by Jenn Partridge

Ahh… those words bring me back to my childhood and the temper tantrums of Veruca Salt. Remember how you tried the same thing with your parents once you saw “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” and earned yourself a day or two in your room?

Now, however, you can get what you want, when you want it, however you want it. Text messaging and emails have conditioned us for an immediate response. We live in the age of instant gratification. We’re so used to getting almost instantaneous results, that we bring that mentality into the gym with us.

If our bodies don’t instantly change, then we get frustrated, impatient and ultimately give up and crash.

We bargain with ourselves and then reward ourselves with cheat meals, candy, milkshakes, or ice cream. Just pick your poison. It becomes a vicious game in our minds and bodies, but mother nature just refuses to play. She wants the changes we make to be healthy and gradual. But over the last ten years, we’ve unfortunately been programmed to expect instantaneous results.

We have to realize that our bodies cannot be compared to a cell phone, a fax machine or a computer.  That our shoulders, quads and calves are not going to show up instantly like the email, text message, or fax that we just sent.

And yet, the lack of instant changes wreaks havoc on our minds. We wonder about what we’re doing wrong day after day. We start to question ourselves, and we get tired of weighing and measuring and counting without any progress on the bathroom scale.

We feel like all the egg whites, the lean chicken, the raw veggies, the whey protein powder, and the cottage cheese that have become the staples of our diets should result in our dream bodies overnight — or at least within a month. When that doesn’t happen, we say “screw it” and eat the ice cream or pizza that we so desperately crave.

And the cycle of self loathing begins.

We hate ourselves for ruining all of our hard work, and feel like we’ve fallen off the clean eating bandwagon, wondering how we’ll ever get back on. It becomes a daunting and overwhelming task, and then we play the “I’ll start over again on Monday;” but which Monday?

Why can’t we just fix it with dinner that night? Why plan on picking a day in the future? We want everything else instantly, so why can’t we get back on the clean eating bandwagon right away?

What we fail to realize while we’re in the process of giving up, is that our bodies are becoming stronger, our diets are getting cleaner, and we’re well on our way to accomplishing a goal that the majority of the American population will never even attempt! But instead of patting ourselves on the back for putting in the time and effort needed to make a change, we beat ourselves up over the lack of instant results.

We let impatience rule our lives. We fail to understand that mother nature will only let our bodies change so much, so fast. That the women we see at competitions and in “Oxygen” magazine have been doing this for years, and have put on the mature muscle mass that they have through hard work, dedication and years of clean eating.

Show some patience and kindness to yourself, and you just may be surprised at what you can accomplish!

About Jenn Partridge

Jenn is an 8th grade English teacher in Florida.
 She grew up in the Northeast, is a novice figure competitor, and strives every day to live her life for herself and no one else.