If you’ve entered 2021 looking a little worse for wear, you will have undoubtedly set yourself the New Year’s resolution to lose weight and get into good shape. Of course, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome to achieve said goal is summoning the motivation and dedication to commit to a fitness regime and a new diet to go along with it.
Securing yourself a good personal trainer can help kickstart your new fitness journey, and you will be able to show them images of physiques you’ve seen on Instagram that you want to achieve. Naturally, Instagram should be taken with a grain of salt, as the people in the images could have manipulated them using Photoshop, or they’ve been working out since they could crawl.
One particular post that caught our eye recently, however, provides a much more honest approach to what can be achieved if you devote some serious time to the gym. Posted to the Tanksgoodnews account, one man has revealed his incredible transformation achieved over the course of 12 months.
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It must be said, achieving such results in what is realistically a short period of time, is nothing short of seriously impressive, especially when you consider super-ripped middle-aged Jason Parrish took a couple of decades to reach his staggeringly low levels of body fat. It would also be fair to assume that this man put himself through a serious fitness regime for the first time, which, as this Instagram post shows, is the prime time to achieve maximum muscle growth.
In your first year of training, you can expect to gain around 2 lbs/900g of muscle each month, but in subsequent years this figure will slowly decline. This is a known phenomenon within the fitness industry, referred to as a plateau. When you come from no major fitness background, your body will be shocked when you start putting it through its paces. Your body will react well to this and you’ll notice your fat mass drop and your muscle mass increase significantly.
Once you have some decent size and strength, it then becomes more difficult – or at least, more effort is required – to continue to make significant gains. In order to maximise your potential, you will need to make sure you’re eating in a calorie surplus, which, as you continue to grow in size, will need to increase too.
The number of calories you need to consume, as well as the amount of training you need to put your body through, will also be determined by your body type, whether it be ectomorph, endomorph or mesomorph. While endomorphs will find it easiest to gain muscle, they will also gain body fat if they don’t work out in the right ways. Ectomorphs, meanwhile, will struggle to gain mass of any kind, but Jaden Smith has previously proved that this body type can still achieve incredible results.
Ultimately, anyone can achieve the body transformation of their dreams, they just need to stick to a program and eat the right foods. While you may not see quite the same results in 12 months, don’t let this put you off. Maintaining a routine will not only result in a healthy body, but a healthy mind, too.