Metamorphosis – the missing fitness mag link … ?

metamorphosis – wikipedia:
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal develops after birth or hatching,
involving a conspicuous and abrupt change in the animals body structure through cell growth and differentiation .
Some insects, cnidarians, amphibians, molluscs, and tunicates undergo metamorphosis,
which is usually accompanied by a change of habitat or behaviour.

from the Endomorph:

I bought my first fitness mag when I was still googly-eyed and at school.
I was picked on for being arty and different and thought that if I went to gym to gain some muscle,
I would be able to swing things in my favour a little.
The first magazine I ever purchased was a “Mens Workout” mag, and there it was, page after page of shiny genetically amplified muscle.
My first thoughts about the guy on the inside middle page was…
“ain’t no one gonna get up in your face !” and
“whoa, them are some short, shorts ya all wearing!”
Unfortunately for me I never quite understood that most of the guys in fitness mags where “metamorphosed” creatures belonging to a select group of only perhaps a few thousand on this great big turning ball of a planet inhabited by 5.99988887777666 billion other
people.
It was a pity that the particular magazine I had bought only sported images of super-humans and didn’t come with a content warning!

After reading about weight-lifting and supplements, I ran to gym, joined (for the first of a million times) and nearly pitched a tent the first week from not wanting to leave.
By week two my enthusiasm decreased, and by week three, I was ready to move back home.
And for f**k sake I still didn’t look anything like anyone in those mags – not possible !
(I did however look half anorexic as I ate barely anything and dropped weight like a good habit . FYI this don’t happen after 30 no more.)
I had the same routine throughout my 20’s.
Each time I would catch the fever – I would run to gym and want it to happen overnight.
I wanted to be a magazine boy !
I would have also probably achieved more if I started selling them on street corners.
My weight yo-yoed out of control – I added and lost muscle like Hue lost Bunnies and I became despondent and depressed.

There were a couple of things missing from my “routine”:
1) actually having a routine
2)doing my homework regarding fitness
3)figuring out what a proper diet consisted of = 80% of what working out is about.
4)learning not to waste my time if I thought it was a waste of time
5)what my body type was,
6)”magazine boys” didn’t rock the pages after working out for 12 weeks.

Fact is, “magazine guys” are great motivation for fitness and weight training. Fitness magazines also wouldn’t sell if say, you put me on the cover without a shirt on. Fact is that fitness is a huge business and all about the selling products, equipment and beauty.
Thats ok , it creates employment and gives us something to look at.
It would however just be really great for once just to add a dash of reality, and by looking at all the reality crap they kill television with, there must be a market.
I would have been a lot more grateful if somewhere along the line they included an average guy , who didn’t get the chance to spend his life in the gym, who had a lot of stress and a big old fat belly and said, “right lets see if any of this works”.
And then make him write an article about it, so that we could learn about the absolute hell it is to go through a metamorphosis of the body and more importantly the mind.
How to keep going at it when real things happen like,
your company is in trouble,
your boss is an asshole,
your business is not breaking even,
your drive by 2000 fast food holes on your way home
your partner doesn’t want to touch you with a broom in the basement
your cost of living spirals into orbit each day.

I find it hard to train when bad things are happening, or when I am sad.
This is the most important time to train because of the whole endorphin thing blah, blah.
But you know what?…
It’s hard to drive to gym, when you can go home and loose yourself in another crap episode of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” (those people need Jesus)
It’s easy to say, later, tomorrow and not now.
It’s hard to say ok, 45mins and burnout.
Ripping your muscles apart and drowning in sweat – sucks, it really does, and what sucks even more is squats and that you look like you
have pooped yourself the day after because you can’t climb the stairs to your office.
The biggest suck-fest is that it all happens quite slowly if you have the body type that was put together when God was not in character that particular day and your DNA spiral is a little bent.

We can only ever do our best.
Sometimes doing our best means doing something out of character.
Sometimes we have to change the habitat that we are comfortable in, displace ourselves to such and extent that we are uncomfortable and even in pain.
I cannot guarantee it, but I am almost certain that this will initiate a change of energy, and to be honest at this point in time I pray that I am right, because right now I am in that uncomfortable place.

Today I have poop-legs and an extremely stressful reality weighing down on my life, that makes lifting more weight look like such an insignificant part of the process.
I am uncomfortable in my personal life,
but I am going to go to gym anyway, because I would really LIKE to loose some inches off this 43 inch belly and because it’s uncomfortable and I can still choose to do it,
makes me a little more free today than I was a week ago.