Measure Progress With Clothes

Awwww…

Unrequited love can be bitter and painful, so I feel sad for you.¹

Despite all the warm smiles, batting of the eyes, lighthearted compliments, playful teasing, and subtle touching, your crush isn’t picking up on your obvious flirtation with them. The only possible explanation has to be that they’re either slow at grasping things, like social cues, or are putting on an act because they respect the sanctity of your relationship more than you do and aren’t as willing to cheat on their significant other as you readily are if they’re involved with someone.

Whatever the case, they’re being dense.

Know what else is dense?

You for not considering the strong possibility that your crush may very well not be reciprocating because they’re just not physically into you at your current weight and are holding out hope for you to lose some of it before returning your feelings?

My, that certainly is a good guess but it’s not what I was going for, though it displays a level of self-awareness I was beginning to doubt that you had!

Instead, the answer I had in mind was muscle.

Muscle tissue is composed of tightly packed fibers, and that makes it particularly dense. That’s important to know because muscle is denser than fat and takes up less space in the body. So if you add muscle by resistance training while dieting, your weight on the scale may increase when you’re actually getting smaller in size because the scale only measures mass and doesn’t differentiate between what that mass is made of, which consists of bones, organs, water, waste, and the amount of food in the stomach, in addition to muscle and fat. How loose or tight old jeans and other articles of clothing feel in certain places can help you better notice this change that often isn’t reflected on the scale and can lead to frustration at the lack of progress. All you have to do is select an item of clothing and try it on every four weeks then document how they fit so you have a record.²

If you ever decide to shed a few pounds, then keep this information in mind as part of what you should do so you don’t give up on your goal too early from believing that nothing is happening. Then when you slim down and if the target of your affection is still oblivious, you’ll at least have confirmation that their failure to react to your flirting was because of an inability to interpret your signals or something stupid like faithfulness to their partner rather than a lack of interest based on your weight.

Glossary: diet, fat, food, goal, muscle

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer and online coach in San Diego. He's helped hundreds of people lose weight, build muscle, and become more attractive to their loved one so they don't have as strong of a desire to cheat on them anymore. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys making fun of Drake and people who like the guy.

Measure Progress With Clothes

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