Lessons Learned

The mirror lies, the log doesn't

Some days the mirror tells you you’ve made no progress in months. Bloating, lighting, a bad night’s sleep, the angle you’re standing at — all of it lies to you constantly, and it lies in both directions. The training log doesn’t have moods. It just has numbers, and numbers from twelve weeks ago next to numbers from today are the only honest comparison available to you.

I check my log, not the mirror, when I’m convinced I’ve stalled. Almost every time, the squat number from two months ago is lower than today’s, even on days I’d have sworn under oath that nothing had changed. Trust the thing that can’t have an opinion about how you look today.