The Messy Middle: When It Feels Like Nothing Is Happening

The messy middle is the part of your fitness journey where it feels like nothing is happening. You’re putting in the work, staying consistent, making the hard choices, but the results still don’t feel like they’re showing up fast enough. But the messy middle is also where you become the woman who can actually hold the physique you want. You don’t get to skip this part, because the only way through it is to go through it.

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The messy middle is where you are no longer running on the excitement of starting, but you're not yet getting the dopamine of seeing the full effect of what you're doing. And so it feels very discouraging because you're stuck in the messy middle. Everyone's so obsessed with the start and the finish, but it's the middle where the work is done, but it's the most discouraging and frustrating part. Welcome back to the embodiment lab. My name is Addy, and today we are talking about the messy middle. You might be wondering, Addy, what the heck is the messy middle? What are you, what are you talking about? Okay. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to paint a little picture. And I want you to think of like a you where the tops of the U are like kind of extended out to the side a little bit, right? When you're starting a fitness journey, you're on like the left side of the U. And it's like up high. It feels good. It's exciting. You're looking forward to creating this new lifestyle and this new identity and building your dream body and all of these things and these results that you're going to get from it. It's so wonderful and exciting. And it's like the anticipation of starting. And then on the other side of the U, there's results where you have the built, sculpted body with the lean and defined arms and the washerboard abs and the non-existent waist and the fat glutes and the toned and strong legs. Like that's the other side, right? Where you feel lean and snatched and good and exciting, and it feels so good to look so good and feel good. The part in the middle is the dip. This is the part where most people give up, but it's just the messy middle. You can't get from the left side to the right side of the U without going through the messy middle. The only way through the messy middle is literally just through. It's just going, walking through it, keep showing up and doing the things that you've been doing, tightening up a couple loose ends, honing in on a few things, dialing in some other things, like all of these things, right? That's how you get to the other side of the U. But the middle, like it feels it feels boring, it feels repetitive, it feels uncertain. And a lot of the times it feels discouraging and frustrating because this is the part where you're going to the gym multiple times a week, you are working out, you're challenging your body, you're sweating, you're feeling exhausted, you're feeling the soreness. Maybe even you're not feeling the soreness. This is also a very common thing where you are chasing this feeling of accomplishment, of productivity, of feeling like, okay, yeah, I did something. But if you get more realistic with yourself, understanding that progress does not always feel productive. Progress does not always feel like soreness. And in fact, soreness should not be an indicator of progress. Soreness is an indicator of, okay, we are underfueling your body because you're not getting enough to be able to repair and recover your muscles. It could also be a sign of overtraining. Both of those things will hinder your progress. So soreness is not something that you want to chase. The middle is also where you're putting in effort with your nutrition. You're making choices around your food that feel challenging. It feels annoying to want to make the good choices. It feels hard. It feels boring because you want to enjoy the fun foods. You want to eat something besides rice or vegetables or whatever. You want to have the donut. You want to go out and have a burger, but it feels frustrating because you have to continue to have discipline and tell yourself, no, that feels frustrating. You're tracking calories, you're aiming for a certain number of calories for the day with your macros, with your protein, with your fiber, you're drinking your water, you're getting your steps in, you're doing your cardio, you're doing your all of these things, right? It gets really mundane, it gets really repetitive, and it goes on for longer than you want it to. But the messy middle is not proof that what you're doing isn't working. It is simply the gap between the work that you're putting in and the moment that your body starts showing you the work that you're actually putting in. People quit oftentimes in this messy middle because they expected the effort to equal an immediate change. Like, okay, cool, I've been on this for two weeks. Why don't I look any different? I've been working out for two weeks. Why don't I see my glutes? I've been eating vegetables and fruits for the last two weeks. Why don't I see my abs? Why is the scale up a pound or two? All of these things. And then instead of just staying the course, people will quit because in their head, that's proof that it's not working. But it's simply because they're misinterpreting the messy middle as failure. It's not failure, it's just the middle. Something I wish a lot more people realized. Maybe a lot of people know this, but they don't know it. And what you need to do is commit this to heart, to memory, tattoo it on your forehead so you can see it in the mirror every single morning. But progress is not linear. It is not just a straight arrow shot directly up into the sky. It is a squiggly line. