Week 6. Not a milestone, exactly. More like a waypoint on a route that finally has a destination.
I've been training seriously since 2013. But this block is different. This is the first time the work has a shape in mind rather than just general progress.
The tape measure reads 0.91. Six weeks ago, it read 0.96. In ten weeks, if the trajectory holds, it should read something closer to 0.83. Maybe 0.85. Numbers that would have meant nothing to me a year ago. Numbers that now mean everything.
Where This Started
The beginning wasn't a decision. It was an admission.
I'd been training for years with goals I'd borrowed from other people. General strength. Overall mass. The vague pursuit of "fitness" that gym marketing promised would fix something I couldn't name. The work was real. The progress was measurable. The purpose was missing.
Then I started wearing skirts.
The silhouette in the mirror after months of dedicated training looked the same as the silhouette before. Flat where I needed curve. Straight where I wanted shape. All that work, and the clothes hung identically.
Something shifted. Not dramatically. Quietly. The question changed from "how do I get bigger?" to "how do I build the shape that serves what I actually want to wear?"
The answer required different training. Different priorities. A willingness to use tools I'd previously considered out of scope. I made those decisions. This is the result.
The Work So Far
Four lower body sessions per week. Two upper. That's the split now.
Leg priority training is its own experience. The soreness becomes a constant. Not the sharp pain of injury; the deep ache of muscle tissue pushed past comfort and forced to adapt. Stairs become a negotiation. Sitting down requires planning. The body protests, then rebuilds, then protests again.
There's a specific moment in each session when the pump arrives. The glutes filling with blood, the fabric of gym shorts suddenly fitting differently against skin. A temporary preview of what the permanent result might look like. It fades within an hour. But it keeps appearing earlier in each workout, lasting longer, hinting at what's coming.
The mirror becomes a different relationship. Not the full-body assessment of overall size. Just the ratio. Just the waist and what sits below it. The narrowing above. The widening beneath. Week by week, almost too slow to perceive, but the tape measure doesn't lie.
What Changed
The tape measure became meaningful.
Not just a number I recorded and forgot. A data point that connected to something I actually cared about. A ratio that tracked whether the work was serving the purpose.
0.96 to 0.91. Five hundredths. It sounds insignificant until you try on a pencil skirt and feel the difference. Until the fabric sits differently over developing muscle. Until the mirror shows something closer to the shape in your mind.
Training sessions feel different now. Not obligatory. Purposeful. Every set connects to an outcome I can visualize. Every glute exercise, every hip thrust, every session of chasing the burn exists in service of a wardrobe goal, not an abstract fitness goal.
The gym at 6am is quiet. Just me and the weights and the specific intention I bring. Nobody knows why I'm here. Nobody needs to. The work speaks eventually.
The Path Forward
Ten weeks remain in this block.
0.91 heading toward 0.83. A trajectory that requires consistency more than intensity, persistence more than perfection. Weeks will fluctuate. Numbers will vary with water weight, with measurement precision, with the particular day. The trend matters more than any single data point.
The target isn't arbitrary. 0.83-0.85 W:G represents a shape that pencil skirts require. A ratio that fitted dresses assume. The numbers come from what the clothing needs, not from a chart or a standard. My body, serving my wardrobe goals.
I am not where I want to be. I am closer than I was. The direction is correct.
Why This Matters
The physique and the wardrobe are one project.
That sentence took years to understand. I trained like everyone else, for goals that belonged to everyone else, while hiding a wardrobe that contradicted everything the gym was supposedly building. Two parallel lives that never touched.
They touch now.
The skirt in my closet will hang differently in ten weeks than it hangs today. The shape emerging in the mirror serves a purpose beyond the mirror. Every session, every meal, every decision about training is also a decision about presentation. About how I want to appear in the clothes I actually want to wear.
Building the shape to wear the silhouette. Not a slogan. A daily practice.
The tape measure moved. It will move again. Ten weeks, then another block, then another. The shape emerges gradually, then suddenly. I'm somewhere between gradually and suddenly now. Closer to suddenly than I've ever been.
The work continues. The numbers track. The silhouette follows.