How long does it take to see results from working out How long should it take to start losing weight

YouTube, what is going on? In this video, we're gonna be covering how long till you see results, whether that's losing fat, whether that's building muscle, no matter what you're looking for, how long is that going to take you? This is by far one of the most common questions I get asked on a daily basis. Eric, I know I gotta work out, I know I gotta eat right, I know I gotta eat healthier, I gotta stick to my diet, I gotta get the workouts in, But how long till I see the results? That's what we're gonna talk about in this video, how long it will take you to see results. And so I'm gonna start off by laying out, you know, either one of your goals here. No matter what your goal, I'm gonna give you some rough estimates, some rough numbers, some rough ranges you can kind of like look towards. And then over here is really where the magic is. We're gonna talk about the secret weapon, and we're also gonna talk about no matter what your goal is, You should be doing that. And again, this is really where the magic is. This stuff is cool. This is what people look for, but this stuff over here is really where the magic is gonna lie if you truly want to see progress. So let's first start off by talking about building muscle. If your main goal is building muscle, and when I say building muscle, I mean let's say you're either, let's say you're a guy and you're skinnier and you want to build up some muscle. Or let's say you're a guy or a girl and you are, you know, you've hit your goal body weight. Maybe you've lost weight or maybe you're already where you want to be and you want more definition. You want, you know, bigger, more defined muscles, whatever the case may be. How long is that going to take you? Right? Typically speaking, a good, healthy, sustainable rate of muscle gain without gaining too much fat is going to be anywhere from 0.5 to 2 pounds, maybe 3 pounds per month. If you're within that 0.5 to 3 pounds per month range, that means you are building a good amount of lean muscle mass on your body while minimizing the fat gain on your body. Because when you go into a muscle building phase, especially if you're going into a calorie surplus, which just means You're eating more calories than what your body burns, which if you're looking to optimize muscle building, that's probably what you're doing unless you're a brand new beginner. Then you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time. I've done an entire video on that, so feel free, I'll link it out here above. Feel free to check it out. But if we're talking strictly about building muscle definition, building bigger, stronger muscles, anywhere from 0.5 to 3 pounds of weight gain per month means you are building lean muscle mass while minimizing And yes, some fat gain, if you go into a calorie surplus, some fat gain is going to be normal. It's just going to happen. It is what it is. It's almost like a prerequisite if you want to really optimize your muscle building, but you don't want to be gaining too much body fat because that's just— you're not— it's actually going to backfire in the long run because if you're on a serious muscle building phase and you want to build some lean muscle mass, it's If you're just dirty bulking, which is like what I did when I was 17 years old, if you're just like eating everything and anything in sight, like I would make shakes with like ice cream and peanut butter and like just anything I wanted to eat, I would eat. And like I got to a point where I was like, oh, okay, like a bit too much body fat gain. So then what I had to do, I had to cut back down and that cut my time short on a muscle building journey. And so if you gain too much body fat, if you're gaining 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 pounds a month, you're gaining too much body fat. And what's going to happen is a month or 2 is going to go by and you're going to have to go back into a calorie deficit and cut your calories back and you'll end that muscle building phase early as opposed to if you were gaining roughly, let's just say 2 pounds per month, you could do that over the course of 6 to 9 to even 12 months and still be in a really good, really healthy spot where you can maximize that muscle building over the long haul. Because again, if you're going into a dedicated muscle building phase, You want to spend at the very least 4 months, if not normally 6 months, if not like 9 months in that phase. And so if you're gaining anywhere from 0.5 to 3 pounds per month roughly, you are 2 thumbs up. You're at a healthy, sustainable, minimizing fat gain, optimizing lean muscle mass. And so again, let's just say, you know, you want to add 5 to 10 pounds of muscle. Do the math there, right? Let's say if you're going— if you want to add 10 pounds of lean muscle mass and you're going at 2 pounds per month, which would be a great rate, it's going to take you 5 months, right? And so that could be one thing in your head where, again, rough numbers, but roughly in that range, call it 4 to 6, maybe 4 to 7 months where you can kind of like build up the lean muscle mass that you want to be able to build