Summer Body
It’s about to be June, you didn’t make your summer body, now what?
I’ve found these type of goals to be a double edged sword. I have, in my life, set a lofty goal or two and achieved them. When they were solely results based, I uniformly felt an empty sort of disappointment.
A goal can seem to motivate me, but when it’s not in service to some broader purpose, often the result doesn’t deliver all that I’d hoped. In 2021, I dieted down to my absolute leanest, in order to take a semi-nude picture to share with the world. Though I actually got lower on the scale than I’d hoped to, and though every mental metric was achieved, i.e., visible abs, quad separation and vascularity, I felt unsatisfied. The next year I did a movie, where for some portion of it, I would be shirtless but in overalls. I wanted to be lean for this movie, so set a weight goal, dieted down to it, hit it and managed to maintain it for the duration of filming. I felt that I should’ve set a lower goal, worked harder, lost more, gotten leaner, but with larger muscles. In a couple weeks, I’m heading to the center of the country to shoot a movie, I will be shirtless for its entirety, YIKES. For this latest one, I set a weight goal to hit, got a few pounds lower, and guess what, dissatisfaction reigns supreme.
I don’t want to dissuade myself from ambition, I like working towards things. Those things that seem to produce the greatest satisfaction once achieved, for me, are process based. Every day that I make a plan and stick to it, every time I win the day, I am filled with a glowing warmth that far surpasses any of my results.
For me, the overcoming of obstacles, whether they be physical, emotional, or mental, seems to provide a much greater sense of accomplishment than any of the materially physical gains I believe I so badly want.
Every time I set some material goal and am dissatisfied with results, I try and remember the feeling of pride I got each day I was successful at the process.
What can you succeed at today?
Today, I will not eat privately, hidden away from leering eyes that might dissuade me from the over consumption that I am so drawn to. I will not binge eat, that feeling of euphoria and the need to lay down isn’t greater than the energy I get from a practically portioned meal. I will not eat to provide emotional comfort, to assuage anxiety, to calm my frayed nerves.
Today I will seek discomfort, running away gives it power and robs me of agency. I will welcome that discomfort, allow it to consume every inch of me, and show it that it has no real power over me.
With summer almost upon us, no matter - What can you succeed at today?
Ethan Suplee