What do you do when you see an actor or a model with an amazing body gracing a magazine cover? Or when you see that Instagram “fitness celebrity” with ultra-ripped body looking as if the whole world is bowing their way? If you are like most people, you are (maybe not so) secretly wishing you could have a body like that.
But let’s peel back the superficial and explore what’s beneath it all. Let’s talk about what’s behind all that greatness that we see on the outside. The oiled up photo doesn’t always tell the full story.
We are setting our standards around photoshopped photos of people who look flawless for a fraction of a minute, enough to get the photoshoot done.
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Most of these photos are highly photo-shopped before being released. This is not me being jealous because of my “poor me and my less than average genetics” – complex. It’s a fact. Even if there’s no photoshopping involved, no one looks like that 365 days a year. Except Arnold, he still looks like that. And I’m cool with that. We are setting our standards around photoshopped photos of people who look flawless for a fraction of a minute, enough to get the photoshoot done.
You actually don’t want to look like them. Honestly you don’t
Before you cast your iron arrows made out of dumbbells my way, here’s a fact: these people have lives that revolve around fitness. They’re eating, training, and doing other god-knows-what stuff to look the way that they do. They’ve dedicated their lives to maintain their looks. And it all comes with a price of missing out. It did for me when the my looks were the most important thing in the world for me. And I wasn’t a magazine cover model.
When you spend so much time on chasing a great body or a certain number of body-fat, you’ll miss out on a lot of other (dare I say, more) important things in life. And this is all coming from me whose life, because of the line of work I do as a movement and habit coach revolves around fitness. So let me say this again as clearly as I can: there becomes a point when there is more important things in life than the way that you look. This usually happens once you have a job, a partner, a family and you don’t live in your parent’s basement anymore.
I am bracing myself for hate-mail here but let me dig myself a little deeper into the hole I’ve so eagerly started. I am not advocating that you throw your dumbbells out of the window and swap your protein shakes for whipped cream caramel lattes, not at all. Live a healthy life and and have a body that you are content and happy with, but don’t think for a second that you’ll be happier once you reach a certain body fat number or a specific number on a scale. If you are not content with yourself now it won’t change over time as your body changes. It’s a moving goal post.
Do I have the perfect body? Nope. But am I content with my body how it is now? In other words if this is as good as I would ever look, is this enough? Yeah, I am cool with this.
It hasn’t always been like this for me. I used to sport ultra low body fat, I used to be fitter in every possible way, yet I wasn’t content with how I looked. I needed more. I counted calories so each meal was an exercise in a maths class instead of actually enjoying the meal. I trained twice a day to shred and expose another vain in my arm. I had to build more muscle, I had to be more ripped. Because, I cared what other people thought of my looks. And all of that put a huge strain in the relationships with my then girlfriend, now wife, as well as the relationships I had with my friends. All my choices were driven by my aesthetics.
Balancing Things Out
Now I look at people training twice or more a day as if they have three eyes and an elbow on their neck. Unless you are training for a competition or a sport of some sort, I can’t see the point of training twice a day. In 50 years time, no one gives a two jacks of how big your arms were or how much you benched when you were 30. Hell, no one beyond Instagram cares about it now.
I see an ultra ripped guy in the gym or in the change room and I am happy that I am not sacrificing other aspects of life for an amazing looking body.
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It’s either a lack of other things in life or a twisted view on the body. The only explanation I can come up with is lack of self-confidence. I know that was my reason behind it all. I had no self-esteem. Why else would I do it? There’s so many other amazing things that life offers. Like, I don’t know, not training or counting calories all the time.
These days I value other things in life more than I value about how big my arms look. Training three to four times a week is enough for me. Eating well 80-90 percent of the time is good enough for me. I want to be able to order dessert without worrying about how it’s going to affect my six-pack. And I want to be able to have a beer on the weekend without stressing over the calories in it. Because I don’t give a crap anymore. I acknowledge that I’ll never be ripped like a cover model or have the chest of Arnold (not that I’d have it anyways) and I am more than fine with that. I am not willing to sacrifice parts of my life to get there.
Occasionally the old me still flirts with me. The one drawn to the dark side of fitness, the one who loves aesthetic’s training goal. I might follow the plan for a week and switch to something else because I get no fulfilment out of it.
Most times it’s the wiser side of me that reinforces my current values and beliefs. I see an ultra ripped guy in the gym or in the change room and I am happy that I am not sacrificing other aspects of life for an amazing looking body. I just don’t find that the sacrifices I’d have to make would be worth it.
What Now?
I choose movement and performance related goals. I focus on moving better, being pain-free, and enjoying life. I want training to enhance other aspects of my life instead of being a burden and adding extra stress. And since I’ve taken the emphasis away from the aesthetics goals, I’ve become happier with who I am and how I feel. My body doesn’t define me anymore.
Do enough to be healthy and spend the rest of your time doing other great things life has to offer. Go for a walk, have a beer, play guitar, whatever.
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Unless you are competing for something, don’t make training and “clean eating” your number one priority. Do enough to be healthy and spend the rest of your time doing other great things life has to offer. Go for a walk, have a beer, play guitar, whatever.
The next time you look at someone who’s in the top one percent and has the body that makes you profusely drool in envy, be it an athlete or a fitness model, don’t only look at what they have. Look at what they’ve sacrificed to get there. When you change your view, that body doesn’t look as appealing anymore.
And if, after taking all that in consideration it still does, what’s stopping you from sacrificing other things to work towards where they are? If you think that is something your life needs and will be better because of it, have at it, I say. I ain’t judging nobody.
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Photo: Getty Images