up, whether it's on your shoulders or your quads or your back or wherever you want to have it, right? So that is building muscle. I hope that made sense. Now, when it comes to losing body fat, there's, again, it's gonna be a range. Typically speaking, anywhere from 0.5 to 1 pound per week on average is going to be a healthy, sustainable, realistic rate of body weight, body fat loss. And you could get even more specific and say really anywhere from 0.5 to 1% of your current total body weight. So let's just say, for example, if you are 200 pounds, You know, losing anywhere between 0.5 to 2 pounds per week on average is a good range. But honestly, just from like anecdotal experience from coaching literally thousands of people by this point, typically speaking, 0.5 to 1 pound per week on average is exactly where you're gonna fall and where you should fall. Because anything— I really see anything past that is gonna start to lead into being incredibly restrictive. It's gonna bleed into not being very sustainable. It's gonna bleed into, you know, the binge eating habits and the yo-yo dieting because What you're gonna have to do to lose 2, 3, 4, or 5 pounds per week is just, it's incredibly restrictive. You're gonna have to cut out certain food groups, eat very low calories, and it's just not gonna be in the long haul. It's actually, again, gonna backfire because you won't be able to be consistent with it. So 0.5 to 1 pound per week on average is a great rate of weight loss that is healthy, sustainable. You're not gonna lose lean muscle mass. You're not gonna slow down your metabolism that much. That is a great healthy rate of weight loss. And so again, let's just do the quick math, right? If you wanna lose 25 pounds in total and, you know, you're 175 right now, well, I would honestly, and we'll talk about this here in a second, but I would honestly just again go in that range. Let's say, you know, if you wanna lose 25 pounds, it's gonna take you anywhere from 25 to 50 weeks. And oh, by the way, I'd probably just add 4 to 8 weeks on top of that just because Life happens. You're gonna go on a vacation here, you're gonna have some nights out there, you're gonna have a trip there, your son's soccer game there. And so I would just, you know, kind of tack on a bit more on top of that. So 0.5 to 1 pound per week on average. And you might look at that and be like, oh my God, how— that's gonna take forever, it's gonna take so long, all this kind of stuff. In which I'll say 2 things. Number one, we're gonna talk about that here in a second and ways you can kind of manipulate that. Um, Number 2, you know, I get people all the time like, oh my God, it takes forever, Eric. I'm like, okay, well, do you not wanna see it happen at all? Because you basically have 2 options here. You can just never accomplish your goals and never see it happen and never lose any weight, or you can do it slow and steady, which is actually gonna lead to better progress in the long term. Because if you just say, oh my God, that's too long, I'm never gonna do it, okay, so a year's gonna go by, Lord willing, a year's gonna go by regardless. And so, when the year goes by— If you just would have taken the slow route, you would see tremendous progress as opposed to, oh, that takes too long, so I'm not going to do it. I mean, if that's what you want to do, man, that's— I mean, whatever. It's up to you. It's not the route I'm going to take or any of my clients are going to take, but if that's the route you want to take, it's up to you. I don't suggest that route because, again, time is going to pass either way. So, although it might be slow in your mind and you want it faster, of course, who doesn't want it faster? I understand. It might be slow in your mind, but a year is going to pass either way, and why not have the year pass making sustainable progress. And then when the year passes, when you get to your goal, whatever the case may be, whether it takes a year, 6 months, whatever, you can actually sustain that progress as opposed to doing what you probably do all the time, which is just lose weight, gain weight, lose weight, gain weight, and do this yo-yo cycle back and forth. And so, you know, just my 2 cents there on the losing fat part. Now, so again, just rough ranges so you can do the math for yourself. You know, if you want to lose 25 pounds, 25 to 50 weeks, and maybe just add 4 to 8 weeks on top of that. The secret weapon, and here's what I wanna say, that the secret weapon is physical change, as you can see, it takes a long time. Like, I just, I'm not gonna sit here and BS you. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna tell you that you can, you know, change your body in 30 days. And there's this saying where it's like, you know, it takes 30 days for someone else to see it, whatever the saying is. I'm not sugarcoating it to you. It's gonna take a long time to see physical change. I'm just gonna keep it real. I will say a few things though. Number 1, this is why it is very important to track your progress accurately. And I did an entire video on how to track your progress if you're looking to lose body fat or even build muscle for that fact. I did an entire video on that, so feel free to check it out. But it's very important that you actually track progress, 'cause if you're not tracking progress, you're gonna think you're not seeing progress. And if you think you're not seeing progress, you're going to quit. Let's just call it how it is. 