Fitness
What 12 Years of Consistency in the Gym Taught Me
I never took steroids or peptides. Twelve years later, here is what staying natural taught me about patience, mindset, my gut and why the shortcut costs more than it gives.
Azer Mahdi
ยท 12 min read
Watch the full video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UojcDEPOcNg
I have wanted to take steroids and peptides for a very long time. Twelve years later, I still have not taken any of them. When I stopped to think about that, I realized something about the man I have become: I am more consistent and more disciplined than I ever gave myself credit for, in a world where almost everyone is looking for the shortcut.
This is the written version of my video. I want to share what twelve years of showing up in the gym, naturally, has taught me about life. It is not really a story about muscle. It is a story about patience, mindset, and what happens to you when you stop listening to an industry that profits from your impatience.
This article is educational and based on my own experience. It is not medical advice, and I will not tell you what to take or what to avoid. I will tell you what I lived, what I learned, and why I think the shortcut costs far more than most people realize.
The shortcut everyone is chasing
Look around and you will see it. Every single person seems to be looking for the fast way. A smaller window of time, a bigger result, less waiting. I think that is sad, because many people are actually dying because of these substances. They want the physique they want in a very small window of time, and they are willing to pay for it with their health.
What bothers me even more is what people do not talk about. Most people only discuss what the gym does to your body. Very few talk about what twelve years of working out can teach you about life, lessons you can take and apply in every single area of your world: your work, your relationships, your health, your own head.
Yes, if you go to the gym consistently, you will see results. That is the obvious part. If you build the reflex of trying to improve yourself every single day, your body will change. But the thing the gym forges the most is not your body. It is your mindset. It is your confidence. It is your self-discipline, the quiet belief that whatever comes your way, you will find a way to overcome it.
That is the part nobody advertises, and it is the part I still do not understand people skipping when they go looking for a shortcut.
What happens when you arrive?
Here is a question I rarely hear anyone ask: even if you get the shortcut, what happens when you arrive at the destination?
When you reach the goal, what are you going to do? Most people do not have the knowledge or the experience to maintain the physique they just rushed to build. They have not lived through the process that teaches you how your body responds, how you eat, how you recover, how you handle a bad week. And many of them are not supervised by a doctor. These substances are accessible to almost every person out there, and that is the scary world we are living in today. They are regulated on paper, but everybody seems to have access, and it is not really frowned upon.
I am not here to judge anyone. I am here to tell you what I believe: you will learn so much if you stay consistent and stay natural. You will forge a stronger mindset and a stronger character. A body you rushed is a body you have to keep defending without having built the habits that protect it.
Patience is the skill that matters most
If I had to pick one skill that this journey demands, it would be patience. And honestly, not a lot of us have it.
I remember myself when I was younger. I wanted to look like Zac Efron by the end of the first summer I started working out. Things do not operate like that. Your body does not care about your timeline. It responds to what you do repeatedly over a long period, and that is a very uncomfortable truth when you are young and impatient.
The way I think today did not come from waking up one morning and deciding to think differently. It was built, slowly, through years of trial and error. Patience is not a personality trait you are born with. It is a muscle, and the gym trains it the same way it trains everything else: one repetition at a time, one week at a time, one year at a time.
My bodybuilding years, and the lie I was told
For a long time I trained as a bodybuilder. I competed. I ate everything I was supposed to eat to get big, look big, get jacked, and then step on stage.
But something major bothered me. I was waking up in the middle of the night. I had bloating all the time. I could not sleep well. I could not focus well. I had brain fog and energy crashes. It really bothered me, because it made me realize that a lot of what we are told in the fitness industry does not add up.
Think about how it works. As soon as you have a problem, they hook you up with another supplement. Brain fog? Take this one and you will not have brain fog anymore. That solves one thing and opens the door to the next, and it becomes a vicious circle. I ended up with more than thirty supplement boxes on my kitchen counter.
At some point you have to start asking questions. You have to start asking why. And body dysmorphia is always going to be there, so keep that in mind. We carry a lot of responsibilities. We are competitive in every part of our lives, we are rarely satisfied with what we have, and we always want more. That is what it is like being a man: we are constantly looking to improve and to be ambitious. That drive is a gift, but it can also be used against us, and the supplement and shortcut industries know exactly how to use it.
2017: doing the opposite of the fitness industry
When I started asking the right questions, I realized the world I was living in was not the right place to take my answers from. In 2017 I decided to do the opposite of everything the fitness industry had ever taught me.
The industry tells you to eat big, but it does not tell you what to eat. Meanwhile I was having all of these symptoms. I could barely breathe at night when I was sleeping. I felt like I was having panic attacks here and there. I needed to start paying attention.
So I went to the doctors and asked for a blood test. I told them I felt like I was dying. They came back and said the results looked amazing and that there was nothing wrong with me.
