I’m coming to you hot off the gym floor today with something that has irritated me for years.

I was training a client who is significantly overweight, and as he asked some thoughtful questions about weight loss and nutrition, he asked me a simple question.

He asked me if I had ever been overweight.

Now first off, people’s definitions of overweight are different.

Anyone who is fit will understand what I mean by this because the people who have never quite gotten there yet will sometimes look at it with a disgusted look on their face.

I’ve been overweight for my athletic physique.

What this means is that when I get a little too relaxed with my eyeballing and casually eating within my guidelines and principles—usually during a Midwest winter—I know I add a little too much body fat for my liking.

I can get anywhere from 5–15 pounds heavier than I’d like to be.

Keep in mind, I’m 6’3” and usually between 200–220 pounds depending on my goals and current lifestyle.

My body is more long-limbed, and even though I have muscle I have scratched and clawed for every bit of over 24 years of training, I often appear muscular but lean, and the dreaded word “skinny” will get thrown around at me quite a bit.

Back to the question.

I answered:

“No. I’ve actually had a hard time gaining weight and muscle for most of my life, so my challenge is from that end of the spectrum.”

Here comes the response I’ve gotten countless times.

He laughs and looks away and gives me the look of:

“That’s not a problem. You should be so lucky to be like that.”

As if somehow he has been cursed and I have been blessed.

I’ve gotten this same response from people so many times.

I’ve heard people say negative and derogatory things about “skinny people who don’t have to worry about losing weight.”

And here’s why this pisses me off.

It’s an uninformed take with a lack of critical thinking.

Your Struggle Isn’t a Competition

I’ve talked about the Formula before.

What do these two ends of the spectrum have in common?

Each person wants their body to be different than it is.

And each person has to be consistent with the work they have to put in in the weight room and the kitchen to achieve the result they want.

If you really dumb it down, we’re back to the:

A + B = C

thing again.

And if anything…

Stay with me.

It’s harder to gain quality muscle than it is to lose weight.

From what I’ve seen after more than two decades of training myself and watching thousands of people train, quality muscle gain is slow.

I’m talking grams per week.

Maybe 10 pounds in a year.

And don’t scoff at that either.

Do you know how much better you’d look with 10 pounds of quality muscle?

Do you know how much stronger you’d be?

Ten pounds is a lot of muscle when you’re actually talking about building it instead of just watching the number on the scale go up.

And that’s the part people don’t understand.

Anyone can make the scale go up.

Eat enough pizza, Chinese food, and a gallon of ice cream a day and congratulations—you gained weight.

That’s not the goal.

Building quality muscle while controlling unnecessary fat gain is a completely different problem.

And it takes a shitload of consistent work to do it.

You have to train consistently.

You have to eat appropriately.

You have to recover.

You have to do it for a long fucking time.

Then you have to do it again tomorrow.

And the next day.

And the next month.

And the next year.

That’s what makes the result impressive.

Not that somebody gained 40 pounds in three months.

It’s that somebody patiently accumulated small improvements for years until they looked and performed like a completely different person.

And that’s the part I think gets lost when people compare their struggles.

Your struggle isn’t automatically harder because it looks different than mine.

You’re Here. What Are You Going to Do About It?

Now let’s go to the other side.

Second, how dare you assume that you are so cursed that you were simply born with this rare disease called obesity and therefore there’s nothing you can do about it.

I’m not saying you chose every factor that contributed to where you are.

You have different genetics.

You have a different history.

You have different circumstances.

You may have grown up in an environment that made certain habits normal.

You may have experienced things that affected how you eat, move, sleep, cope with stress, or interact with your body.

All of that matters.

But guess what?

You played a big role in it too.

Your habits compounded over time.

The things you repeatedly did became your normal.

And eventually, the result of all those inputs showed up on your body.

That’s not me judging you.

That’s the Formula.

And if you’re standing in front of me right now carrying more body fat than you want to carry, I’m not particularly interested in arguing over which individual factor is responsible for every pound.

You’re here.

What are you going to do about it?

If you need me to take a step back and compromise on how we talk about it, fine.

Maybe you weren’t responsible for every single thing that happened to you.

But you’re responsible for what you do next.

You may not agree with the way I’m saying it.

You may think I’m being too blunt.

That’s okay.

But I will promise you this:

You can do something about it if you choose to.

And yes, more than half of the United States being obese is fucking significant.

That’s not some tiny group of people who just happen to have bad habits.

That’s a massive population-level problem.

And maybe instead of normalizing it to the point where being concerned about it becomes offensive, we should be willing to acknowledge that something has gone seriously wrong.

You don’t have to hate yourself.

You don’t have to hate your body.