'Cause if you don't, if you don't see any progress happening, how are you gonna You know, one of the most motivating things in the world is seeing progress. So if you don't think you're seeing progress, you're gonna quit. When in reality, most people are seeing progress, they're just not tracking their progress accurately. So number 1, this is the importance of tracking progress accurately. And again, I did an entire video on how you should be tracking your progress in this journey. It's on my channel, feel free to check it out. Number 2, since physical changes take a long time, and again, I wanna preface this one more time, Progress pictures, I talk about it in that video. Please take progress pictures. Taking progress pictures is so massive because you see your body every single day. I would be doing you an injustice if I didn't say this. I say it in that video too, but you'd be doing your body an injustice if you didn't take progress pictures, 'cause you see your body every single day. So when 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks goes by, you're probably not gonna see that big of a change. But if you take your progress pictures and put 'em side by side, 4 weeks apart, 8 weeks apart, 12 weeks apart, you are going to see massive changes. And that can help you, like, even though you might not see it in your body right away, you know, 5 months or 6 months or 8 months down the line, you might then say, oh shit, I can really tell a difference. But in that first month, 2 months, 3 months time period, really, you know, taking those progress pictures and seeing your body change, even though you might think it's not changing, you can see it actually is changing. So again, check out the video. Um, now that being said, since physical progress takes a long time, One of the biggest secret weapons I use with my clients is we track other things than just physical progress, and that is going to be our workouts. When, again, when you're looking at progress, physical progress takes a long time. Whether losing fat or building muscle, both take a long time. So what can you do to make sure you're seeing results and seeing progress on a pretty much week-by-week basis? Yeah. Track your workouts, man. And I'll put a picture up here of one of my clients that we kinda go through, like, you know, the month's workout program. But as you can see, look at it right there. She's adding a rep here and there. She's adding 5 pounds here and there. You know, she's going up in this, she's doing more reps, she's adding more time. Like, each week she's seeing results. And that's very invigorating. It's also very motivating, like, especially if you're, you know, If you're somebody who thrives off of seeing progress and seeing success, you can see week to week you are making progress. You're seeing results every single week now. So although the physical progress might not be happening right away like you want, every single week you go into your workouts, you can always, pretty much always add 1 rep. You can always, you know, maybe shoot for 5 more pounds here and there. You can always find a way to get a win that week. Even if it's just on one exercise for one set for one more rep, guess what? It's more than what you did last week. And what does this show? It shows you're getting stronger. It shows you're increasing your strength. It shows that you are making progress. It shows you're building muscle. It shows all those things. So that shows that you're seeing progress. Tracking your workouts. If you don't track your workouts right now, and I mean, again, like as you saw the picture there, tracking your weight, tracking your reps, tracking your sets. If you're not doing that, You need to start doing that. And I don't— please start doing that. It's, it's such a massive underrated tool that helps people stay on track because again, it's, it's going to take a long time to see physical change. I'm sorry, it just is. And I wish, I wish it was easier. I wish it was quicker. That would make my job one hell of a lot easier, but that's unfortunately not the case. And so our secret weapon here is start tracking your workouts, man, and start getting into your workouts. Start looking to get stronger. Like It's very motivating. It's very powerful. It's very, again, invigorating to see, you know, yourself get stronger over a squat over the course. You know, if you started with lifting 10 pounds for, you know, 10 reps, if you go up to 30 pounds for 10 reps, that's, that's a massive, massive increase right there. And if you do that over the period of time, guess what? If you lift more weight and do more reps over a period of time in conjunction, obviously with your nutrition, Guess what? These physical changes right here are gonna happen through osmosis. So if you're really focusing on your workouts week to week and improving those and increasing your strength and doing more reps and all that kind of stuff, well, guess what? This over here is