I remember thinking that there had to be something wrong with me, because this was not normal. This is not what a fit person is supposed to feel like.
That is when I understood something important. Doctors are there to tell you whether you are sick or not sick. That is their role, and it is an important one. But they are not there to help you optimize your life. A clean blood test means you are not in a disease category. It does not mean you feel well, sleep well, think clearly or have energy at five in the afternoon.
That moment was a turning point. I decided I was going to become the leader of my own health. I was going to investigate this myself.
The gut, the brain, and a different way of thinking
I dove deeper into the subjects of the gut, health and digestion. That is when I came across a piece of research showing that the gut is connected to the brain. For years I had been ignoring my stomach while chasing numbers on a scale and weight on a bar. The day I stopped ignoring it was the day every single thing in my life started to change.
It changed to the point that my way of thinking is no longer the same as it was before. The way I organize my thoughts is different. The way I structure my thoughts is different. The way I look at things is different. And the brain fog that used to follow me everywhere simply disappeared.
I am telling you this because it connects directly to the shortcut story. If I had taken the shortcut, if I had jumped on the substances to look a certain way faster, I would have missed all of this. I would have missed the questions, the investigation, the discovery of how my body actually works. I would have missed the lessons, and I think I would have regretted it.
The process of elimination
The journey is a process of elimination and failure. It is trial and error. You try this diet. You try that workout plan. You try a different sleep schedule. Some of it fails, and that is the good part, because you are discovering yourself.
You discover your metabolism and how it functions. You discover which foods are best for you. You discover the right sleeping time for you, the right supplements for you, the right training plan for you, the right pace for you. Every single one of those discoveries is a beautiful thing, and you cannot fast-forward through them.
You cannot cut to the chase, because you did not build the lifestyle behind you. You did not build the habits behind it. A result without the habits underneath it is a result on loan, and the bill always comes due.
What twelve years actually taught me
If I had to summarize it in a few lessons, these are the ones I would give a younger version of myself.
1. **Consistency forges confidence.** Every session you complete when you did not feel like it is a deposit in your self-trust account. 2. **Patience beats intensity.** You will be tempted to go faster. Slow, boring, repeated effort is what builds something that lasts. 3. **Ask questions when something feels wrong.** If you feel off but you are told you are fine, keep investigating. Be your own advocate, and work with professionals, but do not outsource your curiosity. 4. **Do not stack fixes on top of a problem you do not understand.** Thirty supplement boxes taught me that more products is not the same as more health. 5. **Look at the gut.** For me, the connection between digestion, sleep, focus and energy was the missing piece. Paying attention to it changed how I think. 6. **Build the habits before you chase the physique.** The habits are what keep the result once you have it. 7. **Failure is data.** Every diet, plan or routine that did not work taught me something about my own body.
A message for the man tempted by the shortcut
If you are reading this and you are thinking about the shortcut, I am not going to shame you. I understand the pressure, the comparison and the impatience. I felt all of it.
But I want you to think about the destination. What will you do when you arrive? Do you have the knowledge, the habits and the support to live in that body? Will you be supervised? Will you have built the version of yourself that can carry it?
And please do not focus only on being consistent in the gym. Be consistent in the things around it too: how you eat, how you sleep, how you handle stress, how you look after your digestion. Keep in mind that good things take time. Fast forward is not an option that comes with a warranty.
Your next step
If you want a simple place to start, I put my approach into a free plan. It is the same philosophy I use with my clients: fix the gut first, build the habits, and let the body follow.
If you would rather talk through your own situation, book a call with me and we will look at it together.
Ready to take the next step?
Get your free 30-day recomp plan here: https://welcome.ens.azermahdi.com/free-plan?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=article&utm_content=what-12-years-of-consistency-in-the-gym-taught-me
Disclaimer
This article is for general information and education only. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a qualified doctor or other licensed healthcare professional. I am sharing my own experience and what I have seen with my coaching clients. Reading this article does not create a doctor-patient or coach-client relationship.
Bloating, brain fog, poor sleep, breathing difficulty at night, panic attacks and unexplained changes in your body can have many causes, including medical conditions. Nothing here should be read as encouragement to take, or to stop taking, any substance or medication. Steroids, peptides and similar substances carry serious health risks and should only be discussed with a licensed doctor. If you have any health condition, are pregnant, take medication, or have concerns about your symptoms, speak with a qualified healthcare professional before changing your diet, supplements or training routine. Never ignore or delay professional medical advice because of something you read here. If you think you have a medical emergency, contact your local emergency services right away.
The client stories and results mentioned across my work are real examples, but they are not guarantees. Results vary from person to person and depend on many factors, including your health, effort, consistency, and circumstances.
You are fully responsible for your own health decisions and for how you use this information. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Azer Mahdi disclaims liability for any loss, injury, or damage resulting from the use of, or reliance on, this article.