Wake up. Cardio. Eat. Train. Sleep. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. My schedule is like clockwork; from my training to my cleaning and chores schedule, to my meal prep. A semblance of control in a chaotic life that allows a ship to sail as smoothly as possible, creating the false illusion that nothing is out of line. Yet no matter how strategically and carefully you plan this voyage and prepare your vessel, you can’t always take into account the rough waters and surprise storms that lay ahead. The excellent thing about preparation is that when things invariably go astray, as they most often do, it will allow you to remain calm and stable during turbulent times. In fact, I like to allot myself spare time in my regiment to handle any sort of interruption that may arise, so I don’t drown under tumultuous waves of emotion that often coincide with the disarray. So if my ship hits an iceberg and splinters among the tidal, I will at least have a life boat to keep me afloat. Not the most ideal situation, but survivable and able to persevere nonetheless.
Take the image displayed in the title. Would you believe that despite the differences in body dimensions and overall physical appearance, the number on the scale remains exactly the same. Even with a virtually identical body weight, the structural appearance of my body is vastly different, and looks much leaner in one picture versus the other. This is due to the distribution of muscle versus fat, mass displacement, and water intake, and while normally the numbers on the scale aren’t something I focus on, I can become a wee bit obsessive when it is part of my job to hit a certain weight. This then categorically has a domino effect where I am stressed about not losing the weight as fast as I would like, therefore raising my cortisol levels, and hence making it even more difficult to shed the excess. What a vicious cycle and catch-22 that I bring upon myself almost every single weight cut, so you think by now I would mellow out a little bit since my body is fully capable of knowing what to do, but regardless, I panic anyways. Why am I like this?
I guess you can say that despite my best efforts to be prepared for every single bump in the road, rather than having every single fight camp be smooth like butter, it’s more so full of lumps and bumps a la cottage cheese (which I adore mixed with peaches, by the way). So while everything is still moderately digestible, it can still be a smidge difficult to get down with ease and then to stomach. I don’t think anything that you work hard at or that is a difficult process ever gets any easier, I just think that we get better at handling it. It took me quite some time to feel like I had a grasp on the bigger picture, and could reign in all the highs and lows of the emotions that coincide with such arduous sacrifice, that only now do I feel more comfortable doling out advice if it is asked of me. Even so, I still wish I had a smoother process reaching my destination and my goals, but I digress.
As much as I wish there was an easy tried and true tutorial on what exactly to do in a weight cut and that the same thing will work for everyone across the board, but that is simply not the case. Human beings are all vastly different and thus will have different methods that work for them as opposed to others. There is always a healthier alternative to how things are done, and the one constant that remains true for all is just the right combination of hard work, sacrifice, and discipline. Coupling that with understanding the science of food and the process of learning about nutrition and the human body, and you will excel at all of the mile markers you set in front of you. It’s hard not to be discouraged when progress isn’t linear, because it often waxes and wanes and ebbs and flows and even plateaus, but when you persevere and conquer those humps you triumph in the long run.
No matter how chunky and bumpy my road to success is, I promise to stay the course and keep chug-a-lugging my way to the finish line. There will be good days and there will be bad days, there will be hard days and less hard days (I refuse to say ‘easy’ days), and there will be days full of the highest of highs and others with the lowest of lows. But no matter how anti-smooth this journey is, I won’t stray from my destiny because the harder I work, the more fulfilled that I feel. Besides, life would be utterly boring if everything was smooth sailing. Excitement craves texture and variety and well, this life sure is chock full of it. Hell, I prefer even my peanut butter to be chunky, so that smooth Jif is for the birds. I battle, I fail, I dust it off, I try again, and I keep going and going until I prevail to success. Wishing you reading this the strength to overcome any bumpy battles in the road you face, and the wisdom to learn and grow from it as well.
