I have been extremely consistent for about 11 months, however no ever looks at me and says ‘Oh he probably goes to the gym’
Several reasons
1)Poor starting point
Had a lot of fat and almost no muscle, overweight
2)Trash program
The coach in the gym directly put me on machines without squat bench etc, 20sets per muscle group
- (Probably) poor genetics
Barely saw any ‘rapid’ progression on my lifts in the start, took me weeks to increase weight
4)Obsessed with losing fat/fatigue from cut
Ended up cutting way too long, I wanted to get ‘lean’, but since I had no muscle, never lost my gut, just looked even worse ‘skinny fat’
However I seem to have fixed all the issues on my end, and am seeing slow but steady increase in reps and weights, it’s still kinda demotivating when my friends say that they can’t see progress but ofc they don’t know how bad I fucked up and ngl I am actually getting a little excited with everything coming together, and was wondering how long did it take y’all to start looking good
For me it was about 2 months to start seeing subtle changes. After like 8 months I think I was starting to look somewhat “fit”, then after like 1.5 years I think I started to have that “muscular” look
It sounds like you pretty much figured out what was holding you back. It’s frustrating to feel like you have wasted time, but good on you for pushing through! This stuff is genuinely hard to learn, lots of conflicting advice out there
Its less frustrating and more disheartening tbh, so much effort for nothing, but I try not to think about it and focus on the present
It’s not for nothing.
You are piloting a wildly more able, and healthy body now. Fitness health and mobility are a gift. Looking a certain way is just the bow on top.
I’ve been in a similar place with respect to lack of progress and feeling disheartened. Something that helped put some more sweetness into the bittersweet experience of having built a habit but it doesn’t feel like it’s working, is knowing just how significant exercise is for human health.
My field of study isn’t fitness, but being a scientist and also a nerd meant I rabbitholed into the whole fitness thing when I got frustrated with inaccurate or misleading “bro-science”. There’s a lot we’re still learning about how fitness works, but it seems like something that is basically true (as close to a medical consensus as I’ve ever seen) is that pretty much all humans are healthier with exercise, whether you’re fat or thin or fit or unfit. What exercise level is appropriate varies person to person, obviously (people who are overweight may find swimming easier than running for example), but basically everything you’re doing is fucking gold. My actual field of research is in biochemistry, so I’m most interested in the remodelling that happens at a cellular level, but I cannot state enough how significant getting up and about is. This kind of progress is even harder to measure or notice than muscle mass or body shape, but know that it is happening, and that your efforts aren’t for nought.