You Can Stop With The Hand-Waving

The majority of verbalized excuses are make-believe. You know this if you’ve ever intently studied communications or sales as a rigorous academic endeavor. That is, when people voice concerns while contemplating a lifestyle change, the first 3 things they say may sound good but are bogus.

A common one I’ve encountered with regard to strengthening is that people “don’t want to get too big.” There are slender female athletes around 120-150lbs of bodyweight with 12inch circumference arms who bench 200-300lbs. You cannot magically “get big.” This is a biological law.

Even among the outrageously naive people who claim they “gain muscle easily,” what you discover as you continue gathering information is that this is ALWAYS based on subjective “feel.” When we do skinfold caliper measurements, circumference measurements, DEXA, etc., the veil gets lifted. NO ONE accidentally gains “too much size.” No one.

Usually, what’s going on is that a person who absolutely never takes care of herself finds that once she exercises a couple times her glycogen stores in muscles will fill. This is a momentary and finite adaptation that ends almost as soon as it starts. This is merely to make you capable of doing normal activity with muscle contraction. That’s the ceiling. Done.

Sure, those immediate changes in raw beginners do appear dramatic. Limb circumference may indeed go up a half inch or so. Then, THAT’S IT. The only physically possible way this can continue is if you are eating to grow, eating like a child, refusing to eat like a grown adult. And even then, the size gain is over before you complain about it.

But size gain is just one of many many fake excuses. The louder the cry, the phonier the excuse. In moderating conversations about any contemplated change, the top ones are time, money, energy. But they are all built upon questionable foundations. I lay a lot of the fault at the feet of “experts.” Because experts have created certain expectations in the general populace, the time, money, energy excuses appear legitimate. For people who always compare themselves to others and aren’t confident in who they are, those false expectations are crippling. The reality, however, is that improvement against ones self takes very minor and realistic but consistent work.

Yes, if you compare where you are to where some other person has arrived, you are absolutely right. You don’t have the time, money, or energy. There is no amount of time, money, or energy which can turn you into someone else. However, to improve your personal health prospects, you have a wealth of time, energy, and money.

Once you realize this, you find that every single excuse you’ve ever held up, no matter how good it sounded, is just hand-waving. “Look over here,” you cry, in order to distract from the palpable truth that you have ample reserves to get better every year, every month, every week, every day, every moment.

But if you build up in your mind this false picture based on some other supposed experiences, you’re dead in the water. Don’t care what “they” do or did. Just work your steps.

You can stop with the hand-waving.