Awhile back my cousin, giant fat body that he is, was lamenting to me the sense of embarrassment that he felt upon envisioning taking his shirt off.
(6’6″, roughly 380, I’ve seen his ass at 400+ before)
I recall at 18 having insisted his 13yo, already ~6’3″, already 300ish lb, big blonde ass yell “I am a goddamn viking!’ before jumping off a rock into the water at this swim hole I had taken him and his human sized older brother to that day.
I told him that at the time to get him to stop being self conscious, stop being fearful, get out of his head, and JUMP INto the water, something that is pretty danged fun once you get past the fear and into the moment.
To be a Man in the moment.
MAN IN THE MOMENT – TAKE NOTE! APPLY!
More recently I told him “then either change it, get built in a way you’re proud of, or don’t change it, and change your mentality to yeah this is how I’m built, and rock it”.
(The Beer Gut™) And we’re going there :
Basically I was telling him to rock it, own it, be not ashamed.
And apparently we’re pulling out corny pop country from a decade back. However it popped into my head as “he’s rocking the beer gut”, how different I recalled it lol.
Personally I’m not so worried about appearance. What matters is whether the functionality, and physicality is there or not.
Performance takes precedence to looks, and if you’re not going to be fueled by the self hatred that forces change instead of the one that overeats and/or eats garbage, vapes, and drinks you’re better off looking in the mirror like this :
And making a big ole training habit which will eventually get you from Bean standing there to in the mirror Bean as in the pic above.
And it will get you there.
Give it time. +/- 5 or 10 years. Commit.
The performance comes first, the appearance a pleasant bonus.
I’ll always train.
Persistence & Tenacity