gonna happen through osmosis. And so secret weapon, please start tracking your workouts. I promise you it's gonna make a huge difference. All right. And last but not least, probably the most important part, no matter what your goal is, mentally, Dedicate a year. I don't care what your goal could be. Lose five pounds. Your goal could be gain five pounds of muscle. Your goal could be hit a bench PR. Your goal could be lose twenty pounds. I don't care what your goal is. Commit a year. Why? Having proper expectations up front is the most important part when it comes to this journey. I talked to you over here about losing point five to one pound per week. I really again I said that because and I also said I also said. You know, no matter how long your calculation gave you, if you were gonna lose 30 pounds in 30 weeks, like, okay, like, maybe, maybe you can, but add 4 to 8 weeks on top of that. Why do I say stuff like that? Because you need to have proper expectations going into this. If you think you're gonna lose, you know, 10 pounds per month, and then month 1 goes by and you've only lost 3 pounds, which would be tremendous progress, you're gonna think you're a failure. You're gonna think you're not seeing progress. You're gonna think it's too slow, you're gonna think that you're not doing enough, you're gonna think you're doing everything wrong, and you're gonna quit. And you're never gonna reach your goal because you already had improper expectations from the beginning. So no matter what your goal is, just mentally dedicate a year. The next year of your life, I don't care what your goal is, the next year of your life, you dedicate yourself to this. I don't care if it's losing 50 pounds, I don't care if it's working out consistently, I don't care what it is. Dedicate the next year of your life to really putting in a ton of effort. The next year, not the next month, not the next week, the next year of your life you should be dedicating your mental thoughts to, all right, I'm doing this for a year and I'm gonna see what happens. I guarantee if you do that, not only are you gonna reach your goal, you're gonna set yourself up for the rest of your life to then keep seeing progress, maintain your goal, and make this an actual lifestyle change. 'Cause Because that's what has to happen anyway. It's not like once you reach your goal of 25 pounds down, you just stop working out, stop eating healthy, and go back to what you were doing, because then you would just go back to where you were before. It's like once you reach the goal, you got to keep going. You know that, right? This isn't just like, oh, I'm just gonna— like, I'm just gonna buy this thing and be done. No, you got to maintain now. You got to keep doing those things. You got to keep working out. You got to keep making sure you're, you know, your eating habits are in check. All those things, you don't just stop. And so mentally committing the next year of your life, no matter what your goal is, I have seen be by far the most beneficial thing when it— when coming to actually seeing progress in your body, actually seeing progress in your habits, actually seeing progress in, again, making this a lifestyle change. If you know anything about me and my videos, I am all about actually making this a lifestyle change because again, it's not like you're just gonna reach your goal and then like I'm done, see you later. Like, you got to keep going. This has to be a lifestyle change. And I'm— a lot of people I chat with, they want to make it a lifestyle change. This is how you do that. Stop thinking in the, in the short term. I almost stopped myself because like, I— one year is short term. If you're 43 years old right now and you go till 44, well, now all of this work you've done in this year is going to maintain the next 40 years or 50 years of your life. 1 year for the next 40 years, or if you're 27 or 32, 1 year of your life in the span of your life and how long you're gonna live, again, God willing, you do realise 1 year is nothing, right? So if you truly dedicate 1 year of your life to learning about habits, to consistently hitting workouts, to sticking with your nutrition, all that kind of stuff, dedicate a year, you're putting in the work upfront to then reap the rewards For the rest of your life. I think if you are 31 years old and you put a year in, I don't know, I think the next 70 years of having a better life, I think it is worth it. You can tell me, but I am pretty sure it is worth it. That is what I would say for your last, no matter what your goal is, just mentally dedicate a year and just think, I am not going to see progress for a year. That is honestly what I would think. I am just being very honest with you because if you think that, anything before that, you are going to be thrilled. You are going to be like, holy shit, I was expecting a year and it happened in 6 months. Let's go. As opposed to, I was expecting a month. What the fuck? This is taking too slow. Da da. Expect to not see progress for a year, and then when you do see progress before that, you'll be thrilled. All right. Hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. Let me know below if you enjoyed the video, and we'll chat soon. Okay.