On any given social media platform, it’s hard to avoid coming across someone’s body transformation photos. The most prominent examples will often show people having lost considerable amounts of weight, or gained muscle, between the before and after photos. You can’t even get on a train at certain stations without seeing huge banners showing people’s before and after photos!
These images can elicit multiple feelings – envy, inadequacy, or the pressure to buy a certain product. The images might also tempt you to undertake a transformation of your own. These feelings are normal – it’s what the images are designed to do, after all. However, here are some things to think about before you let these feelings sway you.
Will Transforming Your Body Really Improve Your Life?
It’s engrained within us to view stereotypes of health and fitness as being inherently good for us. These days, a body transformation is a status symbol on a level with owning a flashy car. Celebrities, trainers, popular culture and supplement companies have led us to believe that if we get a six-pack, all of our problems will be solved. However, this is rarely the case. Most of the time, it will just make us hungrier.
Most people would agree that the true causes of their problems have very little to do with their appearance. After all, anyone who’s watched Shrek will be able to tell you that true happiness is not skin-deep; however somewhere along the way to adulthood, we tend to forget this message.
Sometimes the pressure to change your body comes from those around you – whether that’s a partner, a friend, or a brand. However, this is not a good enough reason to transform. You only owe happiness to yourself, and if you’re happy living your current lifestyle then you shouldn’t put yourself through 3 months of torture for a body transformation.
Of course, those people who do complete a body transformation are often happier in their “after” photos. But how much of that happiness comes from the fact that have been rewarded for conforming to the ideal image they were told they needed? And, having found happiness in conformity, how much more daunting is the prospect of returning to the body in their “before” photo?
How Might Your Life Be Harmed By A Transformation?
Before and after photos emphasise short timeframes, such as a body transformation in 3 months, or 6 months. Such dramatic changes can only occur using extreme methods that are not sustainable or enjoyable. These can involve extremely restrictive diets, very high training frequencies, and harmful relationships with food.
It’s well accepted that weight-loss is at the mercy of a simple equation: burn more calories than you consume. Therefore, to get extreme results, you have to take this equation to it’s extreme: burn A LOT more calories than you consume. This can wreak havoc with your health and quality of life, by making you train at high frequencies whilst consuming very low calories.
You may be thinking, “that’s a change I’m prepared to make in the short term!” But ask yourself why. As we’ve established, your life will not be so dramatically improved to make that suffering worth it. Not to mention that, in pursuing such extreme methods, you will increase the chances of relapsing as soon as the regime is over. Extreme fatigue, overuse injuries, and all-or-nothing thinking can drive you back to old habits, meaning the body transformation will be short-lived. Then, having idealised the “after” version of yourself, you will feel terrible when you do relapse.
How Honest Are Body Transformation Pictures?
Even if transforming your body was a worthy use of your time and energy, and even if you could do it in a sustainable and healthy way, there is still no guarantee that the pictures you see online are even genuine.
Photoshop, plastic surgery, steroids, lighting tricks, posing and clothing changes, and short-term interventions such as dehydration can all make for a more dramatic transformation that lasts for only as long as it takes to take the picture.
History has proven that people will say or do anything in order to get your money, including agreeing to promote dangerous products that they have not even tested or taken. People are not above claiming that they revolutionised their physique by workout X or product Y which they will share with you – for a price, of course.
In the best-case scenario, most body transformations were achieved using extreme and unsustainable methods.
In the worst-case scenario, they are lies.
What Should You Focus On Instead?
Congratulations! You’ve deconstructed that bullshit transformation post that your gym posted on their Instagram. Now it’s time to set some more rewarding goals.
I personally find strength goals to be incredibly rewarding. They’re objective, unique to you, and serve a purpose beyond making you look the way a magazine told you to. You’ll feel the benefits of increased strength training in a wide range of ways – see this post for more info!
Alternatively, you could try a performance goal. I’d recommend something like a hike or trek as opposed to a running goal. The training tends to be a bit more sustainable, and the end goal often coincides with an adventure of some sort. These can also be done for charity!
Try to find the pleasure of movement and exercise – this can be tough if you’re bombarded by the pressure to transform into someone else, but if you can get to a point where you’re training just for the enjoyment of it, then nothing will get in your way again.
If you liked this post: 5 Reasons to Stay Away From Celebrity Workouts
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