A Single Quality of Utmost Importance

Age brings an increasing obsession with time. The scope and onset is different for everyone. For some, it starts in their thirties. And the 40-year old crisis is a tired but true cliché. This sudden urge to act works a little differently for women, I suppose. That's beside the point. Sooner or later, it happens. 

For me it happened when I turned 35. A subtle feeling of urgency entered and never left. It brought an acute awareness of days, weeks and months passing. And an annoying obsession with the past. Every day, I found myself reflecting upon past misdeeds and failures. Thinking about how much time I would’ve saved by doing this instead of that, so forth and so on. 

Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t spend that much time dwelling on the past. But I do it frequently. See, I’m pragmatic. Reasonable according to some. I try not to indulge thinking that can’t be realised or acted upon. When I ruminate, it’s to motivate myself into action. Or to remind myself not to make the same mistake twice. 

But when I think about time and opportunities flushed down the drain by ridiculous dieting practices in my twenties, I can’t deny an intense feeling of regret. Fortunately, my work proves good consolation. Without pain and suffering, there would be no Leangains. Or maybe there would, but the person in charge wouldn’t be of the same caliber. I’d be a less polished version of myself. 

Mark Manson echoes this sentiment in his excellent book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.” 

He tells a story about Picasso in his late years. Sitting at a café, doodling something on a napkin. Crumpling up the napkin as he’s getting ready to leave, a woman approaches and asks if she can buy it. Sure, the master says, for $20.000. The woman’s obviously shocked and says why, it only took you like two minutes to draw that. To which Picasso replies, “No, ma’am. It took me over sixty years to draw this.” 

The story is followed by a poignant observation.  

“Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something. If someone is better than you at something, then it’s likely because she has failed at it more than you have. If someone is worse than you, it’s likely because he hasn’t been through all of the painful learning experiences you have.”

If you can't connect the story to the quote, I won't do it for you. Take your time or read the book. Consider it practice. We could all do with a little more patience. 

Reflecting on the past has led me to realise that my pains and struggles back then were a byproduct of impatience. And that’s what I want to discuss today. 

Impatience

The nonsense I engaged in as a youth, the jojo-dieting and constant obsession surrounding diet and the way my abs looked (or didn’t look), resulted from impatience. 

In 2010, I wrote The Marshmallow Test, based on the study commonly known as such. It’s one of the most famous studies in psychology. 

“In the early 1970s, a psychologist named Walter Mischel conducted an experiment involving four-year-olds. He placed each child in a room, where they sat down at a table. In front of them, a marshmallow. 

Mischel then made each child an offer. He could eat the marshmallow right away or wait for a few more minutes and receive another one. Almost everyone decided to wait. Mischel then left the room for twenty minutes.

While a few of the four-year-olds were able to resist the temptation for up to fifteen minutes, many lasted less than one minute. Others just ate the marshmallow as soon as Mischel left the room.

This was a test of self-control. If the child wanted to achieve the goal of receiving another marshmallow, then he needed to temporarily ignore his feelings and delay gratification for a few more minutes. What this study showed was that some children at the early age of four were much better at this than others.”

I’d then go on and talk about tactics used by successful children, drawing parallels to dieting, and arguing that distractions make dieting easier. Which is true. 

But the more important point flew over my head. Or maybe I just choose to talk about distractions, because that's an easier point to make. Honestly can't remember. 

Anyway, the study showed that the ability to delay gratification strongly predicts success later in life. This wasn’t known back then, but concluded through follow-up studies decades later.  Children that didn’t eat the marshmallow right away, were better off in almost every conceivable regard. They were more successful, more intelligent, competent and better liked than their impatient peers.  

These studies showed that the ability to delay gratification is one of the strongest predictors of future success. Some argue that it’s actually the single strongest predictor of success. 

In modern times, Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence, has reframed delayed gratification as cognitive control. 

But we can simply reframe it as patience. 

Patience

Throughout my first decade of cutting, I did many stupid things in the name of impatience. Which is partly why I needed a full decade of trying before I finally got there. Wasn’t until I tried a simple and boring approach that I was able to see consistent progress. 

What did I do? Quit telling myself I’m a special case. Stopped deluding myself I could reach my goal in half the time by doing -1000 calories per day instead of -500. 

More importantly, I started being honest with myself. Which included acknowledging all my past failures as that, failures. Not bad genetics, not lack of steroids and not the fault of someone else.  “Someone else” being whoever brought bagels to the photoshoot instead of low-fat cottage cheese and iced protein shakes. Or whoever else I could blame for backsliding and ruining my diet. 