You don’t have to blame yourself for every circumstance that contributed to getting here.

But you also don’t have to build an identity around being helpless.

You’re here.

Now you get to pick what you do next.

Look at the Habits

And this is where the habits come in.

Whether those habits are entirely yours or were handed to you by your environment, it’s your job to examine them.

Look at the things you do repeatedly.

Look at the thoughts you have repeatedly.

Look at the behaviors you learned from your family, your friends, your culture, your environment, your experiences.

Ask yourself:

Does this still serve me?

Is this actually who I want to be?

Or is this something I learned because it was what was around me?

You don’t have to hate yourself for having the habits you have.

You don’t even have to blame whoever gave them to you.

But at some point, you have to dissect them.

Figure out what belongs to you.

Figure out what doesn’t.

Figure out what still serves you.

And figure out what needs to go.

Then replace it.

Replace the thought.

Replace the behavior.

Replace the habit.

And practice the new version until it’s stronger than the old one.

Eventually, what you practice becomes what you do.

What you repeatedly do becomes your normal.

And eventually your normal starts to become you.

That’s the part I think people miss when they talk about changing your life.

You don’t just decide to become a different person.

You practice being that person.

Over and over and over again.

Until one day you realize you’re not pretending anymore.

You’re becoming the person you practiced being.

Back to the Client

I will give him his credit.

He was receptive when I framed it that way to him, so I’m grateful for that.

Most of the time I hear people talking about this, it doesn’t go that way.

People are more interested in staying stuck in the rain cloud with other similar people who validate their feelings and make them feel like it’s okay to struggle and be negative instead of finding people who want to pull them out of the cold and remind them they are capable of more and are worth more than the way they’re living.

People are afraid to deviate from the norm.

And right now, the norm is being obese.

It’s such a norm that some people think they’re so hard done by that other people’s struggles cannot match their own.

Other people’s journeys aren’t as hard as theirs.

And my question is:

Why is it a competition?

Comparison is the thief of joy.

You’re both in the gym.

Maybe you can learn from each other.

Maybe you can motivate each other.

You’re both trying to better yourselves.

Be Careful Who Reinforces Your Story

This is where the people around you matter.

There’s a difference between somebody who understands your struggle and somebody who reinforces your identity around that struggle.

A good friend might say:

“Yeah, man. This fucking sucks. I understand why you’re frustrated.”

And then eventually:

“Okay. Now what are you going to do about it?”

That’s a good friend.

They can validate what you’re feeling without validating every story you’re telling yourself about why you’re stuck.

They can listen.

They can empathize.

They can understand that your situation might actually be difficult.

But they can also tell you the hard thing you don’t want to hear.

That’s valuable.

Be careful about surrounding yourself with people who just want to sit in the misery with you because it’s safe and familiar.

If all you do together is complain about your bodies, your jobs, your relationships, your lives, and how unfair everything is, you can create an echo chamber where everybody reinforces everybody else’s story.

“Yeah, that’s just how it is.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Yeah, it’s harder for you than everyone else.”

“Yeah, people who have it easier don’t understand.”

Now you’ve got a whole group of people validating the exact identity you’re trying to escape.

That’s not helping you.

Find people who know you’re capable of more.

People who will encourage you.

People who will celebrate your progress.

People who will sit with you when things suck.

But people who will also eventually hand you an umbrella and say:

“Okay. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Get Off Your Side of the Story

Have you ever seen The Karate Kid?

Daniel thinks his life is so hard, and because Johnny has some money, he decides Johnny is this terrible person who’s out to get him.

Then fast forward to Cobra Kai and you learn Johnny had a really hard life too.

He had his own problems.

He had his own history.

And he viewed Daniel as the villain in his story.

Suddenly, the story gets a lot more complicated.

That’s real life.

You can be completely convinced you’re the hero of your story while somebody else is looking at the exact same situation and thinking you’re the villain.

That’s why you need to get off your side of the story.

Your perspective is real.

It just isn’t the entire picture.

You don’t know everything someone else has experienced.

You don’t know what they struggled with.

You don’t know what they had to overcome.

And you certainly don’t know what it took for them to get where they are.

So stop competing over who has it harder.

Respect other people’s journeys.

Learn from them.

Help them.

Let them help you.

Surround yourself with people who believe you’re capable of more and push you toward becoming that person.

And don’t assume your struggle is more important than somebody else’s.

Because maybe your struggle really is harder in some ways.

Maybe theirs is harder in others.

Who gives a shit?

You’re both here.

You’re both trying to become better.

So get off your side of the story long enough to see theirs.

And then get back to work.

Because regardless of how you got here…

you’re here.

And you get to pick what you do next.