Why Aren't I Jacked Yet?

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You have been working out consistently for two to three months. You're maintaining a healthy diet, sleeping eight hours a night, drinking nearly a gallon of water a day, and taking a goddamn multivitamin. Yet, you still look exactly the same as when you started.

Sure, you feel things firming up; when you flex, maybe you can see the top two abs, and your legs are more solid, but overall, not much has changed.

Contrary to what Instagram marketers and health gurus all over the world will tell you. Body composition results don't happen fast. It takes a long time to build muscle and see results, especially for women. Popular 30 day or six-week challenges rarely yield significant changes in body composition. Most of the results you see are either photoshopped or already muscular people simply dropping fat in a short time period.

Rapid weight loss is possible on a lot of diet programs but not sustainable. If you have been training for a long time and have built a fair amount of muscle, if you did a "cut," you'd probably look amazing. But first, you have to build that adequate amount of muscle. The easiest way to get and stay jacked is with a healthy lifestyle that you can maintain long term.

For most people starting from sedentary, I'd say it takes anywhere from 14-18 months to truly get the results you are looking for from weight lifting. You can see insane results much faster than that time period, but it takes people a while to find a body fat percentage that they are happy with.

Maintaining a body fat percentage where you look like a bodybuilder is unsustainable. You can look very fit while maintaining a comfortable body fat percentage only through building a ton of muscle mass. Muscle mass takes time to build, and it is built most efficiently in a calorie surplus. Thus it is challenging to become shredded instantly because you need to develop a lot of muscle in the right places and then lose fat.

That is why bodybuilders have bulking and cutting phases. It is the fastest way to get jacked. However, you are not a bodybuilder, and I'm not sure if the data exists, but I cannot imagine bodybuilder training habits are very healthy long term.

My girlfriend, Katlyn, is currently trying to up her fitness game. She has been into HIIT strength training lately, and after every workout, she has asked me jokingly, "Why aren't I jacked yet?"

So I decided to answer that question completely, in roughly 1000 words:

THE TOP FOUR REASONS YOU AREN’T JACKED YET

1. Your Diet Isn’t on Point

Looking jacked is a combination of body fat percentage and muscle mass. To look jacked, you'll need to have at least some muscle mass and a low enough body fat percentage to see it. Maintaining a body fat percentage low enough to might not appeal to all people.

Visible abs appear for women between 15-23 percent body fat depending on the person, and for men, it is between 7-15 percent. Most people who exercise have higher body fat percentages than this by choice. They workout to feel good and to be able to eat junk food without gaining as much weight. Everyone has different goals. If your goal is to truly get jacked and still eat ice cream and junk food, you need to build lots of muscle. AND maintain a healthy diet 90% of the time.

When it comes to diet and building muscle, it can either be accomplished using the aforementioned bulking phase, or it can be achieved through simple weight training while still eating to lose weight. By eating to lose weight, I just mean maintaining a calorie deficit. There is a myth in the fitness industry that you cannot gain muscle in a calorie deficit but that is nonsense. You cannot starve yourself and build muscle, but as long as you eat sufficient protein and nutrient-dense foods, you can build muscle in a calorie deficit.

Maintaining a slight calorie deficit for weeks or months isn't nearly as challenging as attempting to rapidly gain muscle and then rapidly drop weight. You have other things to do with your life, so make health and fitness easy.

With a slight calorie deficit, you can still focus on the most crucial part of getting jacked, lifting heavy things. Just make sure you have a cheat day every so often; it is good for you physically and mentally.

A food journal can help immensely with this.

2. You Aren’t Properly Applying the Principles of Progressive Overload

Exercise programs can be complex, but the concept of progressive overload is relatively simple. You have to gradually increase the stress on your body to see results consistently.

In other words, you have to train hard and lift heavy things if you want to get ripped. Make linear progress so you know that you are better than the week before. Cardio and HIIT are not always the best for applying the principles of progressive overload. While you can make cardio harder in a linear progression by running .1 mile more every workout or training faster. It likely won't make your muscles larger any time soon. There are hundreds of other benefits of cardio exercise, but building muscle quickly isn't one of them.

Lifting weights works well because, to lift progressively more weight, your muscles must adapt. What happens is that your muscle fibers essentially get damaged, and your body rebuilds them stronger than before. Over time it can result in increased size and definition.

Whether you notice it or not is another story, and we'll touch on that more in #3.

A classic strength training program will help you build muscle faster than any bootcamp. Traditional strength training is simple: do x amount of reps and sets with this weight. Next week do it with more weight. So pick a rep count 5x5, 4x8, 3x10 and pick four exercises: a squat variation, deadlift variation, an upper-body push movement, and an upper-body pull movement.

Workout four days a week, and after a sufficient warm-up, do your main move. Do accessory HIIT workouts targeting the antagonist muscles of the main movement and walking.

Antagonist muscle groups are just the opposite of the ones in the primary move. So for a deadlift, a good accessory workout would be a front squat. For pull-ups, a good accessory workout would be push-ups.

3. Your Genetics

Genetics plays a significant role in body composition. People gain muscle and burn fat at different rates. Even when exposed to the exact same stimulus. People have different body types, and your pre-disposed body type does influence the ease at which you will build muscle. If you are naturally skinny/lanky, you will probably take longer to build muscle. Heavier set people often have an easier time gaining muscle but a harder time seeing it.

Your age, sex, and hormones all play a role in how you build muscle as well. There are many factors outside your control when it comes to the rate at which you can change your body composition. However, no matter who you are, a proper diet and a solid exercise routine will win out eventually.

“Eventually” isn’t that exciting of a date. It takes some people years to achieve the body they desire, and it takes other people months. It has a lot to do with your perception and expectations.

If you expect to have a six-pack, change your expectations, not everyone gets a six-pack. Some get four, and some get eight. Your genes will influence your musculature.

If you expect to look great all the time with your shirt off, change your expectations. If you have a large meal and then head to the beach, you will look chubbier. But so what? You aren't a model at a photo shoot.

4. Your Preception

Perception helps shape our reality, especially when it comes to results in strength training.

Before I go any further with this explanation, just note, always lift smart. If you need a spot, ask for one. Never push yourself to do anything dangerous.

Disclaimer aside, training hard is about constantly improving—lifting weights you previously perceived as immovable. So to build your confidence that you can lift heavier and heavier weights, you build it up to it. Doing many solid reps at a weight you feel comfortable with and then progressing. Giving yourself hours of evidence to support the statement, you can lift that weight.

However, even with those reference experiences, some people still don't think they are capable of lifting certain things. Some parts of weightlifting come down to the adage:

"Whether you think you can or you can't, you are right."

Training hard absolutely influences the results. And if you think you can lift more weight on a particular exercise, you probably can.

You can get jacked too, it will just take a lot more effort and dedication than you initially perceived.

In addition to these four things, it is essential to have a strength training plan for getting jacked, and I can help you with that. If you’ve never lifted weights before I’d recommend a program that starts with a month of push-ups and bodyweight exercises. You can always start with weightlifting, but if you are coming from a sedentary lifestyle, I like to have people start learning how to move their own bodies before attempting to manipulate external weights.