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down, sometimes it goes back up, sometimes it goes back. You know what I mean? It goes up and down. Progress is never linear. And I'll give you an example straight out of my story. As we all know, I'm in a growth phase. I started at 136. And as of lately, I have seen the number go as high as 144, which is really, really cool. But just this week, I mean, I weigh myself every morning to every other morning. It's not like a schedule thing. It's not like a consistent thing. But like I do like to see the fluctuations on the scale. I do like to see what happens to my body every single day. And just this week, I want to say Monday, I woke up and the scale was 142. Tuesday, I woke up and it was 144. Wednesday, I woke up, it was 143. This morning I woke up and it was 143.4. Just in the last four days, the scale has fluctuated, two pounds up and down. Your body is not meant to live at one specific weight. There's gonna be a range. It's gonna go up and down. It's gonna depend on what you did the day before. It's gonna depend on when you ate your last meal last night. It's gonna depend on how your food digested overnight. How did you sleep? Because if you didn't sleep very good, your digestion is not going to operate very functionally. And that just means that more food is just sitting in your gut. But the problem is that most people will step on the scale the next day and it's up two pounds and they automatically think, okay, I'm I fucked up. I gained fat when that's not the case. Your body could be holding on to extra carbs, extra water. Not to say that carbs are a bad thing. Carbs are literally just doing what carbs are meant to do. Sometimes, if, like, for example, you go out to eat and you had a more like carb-heavy meal, your body is gonna store those carbs in your muscles, which is why it's really, really helpful to have extra muscle mass in your body because then your body can do this. It's a really good thing. Your body's supposed to do this, but your body will store carbs in your muscle bellies, and those carbs will draw water into your muscles, which will make them appear fuller. This is just water weight. But the thing about water weight is it goes away, so it's not permanent. But a lot of people will step on the scale and think, holy crap, I fucked up and this is permanent, and then fluctuate the other direction and go extreme. I need to fast until 11 a.m. I need to go and do a bunch of cardio and do all this. And then what you're doing is you are putting more stress on your body, more stress on your digestion, more inflammation in your body. You are taxing your body with more stress of over-exerting energy when it doesn't really have enough to give. And that just causes more harm in the long run. And then you're gonna lead to more fluctuations. How you deal with that fluctuation is you step on the scale and it's two pounds higher. You go, okay, cool. That's a little annoying. Whatever, brush it off. Go eat your breakfast. Go drink your water. Go for a walk. Go do your normal workout. Eat your normal meals. And then you'll wake up the next morning and it'll be at a different number, lower. This scale will fluctuate. And I need you to remember this always. It will fluctuate when you reach your goal. It will fluctuate during the messy middle. It will fluctuate always. Your body will live in this range. Right now, mine's at the range of 142 to 144. That's just where it is. When you're in this messy middle, there's a lot that's actually happening in your body. Right? There are a lot of things under the surface that you cannot see, but your body is learning what this consistency is. Your digestion is adjusting. Your metabolism is learning how to adapt and respond to different protocols, responding to a different amount of food. You're building muscle, your strength is increasing, right? So you're literally just adding tissue to your body slowly over time, but that tissue is going to take up weight. Hunger cues are regulating, your relationship with food is shifting. You're learning how to make less emotional decisions. And this messy middle is a really, really great opportunity to learn how to handle those emotions that you're dealing with, the stress that you're dealing with, learning how to emotionally regulate and make more decisions from a logical standpoint rather than an emotional one. Your identity is changing. This is a really, really big one and a really key piece of making sure that your results are permanent. Because it's not just about achieving the result and then going back to who you were before. Because who you were before doesn't know how to handle the physique that you're building, right? It's going through the process of building this physique that transforms you into the kind of person who can hold this physique. Because if you were able to have that physique as your previous self, you