The first time I remember wanting to be shredded was in university, and while you could argue that a couple of things I’ve done in life has been, in one way or another, to impress women, the origin of this particular desire was… men. Which feels like something you are not supposed to say out loud but it’s true.
It wasn’t the girls in the movies that got me thinking. It was the men. The ones who walked into scenes like they had been carved out of something more intentional than flesh; with big arms and chests and stomachs that had never known joy, only discipline. I would watch them and think, so this is what a man can look like. And then I would look at myself. What a living walking disappointment to men everywhere.
In my lodge, there were guys who could walk around shirtless like it was nothing, like their bodies were not a spectacle but a normal, everyday thing. Meanwhile, I treated my shirt like an extension of my skin. God forbid anybody caught a glimpse of my chest—my soft, generous, very accommodating chest, complete with what I like to call a single, elaborate, well-rounded pack just beneath it. Not six. Not four. One.
Sometimes I would see a properly built guy and think, wow, you look good. I’m sure you get so many girls. And in that moment of inspiration, I would do what any serious man on a fitness journey would do, I would register at the gym for a month and attend a solid two sessions. Consistency has never really been my ministry.
Just like many things in my life, I exist on the edge of becoming. The edge of being financially stable. The edge of being disciplined. The edge of being that guy—the one whose body enters a room before he does.
I am always close enough to see it, never close enough to touch it. And I know this is not some mysterious “near success syndrome.” I wish it was ‘cos it would make it poetic but this is much simpler than that. This is me, looking at the work required and quietly deciding that maybe… not.
Because the truth is, the idea of working out forever feels like a life sentence.
Not eating what I want? Tracking calories? Saying no to soft drinks on a hot Lagos afternoon? That’s no life and I want to live.
Life demands so much of me and i just want to be this. And it’s not even that I eat badly. I don’t. But any life where I have to think harder about food than I currently do feels… excessive.
Dostoevsky once wrote, “Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.”
I think about that a lot, especially in the context of fitness and those who claim to have been doing it for many years. Because to be shredded—truly shredded—is to enter into a kind of agreement with suffering. Early mornings, controlled meals, repetition, denial. You are choosing a harder version of life on purpose, in exchange for a body that people will look at and say, “wow.” And I don’t know if I love anything that much.
You see, I have always feared turning 30 and never seeing what my body could really become. I remember thinking this at 20, back when 30 felt like a distant, fictional age, something that happened to other people. But now, time moves differently. You blink, and the year is gone. You blink again, and suddenly you are negotiating with yourself.
“30 is not old,” you say. And it’s true. It isn’t. But you are also not getting younger.
Your prime slips away quietly, and one day, you look around and realise the party is not what it used to be. Still, in all my wanting, I have never been able to stay the course.
I once had a friend with a great body, the kind of body that makes people subconsciously stand straighter around you. At some point, I decided to start working out with him, thinking proximity to discipline might somehow transfer by osmosis.
Every time I asked him why he worked out, he would say, very seriously, that it was for his health. For his health? Cool but after every session, this same man would stand in the locker room, shirtless, turning slightly to the left, then to the right, ensuring his chest remained as full and as impressive as the last time he checked, which was, conveniently, five minutes ago. That doesn’t sound like someone driven purely by cardiovascular concerns.
I think he said it for me(And maybe for himself) because admitting that you want to look good for the sake of looking good can feel shallow. But if we’re being honest, most of us are not chasing health. We are chasing the version of ourselves that gets looked at differently and maybe treated differently too.
So I ask myself, often, what exactly do I want from a “hot body”? Is life objectively better on the other side of abs? Do doors open faster? Do people listen more? Do you finally become the person you’ve always felt like, or do you just become… yourself, with better lighting? I don’t remember wanting this before university. I don’t remember looking at my body and thinking it needed to be anything other than what it was. Somewhere along the way, that changed. Gradually. Like most things do.
Dostoevsky also said, “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
And sometimes, I wonder if I accidentally picked aesthetics as one of those things. Not enough to fully commit to it but enough to keep thinking about it. Enough to keep standing on the edge of it.
Because the truth is, I do want to be shredded. I want to wake up one day, look in the mirror, and see a version of myself that looks… finished. Intentional. Like effort was applied here. Like this body did not just happen, it was built. But I also want ease. I want softness. I want to eat what I want, I want life to feel like life, not a set I am constantly trying to finish.
And so I remain here. Between the man I could become and the man I currently am. Still thinking about it. Still writing about it. Still, somehow, not doing it.