That’s the title of this New York Times article by Gina Kolata…which is one of the best ones I’ve seen on the subject, lately. 

Exercise physiologists approach the whole new year, new you, total body transformation mania with a jaundiced eye. Yes, they said, people can change the way they look. But not overnight.

“I think it’s pretty clear,” said William Kraemer, a kinesiology professor at the University of Connecticut. Often the promises are just marketing, he said. “A lot of times when you are dealing with health clubs, they are trying to get new members who have made New Year’s resolutions.”

“To make a change in how you look, you are talking about a significant period of training,” Dr. Kraemer said. “In our studies it takes six months to a year.” And, he added, that is with regular strength-training workouts, using the appropriate weights and with a carefully designed individualized program. “That is what the reality is,” he said.

And genetic differences among individuals mean some people respond much better to exercise than others, said Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, an exercise researcher at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Sorry, unless you’ve got a significant amount of lean muscle mass to begin with, and under 20 pounds of fat to lose, you won’t emerge from some 12 week “challenge” program looking shredded.  It ain’t fair, but that’s the way it is.

My personal experience confirms this.  When I first started taking strength training seriously, I worked hard for a good year, without seeing much physical change.  I was already slender (115 – 118 lbs.), so did not need to lose weight.  I got considerably stronger over those first 12 months, but I couldn’t see much visible muscle.  The only part of my body that looked noticeably different was my shoulders…they seemed a little more defined.

I was perfectly ok with this, as I was fine with my body as it was.  My goal was to get stronger, and I could see that happening.  Nonetheless, the next 6 months proved to be a very different story – by the time summer rolled around, I was in tanks and spaghetti-strap camis almost exclusively, so I could show off the unexpected – but welcome – results of all my hard work.

It took a year and a half to get to that point…and that was without having to lose any weight, too.

Why’d it take so long?  Well, for one thing, I wasn’t starting from 0 – I was probably starting from minus 10.  I’d never been an athlete, so while I had decent cardiovascular fitness, I had zip w/respect to upper body strength…and had probably lost some muscle over the years, too (if you don’t use it, you gradually lose it).  I had to work steadily and hard to even get back to 0, and create a foundation to build on.  And – needless to state – building muscle is a slow process when you’re a middle-aged woman with only so-so genetics.

But the important thing was that it happened in the end, and I was pleased with the results – both in terms of strength and appearance.  Life is long, so who cares if it takes months – and even years – of training?  And there’s more to it than just getting a good body…there are benefits across the board.  Thus, it’s worth being patient: things are happening, even if they aren’t visible from workout to workout.