would have the physique. The thing is that you have to go through the process to have that identity shift so that you know how to hold the physique that you are building. Because the reason you don't have the physique that you want is because you don't know how to hold it. Ooh, that's a bar. That is so good. But yeah, the result, it's not visible because you're not there yet. You are in the messy middle where it feels frustrating, it feels boring, it feels like you're putting in all this effort and not actually seeing anything. But this is exactly what you need to go through in order to get to the other side. The biggest mistake that I see in this messy middle is making emotional decisions. The biggest mistake I see is making emotional decisions, right? You feel frustrated, you feel like you're failing, you feel like you're messing it up. And so you make rash decisions. And that could be one of two directions. You could be like, well, this isn't really working. So what's the point, anyways? And go out and eat a burger and fries and a milkshake and get all of this shit and go above and beyond with your calories. Yeah, that's not gonna get you closer to your goals. Or you could go in the other direction where you're like, I need to restrict, I need to make my body respond, I need to go burn a shit ton of calories, and I'm gonna make my body change because I'm sick and tired of being here. No, no, no. All of that, both directions, will not get you where you want to go. The only way out of the messy middle is through. That is the only way. So instead of feeling frustrated and agitated that you're not visibly seeing things happen, here's some other things to look at. A fire truck just drove by and like blared its horn. I don't know if the mic could pick that up, but in case it did, just wanted to say something. But here are some things that you can focus on instead of what you feel like isn't actually happening. Okay. Some invisible markers, if you will. Are your lifts going up? Are you getting stronger? Are you lifting more weight than you did a month ago? Are you recovering better? Like we talked about in the beginning. If you are not feeling as sore, that is a fantastic sign. That's a good sign. That's a good thing. Are you hitting more protein consistently? Are you getting less reactive around food? Are you learning how to show up even when you don't feel motivated? Are your clothes fitting differently? Are you feeling more stable with your routine? Is food feeling easier and more automatic and not taking as much brain power? Are you getting better and not spiraling after eating a burger? All of this is so, so good for you. And it is an amazing thing to focus on before you start seeing changes happen in the mirror and on the scale. I cannot tell you how many times that my clients hit this point and they're like, Addie, I feel like nothing is happening. And then two, four weeks later, everything starts catching up, and like you put their photos side by side, and there's drastic changes there, right? What you need to do is get lost in the process. Close your eyes, enjoy the process, learn what it feels like to be in a good routine, to be nourishing your body with good food, to be training and moving your body in a way that feels good and empowering. Learn to enjoy the process. Because when you make it something that's fun and enjoyable, then you can just kind of turn your brain off and go on autopilot. That makes it less stressful for you day to day because you already have other things to worry about. Don't add this to your plate. Let it become a routine, build it into your life and let it just happen on autopilot. And the next thing you know, you wake up six months to a year from now and you're like, holy shit, look at me go. I did that because it's so much more than just hyper focusing and hyper-analyzing absolutely everything that you're doing and absolutely everything about your body, and reminding yourself every single day how much you hate where you're at. Zoom out, close your eyes, enjoy the moment, enjoy the journey because it's more about the journey and about the person that you're becoming throughout the process over just getting to the finish line. And I know that's so cliche, but it is so true. So if you've gotten to this point in the episode, I just want you to know that if you feel like you are in the messy middle, it is not a sign that you are behind, it's not proof that you are failing, it is simply the required part of becoming the woman who actually keeps the result that you are building. You do not become the woman with the results at the finish line without going through the messy middle. You become her in the messy middle. When it feels like nothing is happening, when it doesn't feel exciting, and you keep showing up anyways. That is it for today's episode. I hope that you enjoyed. I hope this was encouraging. I hope this brought you some clarity as to what's happening if you feel like nothing is happening. Because a lot of times people think that they're in a plateau when it's really just hey, we are in the boring part where it feels like nothing's happening, and you just gotta keep going, buckle up, keep going. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. Let me know if you did over on Instagram, and I will chat with you in the next one. Bye.