This didn’t solve everything, but it solved a lot. Intermittent fasting solved the rest. Rest in this case meaning the difference between lean and very lean. Something I always struggled with in the past.

This shouldn’t be interpreted as intermittent fasting being the magic bullet. Finding your pattern, a diet that clicks, is the magic bullet. For me it happened to be intermittent fasting. And because the nutritional knowledge back then was still stuck in the middle ages, it just so happened I had to discover it for myself. 

Everything else was already in place. I knew calories, macros, and all kinds of rights and wrongs like the back of my hand. More importantly, I had patience. Those who come across intermittent fasting today, don’t. Like gifting a Lamborghini to a spoiled brat who don’t know how to drive, that’s a problem.

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Two decades of coaching and dieting has taught me many things. First decade, learned about diet. Basics and advanced, first half. Patience and what works, other half. 

In my second decade, I learned about people. How they work and how they don’t work. 

My favourite lessons concern letters, sentences and phrases. Specifically, emails from countless clients throughout the years. With time, you learn the patterns. By reading, you learn the person.  You can tell an awful lot about a person through their personal dictionary and writing style. A fair to middling grasp of psychology helps. 

Most revealing of all are questions. Why, what and how people ask these shows far more than concerns and interests. Beneath the exterior, worlds waiting to be explored. 

I have a very good grasp about people who want to do things quickly. Because nothing predicts failure as much as impatience. Nothing reveals experience - specifically, lack thereof  - like the need to do things fast. 

And just to be clear, I'm talking about dieting and to some extent, bulking, because that's what I know. Nothing good ever comes from impatience. I see it everywhere and here's no different. This article started as a response (Q&A) to someone asking about aggressive cuts. 

How would I setup a 4-week pre-vacation diet? An “aggressive cut.” I wouldn’t. Not because it can’t be done. No, because I teach success, and success doesn’t start by indulging stupid and ill-conceived ideas. And I know exactly how this one ends. 

The buck doesn’t stop at aggressive cuts. After six weeks on Patreon, I’ve lost count of the times I wanted to wring someone’s neck through the screen. Guys eating 1300-1500 calories a day, wondering if it’s too drastic. Mismatched calorie intakes relative to body weight aren’t the exception, it’s seemingly the norm. 

Not for lack of information. The formula for maintenance, BW (kg) x 30, is right there. Literally in front of your face. I could screenshot it, mark it with a red pencil, and insert it below. But that would be pointless. 

Because you're not illiterate and you know basic math. You’re just me 10-15 years ago. Trying to hack the system. I know how you think and you’re welcome to try. Because learning the hard way is often the only way. 

The most important distinction between you and one of my clients lies not in secret macros and perfect calorie intakes. It lies in me setting the pace and saying no to their dumb ass ideas. But since you can’t afford the luxury of having me around, there’s no one to prevent you from straying. No problem. Let me throw you a rope. 

Practice

Start practicing, stop failing. Summer’s two months away. Begin now. Count on losing no more than 2-2.5% body fat per month. If you’re 15% now, you’ll look good at the beach when June comes around. Keep it up and you’ll turn heads in August. Even if you’re 20% body fat now, you’ll look great in August. 

A few of you will heed this advice and find success. Most won’t. Good. Learn the hard way. The best way. Because pain and regret lasts longer than books and words of advice. I’m pained by memories, burdened by regret, because I sacrificed a lot in the name of vanity and impatience. I find consolation here; past failure’s writing me a fat check every month and I’ve more clients than I can handle. 

But what consolation will you find in those wasted years? None, because all that bullshit was for nothing. And from now on, you'll remember I gave you a fair warning. Yet you still went ahead and fucked up. With yourself to blame and no valid excuse, here's a "fuck you" from me to the future you. Add it to your regrets. 

You have it easy. Back in my day, people thought breakfast and six meals a day was as obvious as the sun and the moon. If you wanted facts, you had to go find them yourself. But you get every conceivable fact and detail served on a silver platter. Yet here you are, asking dumb questions and doing stupid diets. 

I have a lot of patience for some things in life. I have zero for lazy.

Summary

• You’re not special and you can't hack it. Cut the shit. Stop trying to finesse your way through diets by eating like a girl. 
• Doing things faster is doing things slower. Time saved on an aggressive cut is time added undoing inevitable failures. Whether those occur during or after the diet is beside the point. They do, is.
• Practice patience. If you need to ask how, read the article again. Don’t ask me because I won’t lay it out for you.
• Embrace the process. Forget the weeks. That's the way forward and a way to learn without missing out. Perhaps the best way after all.