I know this is depressing to read. I've been going to the gym five or six times a week for 17 years – since I was 20 – and my six pack has really only started to show in the last few.
Unless you're genetically blessed with a fat-less stomach (I'm not), a completely flat and popping tummy can only be the result of a lifelong diet. That is, you have to eat and exercise to achieve a calorie deficit, every day. For the rest of time.
It's a lifestyle, not a diet for six weeks.
Why are we lead to believe a summer body is achievable, then? Marketing, for one. That six-week-to-a-six-pack schtick? It sells.
Perhaps more importantly, our thin-idealist society tells us that everybody can be skinny if they just "try a little harder". Do a little more movement. Eat a little healthier. Be a little less stressed. Sleep a little better. You know the drill.
This is what I call the "summer body lie". The totally unachievable goal modern media tells you is achievable. In six weeks, realistically, you could tone up a little, and maybe lose a kilogram or two.
However – and I know this from experience – even with a super strict diet that borders on starvation, humans can only lose a maximum one kilogram per week. More likely, with diet and a daily workout regimen, you might be able to lose a few hundred grams.
Unless you've already got four of your six abs showing through, it will take months and probably years to get the result you want.
Then, of course, maintaining that flat stomach is almost impossible because you can't live in starvation mode forever. You're left to ask yourself, "is all that effort worth it to look good in a bikini for one single week of the year?"
I am not advocating you give up on your perfect body dreams. I do believe, within reason, you can have the body you want if you are dedicated and disciplined long-term. As long as you also acknowledge your body's natural shape and train and eat for the best version of that type. Trust me because I've done it: trying to change your body type only ends up in frustration.
The crux of the summer body lie is that it can be fast and easy. If we step back for a bit, however, why would an ideal figure be fast and easy? Why would it not be slow and difficult?
If this ideal were fast and easy, everyone would have the legs of Margot Robbie or the abs of Ryan Gosling, the bum of Beyoncé or the chest of Chris Hemsworth. Yet so few do because being really fit is exhausting and it takes forever. Few of us are going to look like we belong in that beach scene in Top Gun: Maverick.
So, where to from here? Should you start dieting and exercising now for summer '23, or give up completely? Commit to next year's summer body, or throw away the lie altogether?
I'd like to think this is up to the individual. Maybe reading this column has inspired you to dedicate your year to health, Rebel Wilson style. Or maybe it has helped you realise you should just love the body you're in.
Whatever the case, don't buy into the summer body lie. Because here's something else I know from personal experience: the only person who cares what you look like at the beach is you. Everyone else on that beach has succumbed to their own insecurities and can't even notice your six pack, or your lack thereof.
