2021, YouTuber Brendan Jones received The body transformation challenge that saw him get in the best shape of his life, weight loss and muscle packing. But while at first excited about what he had achieved, Jones shows in his new video how the process has affected his body and the way he thinks about training, setting increasingly unrealistic standards. It explains in detail how it came to be pursued.
“If I felt this good about the progress I was making, it seemed intuitive to me that if I kept working hard and seeing improvement, I would continue to look and feel better,” he says. What actually happened made me feel the worst about how I looked for a long time, completely stalled my training, and made me seriously consider taking performance-enhancing drugs for the first time.
After his initial transformation of getting “90%” to where he wanted to be, Jones said he set a goal of getting below 12% body fat and completely shredding his six pack. But the quick results he’s seen in his previous workouts have been increasingly slow, and he’s been overdoing it on certain “problem” areas like his lower abdomen, where he’s been struggling to shed belly fat. Each time he reached a new plateau, he reduced his daily calorie intake, increased his training, and cut out cheat meals.
“[I was] I took my attention away from everything I was happy with and focused on the one or two areas I still wanted to improve,” he says. For moving targets that never felt like they were actually hitting them. “
Despite training six days a week and eating the most restrictive diet ever, Jones was unable to lose certain pockets of body fat, making the whole process all the more frustrating. , his continued weight loss was beginning to adversely affect his strength, endurance, and overall health. I realized how far my perspective was from his main goal of maintaining good habits.
“You’ll feel stronger and have more energy for other goals if you try to keep your body fat percentage in the 13-15% range rather than trying to achieve a shredded look all the time. I find that I am much happier because I can go back to a place where I am excited about training and happy with the experience,” he says. “And that’s ultimately where I want to be.”
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the UK covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared on GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.
