One Rock At A Time
I almost broke my foot this weekend.
We’re starting the process of re-doing our backyard and we have a brick fire pit that we need to get rid of.
The bricks are all different sizes. Some are huge, some are pretty tiny and some are just regular sized bricks. It made a cool looking fire pit but it’s time to upgrade.
So I started moving the bricks from the middle of the backyard to the side, where I can organize them and figure out a way to get rid of them...or to re-use them.
When I first started moving the bricks I took them one by one.
I took the big bricks first, since they require the most energy and concentration. I figured by the time I moved all these hefty bastards the smaller ones would feel like I was carrying nothing.
It was easy, it was sustainable and I could have done it all day.
After about a half hour I started to get antsy and anxious.
I wanted this to go faster, I just wanted to be done. I wanted to be THERE. And I wanted to be there NOW.
So after some time I started carrying two bricks at a time. I would take a small brick and stack it on top of a big brick.
It worked for a few trips and my confidence boomed.
So I started carrying 3 bricks at a time.
I took a small brick, stacked it on top of a regular brick and then stacked that on top of a big brick.
And…
Well, that only lasted about ¼ of a trip because the top two bricks fell off and were millimeters away from smashing my bare foot.
Luckily I moved my foot out of the way, and I avoided some ego crushing damage.
I should have stuck to my gameplan and moved the big bricks one at a time, then moved onto the smaller details of the tinier bricks. But my overthinking got me ahead of myself.
And this reminded me of a fundamental truth of weight loss or body recomposition.
You should only move one brick at a time.
When you move one brick you can do it forever. It’s kind of hard at first, but after a few trips it’s pretty easy. You settle into a nice rhythm and you can almost do it mindlessly.
If you’re patient you can carry one brick, or lose one pound, over the course of time like clockwork and eventually you’ll be where you want to be.
The bricks will be against the fence and your weight will be exactly where you want it to be.
The problem is that whole “course of time” and “patience” thing.
So first off, what are these metaphorical bricks you keep referencing, Pat?
Well the big bricks are the most important. They’re your diet and lifestyle. They’re the things that if you take care of you KNOW you will reach your goal weight. They’re also the most difficult to consistently carry.
And they’re big so they also require the most energy.
The big bricks are the things like your daily caloric intake, how much you sleep, how you deal with stress, how much water you drink, how often you’re physically active (not just at the gym).
The things that need to become habits in order for you to live a healthier lifestyle and build a better looking body. If you can’t move these big bricks you have no shot at moving the smaller bricks, and even if you do they won’t move the needle.
The regular sized bricks are things like the details of your training program. Does it really matter if you do 3 or 4 sets of curls if your diet is shit? No, it doesn’t matter at all. The regular sized bricks are still important, but their efficacy relies on the big bricks being moved. If you haven’t moved the big bricks the medium bricks aren’t going to matter too much.
The tiny bricks are the things like your supplement intake. They only matter if you’ve nailed moving the big and medium bricks. If you can’t move a big brick, moving a tiny brick won’t make any difference at all. Despite what your instagram feed tells you.
The tiny bricks are the details that matter when you’re already a lifestyle monster, train hard and have a near perfect diet. Until then they’re just little distractions.
Your problem isn’t the bricks themselves. Your problem is your perception and expectations of the bricks. You don’t want to put as much effort into carrying the big, boring bricks. You want to find a cheat code to pass over them and move onto the cooler bricks- the smaller ones.
We get bored carrying one brick, and we get cocky. We think we can carry two bricks at a time.
And realistically we can do that and it works.
But we get even cockier.
We think :
“This new pre-workout sounds great, I can take this even if I’m only sleeping 5 hours a night and I’ll get jacked!”
or
“This weight isn’t coming off fast enough, if I can survive on 1,600 calories a day I can DEFINITELY survive on 1,400 calories a day!”
Or
“I’m not getting jacked enough, maybe I should start working out twice a day?”
And that’s when we almost break our toe.
This is when you get into trouble with extreme behaviors like:
-”I’ll just cut all carbs from my diet.”
-”I’ll just skip breakfast and have a shake for lunch.”
-”I’ll start doing twice a day workouts without refueling.”
-”Keto.”
These are all sexy, meme-able options. But really they don’t mean shit unless they rest upon a healthy, big brick foundation of lifestyle, diet, stress management and physical activity.
You can’t “hack” weight loss, muscle gain or just your damn health in general. You need to focus on moving 1 brick at a time.
Physiologically our body needs these big bricks to be moved first. For you to metabolically change yourself you need to properly fuel your body, allow it to recover, keep a healthy hormonal environment and constantly send it signals with physical activity.
If you don’t move these big bricks then biologically you can not change.
You need to focus on moving all the big bricks.
You need to create habits, behaviors and routines that allow you to create small a change in your body. Then you need to repeat those habits, behaviors and routines for the next change.
Just like moving a real big brick, it’s tiring, boring and might feel a little pointless. But it’s necessary to get where you want to go.
The real key to changing your body is developing CONSISTENT habits that take you one step closer to where you want to be every day. And often developing this consistency is more rewarding than the final number on the scale.
Problems iONLY arise when you focus on moving more than one brick at once. It’s when the plan goes off the rails, it’s where your behaviors aren’t sustainable and it’s where your habits cease to exist.
The most successful people in any area are the ones who create simple processes that are effective and repeatable. The most successful people are the ones who embrace the consistency that simplicity brings.
I wasn’t one of those people and I nearly had to head to the ER because of it.
The easiest way for me to reach my goal of brick removal would have been to be smart and patient and carry one brick at a time. I should have carried the big bricks until they were all moved, then the medium ones and then finished with the tiny ones.
There’s no way I could have failed.
But I got impatient and cocky and pushed my limits in a stupid way. I just got lucky that I have fast feet.
Don’t be like me.
Focus on moving the big bricks and eventually you’ll get all your bricks where you want them to be.