it to change. And we do not change physiques out of hatred for our body or punishment for our body. We change our physiques because we love our body enough to build it, to give it fuel, to give it movement, to give it life. These movements that we go into the gym and we're doing, they empower us. They make us feel capable, they make us feel strong, they make us feel athletic, they make us feel agile, they make us feel good. If we're going into the gym and beating our bodies up, that does not feel good. That does not feel good for your brain to be like, yeah, sure, I want to go do that again five times this week. Yeah, no. That's not how that works. You can only train like that for so long before you burn yourself out. Side tangent over, moving on. It is very easy to slip into just showing up, checking boxes at the gym, just doing your exercises, lifting your weights, and just moving on with your life. It's very easy to just show up and eat different foods and like kind of sort of hit your calories on some days and not really on others, and let the weekends be this crazy frenzy where you're not really like following plan and you're letting yourself go crazy on the weekends, thinking that it doesn't really matter when all of these things across the board matter. Just because it's the weekend doesn't mean that your body's gonna close its eyes and be like, I don't see what's happening right now. I don't see that we're going absolutely crazy and getting a bunch of food out and eating a bunch of processed foods and drinking a bunch of alcohol and not really worrying about protein or fiber or water. No, your body still is your body. Your body still takes that into account. It still matters. So if you're finding yourself in this cycle of you're really, really good throughout the week, you're just going through the motions, and then the weekend is just kind of whatever the hell you want it to be, then you're doing enough to stay exactly in the same spot. You want to drive change. You got to be intentional about how you're handling your weekends. You got to be intentional about making sure you're actually completing your calories for the day. You're not just leaving some calories left over or going over on your calories. You got to make sure that you are going to the gym, you are trained with purpose, intention. You're being strategic about how you're lifting these weights, about how you're performing these exercises, about how you're progressing in the gym. Otherwise, your body's just gonna stay right where it is. Again, I will say this so many times, but you're you have to give your body a reason to change. You do. You really do. Because when you lock in and you do the things that you know you need to do, you follow protocol minimum to an 85, 90%. That is what drives change. That is what actually builds your body. That's what helps you to lean out. That's what helps you to build muscle. That's what helps you to change your body. So that is your checklist. I want you to audit yourself. What does your water look like? What do your calories look like? What is the quality of your food look like? What do your weekends look like? What do your steps look like? What do your workouts look like? Audit all of that. See where you're missing out, see where there are some gaps, fill those gaps and implement fast. And watch your body start to change in the next week. And I'm not saying drastic changes, but you'll start noticing little changes happening in the next week. And then you just build on that and you keep going until you're happy. When you're happy with your physique, that's when you can get a little bit more chill. You can incorporate a little bit more balance into your life. That is when you can maintain. But when you're trying to drive change, just being comfy and coasted through your journey, that that's maintenance. That's not driving change. That is it for today's episode. I hope that you enjoyed. I hope it was a nice little call out with love. Everything that I'm saying here. She said with love. Let me know if this was helpful. If you have any questions or anything, or you just want to tell me that you love the podcast, message me on Instagram and I will chat with you in the next episode. Bye.