January 2020. A start of a year that would change our lives forever.  

As the world sunk into worldwide lockdowns, almost everyone was forced to drop the gym and with it exercising all together, seeking safe refuge inside their homes.

Having moved to an entirely new country on my own a year earlier; I found myself dealing with a tough decision that everyone else had to deal with.

Spend my “sentence” at home, miserable, eating junk food, watching TV, and working remotely thinking about the loneliness that might slowly start to creep in and consume my thoughts… OR do something about.

For the longest I had been chasing goals of becoming a great weightlifter that my training sessions would be spent on one lift sometimes. Those sessions were a hit or miss. Sometimes I’d feel great due to performing well. But most of the time it was feelings of self-judgement, anxiety, failure, and quite literally, confusion.

“Where am I going with this?”

“Do I want to compete?”

“Why am I wasting 2 hours on “perfecting” the snatch?”

“Why am I unhappy in the gym?”

“Why has my stress reliever become the source of stress?”

When the decision to lock Ontario down happened, I figured this is it. This is the period where I won’t be touching a barbell for a while and so my lifts will suffer and there won’t be any improvement to come any time soon. I’m was going to lose all my strength gains. That realization sucked!

However, since I was working in a gym, I would still have access and I was going to be able to train while others sit at home doing online or home workouts.

Something that should have kept me excited to snatch and clean and jerk suddenly felt so… bland.

It’s as if I had lost all interest in pursuing my previous goals overnight. It was just Like Thanos had snapped his fingers and suddenly snatches and cleans were out of my mind.

I had no interest to snatch for 2 hours and feel down on my luck due to my injuries, my age, my lack of interest in lifting the heaviest weight possible which is what Olympic weightlifting essentially is.

Something had to change. And this is how it all went down.

Without further ado, here are the 3 fat loss tools I used without fail for 6 months straight during which I felt incredible during every session, was motivated and excited to train almost daily, lost an incredible amount of fat while putting on a decent amount of muscle at 34 years of age.

1. Visualization. Don’t just set a goal. Visualize it as well.
   
   Visualization was the first and best tool I had used during that phase that helped me stay consistent and on the right path. It was still the start of the year and I was 6 months away from summer.
   
   I was going to see my girlfriend at the time, my friends, and my family. It was going to be spending most of my vacation in Lebanon on beaches and in the gym (obviously). I was going to lift and train with my athletes (who are all younger than I am) and so I had some work to do. I wasn’t going to show up overweight, broken and defeated due to a lockdown.
   
   I visualized exactly how my training sessions would go there in the hot Beirut heat. I had visualized swimming laps in the pool with better technique. And I had visualized how I needed to look to be able to swim and perform better (I had to be lighter and have more muscle on my frame). And most importantly, I had visualized how my training sessions should feel leading up to that picture I had painted.
   
   With my “goal” in my sights, there was no wavering. I had to get there.
   
   

2. Tracking. The second most powerful tool I had used was macro and calorie tracking.
   
   Yeah, yeah I get it. You’re probably thinking “Tracking caloric intake is not a cheat code!” but it literally IS. Here’s why.
   
   A cheat code is something that you use to help you gain an edge over others or the game you’re playing. It’s essentially something that makes games easier to get you to the ultimate goal of beating the game faster.
   
   There is nothing more precise or feels like a cheat code than tracking your macros or calories.
   
   Precision, accuracy, and guaranteed results is what this tool provides. You’d be sorry to miss out on its benefits.
   
   Can you lose fat without it? Yes of course.
   Can you build muscle without it? Certainly.
   Can you do both at the same time without it? NO you cannot.* unless you’re a complete beginner and you’re new to lifting.
   
   What I had achieved during that period was what we refer to as body re-composition, which is losing fat and gaining some muscle at the same time. To be able to achieve body recomp you would need to be eating in a slight deficit, while maintaining high protein intake, and that is something that you cannot just “wing”.
   
   When we eat purely for fat loss or muscle gain, it’s enough to “know” that you’re in a deficit (eating less than before) or in a surplus (eating more than before). Yes you would still get better, more precise results if you were to track your caloric intake but it could be done without tracking (not the same results as tracking would provide but close).
   
   Tracking is a skill to be learned and honed over the years. It is hard work at first that later becomes easy or second nature. This is why it stirs up so much controversy and people often avoid it. We like our comfort, and anything that suggests otherwise gets bashed online.
   
   If you don’t want to work hard, be uncomfortable at times, and persevere, then this cheat code might not be for you and that’s okay.
   
   At the end of the day, even with cheat codes, you still have to work hard to beat the game.

3. LET GO! The third tool I had used was probably the best one.
   
   I had let go of my previous goals that I had been trying to achieve even though everything else was telling me not to.
   I switched gears and switched sports entirely.
   You see I was still recovering from doing CrossFit for a few years having been sucked into the hype. After CF I moved back to Weightlifting and stayed there for the most part.
   
   The decision was not easy at all. After all CF is a “cool” sport and I had learned so many skills during the time I did it. Thanks to the obsession of having to be good at everything in CF I can now walk on my hands, do muscle ups, handstand push ups, double-unders, and perform well in lengthy aerobic workouts. While this was super fun at first, it stopped being fun and had become a source of anxiety.
   
   Weightlifting also was a super fun part of my journey; I snatched 1.2 bodyweight, cleaned 1.5 bodyweight and enjoyed the period from beginner to “decent”.
   
   But the party was over and that’s what I had been struggling with.
   
   Refusing to believe that the party is over is where most people, just like me, get stuck.
   The music has stopped, the people are leaving, the living room is trashed, and you feel exhausted and tired. You, however, are still trying to start conversations with the host while others are reaching for their coats and walking out. You’re trying to hold on to every bit of fun, but the party is over, go home.
   
   And go home I did.
   
   Going back to visualization, I had seen how my body was supposed to perform and look 6 months from that day. I was leaner, more muscular, and stronger.
   My “sport” or workout program had to align with that vision.
   CF wasn’t going to get me there.
   WL wasn’t either.
   So I switched gears to what people refer to as “powerbuilding” which is a combination of using the big lifts (squat, bench, deadlift, press) to get strong, and a shit ton of accessory movements to build decent size and strength. I had no room for cardio as my training was fatiguing enough.
   
   And just like a cheat code, for the first time in a while, training was giving me joy, happiness, excitement and my motivation was there to stay.
   
   This wasn’t a fleeting feeling during a 2 or 4 week phase.
   
   This decision still makes me happy till this day.
   
   A year and a half later. I knew I had done something right when I was happy during my sessions and happy when I was seeing the results reflected in the mirror.
   
   I had started my own party. I was the host, the DJ, AND the entertainment.

These are my cheat codes.

The reason I say that is because they were relatively easy to use.

Who cannot visualize? All you need is a little imagination.
Who cannot track numbers? You don’t even need to do math, there are Apps for that.
Who cannot not learn to let go? It’s hard but it sets you free once you do it.

When you pee out the Kool-Aid you had enjoyed in the past and the spell of “coolness” or self-worth being related to a weight you can lift is broken, that’s when you start seeing clearly.

That summer played out exactly as I had visualized.

I performed better in the gym, in the swimming pool, and had experienced increased levels of confidence and happiness.

For the first time in a long time, I was accused of using “cheat codes”.

And now those cheat codes are yours to also use.

While writing this post I was subconsciously singing the song “Closing Time” by the Semisonics.

“Closing time, you don't have to go home
But you can't stay here”

And just like the song suggests; when the party is over, you don’t have to go home… You can start your own.