Back
when I was competing in bodybuilding I used to experience this every
time I'd start a contest diet. In fact, it got to the point where I
would purposely not even keep track of my progress for the first month
of my contest prep because I knew that I wouldn't see much change. Instead
I'd just focus on being consistent with following the habits of working
out, doing my cardio, and sticking to my diet - I knew that as long as I
stuck to the habits, the results would eventually come. But I wasn't
going to stress over not seeing the changes happening fast enough in the
mirror. However,
once I got past the 2nd and 3rd months of contest prep things would
really start to show and I'd visually see myself going from fat - to
lean - and then to contest ripped.
The whole process of going from fat,
to lean, to ripped would take me 6 months. And that was starting with a
good foundation, years of muscle maturity, and knowing exactly what I needed to
do in order to get there. This
applies to a lot of different areas of life. For example, if you want
to boil water. You start at room temperature and raise it by one degree,
but nothing happens. You raise the temperature another degree, and
still nothing happens. You keep raising the temperate degree by degree,
over and over again, with no visible changes... However, once you get to
100 C or 212 F then all of a sudden the water starts to boil. Now
that doesn't mean that all the temperature increments along the way
were wasted. Each degree that the temperature increased was just as
important as the next, but you just don't notice it until you cross the
threshold from 99 degrees to 100 degrees (or from 211 F to 212 F) before
the water starts to boil. The
same principle will apply to your fitness goals. You're going to be
following your workout, following your eating plan, doing your cardio,
and you're going to probably get pissed off and discouraged because you think that "nothing is happening." But
if you can just stick with it long enough, eventually the changes will
start to show. And when they do, you'll start to see the changes
happening quicker and quicker. But it takes time to get the process
moving. To
give you another example, imagine if a woman got pregnant, but she
didn't know that it took 9 months to go from conception to birth. She could be pregnant for a full month and wondering what the heck she is doing wrong, where's the baby? 2 months pregnant, still no baby... 3 months, 4 months, 5 months... No baby! What
the heck is wrong with her? She must have bad genetics, maybe she isn't
trying hard enough at being pregnant, or she is just a total failure as
a mother... Perhaps she should give up, quit, and have an abortion! Now
I know this sounds absurd because we "know" it takes 9 months to have a
baby. But this is how a lot of people approach their fitness and fat
loss goals. They give up on themselves even though they are on the right
track. Most
people will try a new fat loss program for a few weeks or maybe even a
few months, won't see the results fast enough, and then quit in
frustration. Whereas
if they just had the long term vision to stick it out for a year, along with following a proven system ensured that they were not wasting effort doing the wrong things, they would be blown away by the level of progress they could make. Bottom
line, if you can suffer through that short term phase going through
"The Valley Of Disappointment", you'll eventually get to the point where
you'll see amazing progress. When that happens everyone will be coming to you for fitness advice and wondering what the heck are you doing to look so good. | 
