The Honest, First Step To An Aesthetic Body
Building an aesthetic body, looking good, is not a vain desire. It’s a fundamental aspect of self improvement that translates to the rest of your life. Improving your physical appearance increases your self esteem and confidence, which opens up business opportunities, social adventures, and spiritual fulfillment. It also goes without saying it helps you get girls. It’s a necessary part of this quest we call self improvement.
I discovered the most important step to an aesthetic body on my own fitness journey.
There’s an abundance of fitness terminology and I’ve mistakenly tried to synthesize it all. I was innocently looking to build that 10 out of 10 dream body, so I followed exactly the fitness industry’s advice. Compound lifts, 5 sets of 5, and clean bulking: solid advice. After 6 months, I saw results, unfortunately not the ones I wanted. I got stronger and my lifts improved, but I wasn’t any closer to my ideal physique. Back to the drawing board. Around this time, I discovered and fell in love with the sweet science AKA boxing. I wholeheartedly embraced the lifestyle. Shadowboxing, jump rope, roadwork, bodyweight training, etc. I trained very hard, every day. My body underwent a complete recomposition, replacing excess fat with dense, functional muscle. Ironically, I started seeing the results I wanted only after disregarding conventional wisdom.
The first and most important step to building an aesthetic body is getting lean. My definition of lean is sub 12% body fat, search online to get an idea. If you’re above this threshold, getting lean will likely be the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced. My advice? Adopt various forms of cardio while mastering the foundational bodyweight movements. Exercise is only one part of the equation: eating habits are more important. I safely implemented a low carb diet and an intermittent fasting protocol to achieve this coveted benchmark.
Keep in mind now, the techniques to achieve 12% body fat are only temporary. The aesthetic, Greek god physique has boulder shoulders, wide lats, towering traps, and a broad chest, among other features. These attributes are most efficiently built using conventional broscience: compound lifts, hypertrophy, and a few isolation movements. However, it’s crucial you only begin this type of training after you’ve completed the first step. Simply put, your body is hormonally optimized at low body fat levels: you’ll naturally produce more testosterone and less estrogen. This makes lifting heavy, recovering smoothly, and building muscle a breeze. Additionally, with a lean physique, it’s much, much easier to see progress. I was demoralized when I first started lifting because I just ended up looking bulkier, pushing me away from my desired look. It’s critical to lean down first, so you can make faster progress and maintain skyhigh motivation.
It took me roughly 2 years to achieve my current, shredded, 10% body fat physique. A long term mindset is a requirement. Understand you’re on this journey for life and any pain you experience is truly temporary. Now, I eat carbs, rarely fast, moderate cardio, and lift heavy. My body is optimized to lean bulk the way the fitness industry has taught me.
Ultimately these anecdotes are all from my own experience. Many will disagree, and that’s okay. I hope this post can ease the minds of those in flux, while providing a little spark of motivation in the right direction. I only know if I’d heeded this advice years ago, I would’ve reached my aesthetic goals far sooner.
The objective of this post was not to provide detailed instructions about how to achieve your aesthetic goals. In fact I was intentionally vague. You know the objective and you know what you need to do. Everyone has their own path. It’s up to you to research and incorporate the lifestyle changes that best suit you. With that being said, there’s so much I have to say about this topic. I promise to put out content about building muscle, bodyweight training, and diet. Lastly, I say from experience the noble pursuit of aesthetics is not for the faint of heart. It may be the most challenging endeavor you ever undertake. But that’s exactly why the success will be worth it.
Good luck.
The Modern Samurai
