Gay Trainer Lessons: Why Effort Doesn’t Always Equal Progress in Fitness (Part 1)

October 19, 2025•7 min read

Introduction

As a gay fitness coach, I help men transform their bodies so they can feel fun, sexy, confident, and connected both in and out of the gym. But this frustration is a frustration I hear all too often:

“I’m trying so hard, but nothing’s changing.”

This article covers the first of three common mistakes that make all your effort feel as pointless as the free lube they hand out at clinics.

Pitfall 1 : Doing The Wrong Things

You know that friend who is completely sure they know where they are going in a new city? Then 20 minutes later, you realize you are lost. That is how a lot of gay men approach fitness. They are working hard, but in the wrong direction. Maybe you have said one of these before:

“I do not get it. I eat healthy but keep gaining weight.”
“It must be my genetics. I just can't get any bigger.”
“My friends stay snatched all year, but my crop-top confidence disappeared months ago.”

But you are trying your heart out to change. Clearly, hard work alone is not enough. You have to do the right activities and do them consistently to get the outcome you want.

What Should You Actually Be Doing?

Every fitness goal I have been asked to help with can be achieved if you understand these formulas:

Fat Loss = Calorie Deficit + Proper Protein + Proper Training + Proper Recovery

Building Muscle = Calorie Surplus + Proper Protein + Proper Training + Proper Recovery

Let’s break these down so you can stop guessing and start progressing.

Calorie Deficit for Fat Loss

A calorie deficit is when you eat fewer calories than your body burns. Aim for a consistent deficit of 300 to 500 calories a day. The more aggressive the fat loss goal, the higher deficit you will run. Do not go beyond a deficit of 500 calories a day unless you are enhanced or overweight. In most cases, doing so will cause you to lose muscle in the process while you lose the fat.

The goal for most people should be to lose about 2 pounds a week or no more than 1% of your body weight.

Decide on a deficit you can handle mentally over the longest period of time. The greater the deficit the greater the mental battle you will face. Choose a rate that you can mentally tolerate with room for life to throw the curveballs it does sometimes.

Even if you can grit through a fat loss phase that is intense, you want to avoid associating fat loss with traumatic or intense event. Your brain forgets the granular details, but remember how it felt when it did something. You will have won this battle, but set yourself up where you won't be easily motivated to go through another fat loss phase in the future and lost the war.

Think of the friends you know who "tried" juice cleanses, fad diets, or extreme weeks of HIIT trainings. They lost the weight, but then relaxed after and mentally "couldn't find the motivation" to do it again. It's okay to feel uncomfortable when losing fat. However, for most people fat loss shouldn't feel like punishment.

Calorie Surplus for Gaining Muscle

The goal is to consistently running a surplus of 300-500 calories a day. To do this you will eat a little more than your body burns in a day.

A common myth is that the goal when building muscle is to gain weight at all cost. This thinking usually leads to men dirty bulking to add the weight. That means eating junk food just to hit your calorie goal. You will gain weight, but it will mostly be fat and you will feel sluggish and greasy when you do it.

A good target is to gain no more than a pound a week. Any faster ads fat you'll have to lose later.

Remember, losing fat is a skill too. If you bulk too fast but cannot cut properly afterward, you will lose all the muscle you built. Be patient. A clean and steady surplus builds quality muscle.

Proper Protein

Getting a gram of protein per pound of body weight when losing weight is a minimum when losing fat. You actually want to be closer towards 1.2 or 1.3 grams per pound of body weight when cutting. When bulking you can get away with just the gram per pound since you have additional energy that can be used to fuel the body from being in a caloric surplus as opposed to a deficit. This helps your body hold onto muscle when in a deficit and build new muscle when in a surplus.

You should expect that getting a gram of protein in per pound of body weight will be "too hard" until you sit down and make a plan. It won't happen on accident.

Most people eat almost no protein at breakfast, a little at lunch, and a lot at dinner. That is called back-loaded protein, and it is not ideal for growth. Try a front-loaded protein strategy. That means you eat more protein earlier in the day or spread it evenly across your meals.

At the time of writing this my current protein goal is a little over 300 grams of protein a day. Before my lunch I usually have consumed about 130 of those grams (about half of the goal at the start of the day).

Proper Training

The amount of training you will need to do will come down to where you are the journey.

You should expect to be sore when you first start in the gym. It's like the first time a guy bottoms. If you have not used those muscles before, it will feel intense, but you will adjust over time. In time, tolerance can be built where you can take some pretty sizable guys like a pro.

The same is going to be true in the gym. You should expect to be really sore when you are starting or whenever you have significantly increased the difficulty of your plan. I have gained the most amount of muscle the periods I have had what I call a "perma-sore" feeling. This is when I feel a persistent 2 or 3 on the soreness scale when living life. You appreciate your rest days when they come.

For me, I get this feeling when I chain multiple days of 6 strength training days a week together. For, you this number may be different. The key is to find the number that makes your baseline soreness sit around a 2 or 3.

Proper Recovery

You don't grow in the gym. You grow when you rest. Here are some recovery tips that will help you get a leg up:

Eat as clean as you can while keeping your calorie goal. Macronutritients control how you look, but micronutrients control how you feel. This is true when both building muscle and losing weight.
Ensure you are getting enough fiber to stay regular while you are transforming your body since mood. The target is 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories.
Sleep is crucial. Target at least 7 hours of sleep per night. I choose to cycle between seasons for getting more sleep when im changing my body and then seasons where I get less sleep when I am maintaining.
Drink at least a gallon of water a day is my general recommendation for most men. If you want a more accurate number for you drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day.

Closing Thoughts

Build smart, not just hard. Effort without direction is wasted time and energy. When you align your effort with the right activities over time you start making real progress. The second part to this article will be linked below when it's written to help you avoid the frustration of putting in a ton of effort only to spin your wheels.

Click Here to go to Part 2 of this Series

Built For You

If you would like a specific plan built to account for you, your life, your obstacles, and your goal, buy a training program. On your onboarding call, we will see you came from this post and take you down a different process to build something specific to you.

To get a program click here: Get A Coach

Related Articles

If you liked this post you may like

James Patrick

On a mission to help gay men feel more fun, sexy, confident, and connected by helping them build muscle or lose fat. 🏳️‍🌈

Back to Blog