It's very important at the start of this process to articulate a clear goal. I'm going to make an assumption that for most people who are reading this blog, weight loss, and the accompanying benefits that come with it is the primary objective.
The blog is called "Recovering Fatass" after all, so it wouldn't make any sense that you're reading this blog to get information on how to optimize your training so that you could reach the last 1% of your genetic muscular potential, or for nutrition advice on the best way to carb load to be able to excel at an Ultramarathon.
Maybe later, once you've succeeded at this, those can be your new goals. But if you are where I was when I started, primarily what you want is to shed bodyfat as efficiently as possible, without killing yourself or making yourself miserable in the process.
Let's not confuse this goal with other goals that might seem similar, but might get in the way. Do you want to be an elite athlete? Sumo wrestlers are elite athletes. Some readers right now might already LOOK like sumo wrestlers, even though they may not perform as such.
If I could wave a magic wand and immediately grant your wish, but you had to choose between being an elite level Sumo wrestler while looking like one, or being a person whose body operates at slightly above average capacity when compared to others, but has a leanness and appearance that makes YOU happy, which would you pick? I would pick the latter 8 days out of the week.
Vanity is part of the human condition. I'm all about positive body image but that requires being in a physical state that is achievable for a normal human that YOU are happy to be in. Not for your boyfriend/girlfriend. Not for your spouse. Not to measure up to some magazine cover. For YOU.
There's tons of people everywhere in the world on the quest for fitness. In their most honest moments, 99.99% of these people would admit (at least to themselves) that they just want to look better. But sometimes, either due to being misinformed, or just unmotivated, it's just too hard. The same people CONTINUE to spend hours upon hours in the quest for fitness and sometimes CHANGE their initial goals from just wanting to shed fat and be more comfortable in their skin to
running faster
completing extremely taxing High Intensity Training circuits
being able to lift more weight in the gym
Being able to do a 400 kilo squat while balancing on a Bosu Balance Ball that is on a stool that is on a bench
All that's great. If that's really what you want, then give it a billion percent. But what if actually all you really is to have a look that you're comfortable with?
If you could live to be 200 in perfect health but the tradeoff was that you needed to be walking around at 1000 kilos of fat mass and feel gross, would you take that trade?
Most of us just want to experience the joy of being lean enough to be at peace with ourselves. Especially if all we've ever known is being fat.
The sooner we can admit that to ourselves, the sooner we can focus all our energy on the task at hand. Yes, there will be accompanying health benefits. Yes, performance will generally increase. But there are also overweight people whose bloodwork is acceptable who are painfully unhappy with how their body looks and feels to them. So what do you want?
Let's drill down even more. Do we want to just lose weight? Any kind of weight? Why not just chop off an arm?
Most of us want to get rid of fat. Or to get toned (whatever that means). Do we want to become just smaller but equally flabby versions of our current selves? Or do we want to actually get lean ...
If the goal is getting lean, which we define by a certain kind of appearance (hopefully by now we have the self awareness to admit, at least to ourselves, that's our primary objective) then that's achieved by dropping fat mass while holding onto, or building on existing lean muscle mass. I'll go out on a limb that no one reading this wants to get lean, just to become fat again, so we also need find a sustainable way, without upending/wrecking the rest of our lives.
If to maintain leanness, I need to run a marathon everyday to burn enough calories, the energy/time left in the day is going to dictate that i'm probably going to be a pretty shitty husband and father. Oh and my performance might suffer at my day job and I might get fired.
So before we go on with anything else, let's define our goals, being as clear as we can be.
When I started this journey, this was my goal.
"I want to get lean enough that if I never made progress past that point, I would still be happy. I want to find a way to do it where I can imagine myself living some semblance of that lifestyle forever. While I am dieting down, all exercise performance markers should only be indicators of whether they are bringing me closer to my primary goal of LEANNESS, and I should never mistake correlated bonuses to be the primary goal. Most importantly, my process of getting lean should only ENHANCE the experience my loved ones have while interacting with me and never get in the way of our relationships".
Define your goal. You don't need to tell anyone. Just don't let anyone tell you what yours should be. And don't settle for less, or different, than what you initially wanted.