Why Show Prep Won’t Get You Shredded
Firstly, Show Prep won’t get you shredded because you don’t have a show! You are not a competitor with a show to go to extreme measures to get ready for. Most likely you have a job, a social life, and your main motivation is to lose that 20lb you gained in the last 5 years that makes you feel like you have a dad bod.
Show prep style diets and exercise routines are rigorous, precise and time consuming, all things that make it extremely challenging for the average recreational athlete to adhere to. They involve long workouts with many specialized exercises as well as long bouts of mindless cardio, weighing and measuring food, counting calories, calculating macros and eating 3 day old chicken breast and asparagus out of tupperwares.
The average gym goer has neither the time nor the motivation to succeed on this type of plan. It is so far from their current lifestyle that it would require a complete overhaul to accomplish, which for most people is too much to ask. It’s also unnecessary, the average person doesn’t need to meal prep a weeks worth of food to get in shape, despite hundreds of articles suggesting that. All they need to do is learn how to order a double meat salad instead of some noodle heavy Thai food for lunch, and learn how to swap their breakfast pastry for either black coffee or couple eggs and bacon, or learn that picking up a rotisserie chicken on the way home from work is just as fast if not faster than cooking up some quick pasta.
People need efficiency and convenience to be successful, especially in the short term. Changing small habits over time is a far more effective long term solution to fat loss and health than trying to follow a strict meal plan and workout regimen and eventually falling off the wagon and thinking to yourself “if only I could stick with it, I would be in shape.”
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who have come to me asking for advice, only to tell me they know what they need to do, they just haven’t been able to stick to it for more than a couple months. Its always some combination of a juice/tea cleanse followed by some ridiculous cardio program and a meal plan they got from an “expert.”
“if you can’t stick to it for more than a couple months…It’ll never get you shredded.”
Nowadays there’re countless “experts” and fitness “gurus” one swipe away on the Internet. All proclaiming they have the secret, the one thing you’ve been missing that will get you shredded. They have pictures that show how shredded they are, so it must be legit right? It feels like anybody who has done a bodybuilding or physique or bikini competition gets so fired up by the changes they made to their body and the great pictures they have from the days leading up to the show that they start their own fitness brand. I’m not questioning their intentions, I believe most of them feel empowered by taking control of their body and want to share that feeling with others, which is great.
But…When all you have to offer is “train like I trained for my show, or eat like I ate for my show,” that isn’t super helpful for our average person looking to shake the dad bod. What happens if he does lose the weight, is he stuck meal prepping on Sundays, or eating the same boring tilapia with hot sauce or dry oatmeal with a protein shake forever if he wants to keep that weight off? Does that sound like what it takes to just be a healthy human with normal body fat? I say that sounds absurd. Did Arnold count calories? The only macro he cared about was protein and making sure he got enough of it. Does every lean person out there follow a rigid meal plan? No! Absolutely not.
They do however probably have a lot of similar habits and lifestyle traits to each other . Those habits need to be learned and integrated at a digestible pace so long-term success and freedom can be achieved. Following a cookie cutter meal plan from a website will only get you so far, but learn why each meal has what it has in there and learn the patterns of where and when its best to eat certain foods and all of a sudden you can use your brain to think outside to box and accomplish the same thing but with out the rigidity of a meal plan, or an exercise routine. Instead of bench press, you see horizontal push. Instead of 8oz ground turkey, you see lean protein. By learning the “whys” and developing the habits you empower yourself to make smart decisions and have lasting results with much less effort.