Ferrari body, fiesta engine

I recently saw social media posts from a personal trainer I know demonstrating their physique and keeping their followers updated on the progress toward a desired aesthetic goal. I spent the hours and days that followed seeing the post completely aghast. This health and fitness professional was chronicling their efforts to carve out their abs and deepen the definition of their muscle tone and was openly advocating dehydration as a method of trimming down.

The idea of cutting water intake and using up stored water thus losing "softness" and excess weight is nothing new. Professional fighters and fitness models have been doing it for years. The latter even consume a breakfast of red wine and Haribo on shoot days to achieve peak vascularity and definition.

This health professional however was not prepping for a shoot. They were chasing the short-term method and hoping, somehow, for a long-term result. (The fact that they were in a position to have to lose fat is a concern. Clearly a deluded disciple of the bulk and shred yo-yo regime of the gym-bro set.)

What has become startlingly clear to me is that this approach is the fitness equivalent of trying to form a Ferrari body around a Fiesta engine. They are depriving themselves of the most vital factor in good diet, exercise and overall health. They are putting their organs under extreme stress and risking severe health issues in order to see their abdominal muscles more clearly. Water is integral to normal bodily function. Every aspect of it. Especially weight management and fat loss. The trainer should have been increasing their water intake. Flushing the body, delivering oxygen and nutrients to the muscles (aiding recovery from the more intense training regime), suppressing cravings and calorie intake and beating fatigue. Not only is their narrow-minded approach to weight loss putting them in danger it also endangers any individual following their guidance, advice or example.

There are two major issues in play here. Firstly, the impatience of the trainer in achieving aesthetic goals. Secondly, the goals are aesthetic.

If fat was gained over a period of weeks and months then should the same time frame not be applied to the loss of it? The frightening thing in all of this is that the impatience is due to the desire to get the photo of the peak condition so that it can all be undone again and gluttony can resume until the next time a particular post makes them feel inadequate or shows how far they’ve slipped.

Impatience is an epidemic in the social media generation. The shortened attention spans and cravings for positive attention or validation push people to cut corners so they can get their next hit of online opiate. Unfortunately, hard work and consistent, sustained effort is the only thing that brings rewarding, fulfilling success. Especially true of personal health and fitness.

Another demon in this age of social media is filtering. Imagery has begun to supersede the written word; it can be digested faster and in greater quantities. As a result, people are becoming increasingly biased toward the aesthetic side of fitness. Our goals are all too often to look like some popular post we clicked ‘like’ on. We imagine that we’ll be happy and content when we achieve the body image we hold in our minds. The art of filtering an image makes for unrealistic and unattainable aesthetic ambitions and so we have hundreds and thousands of people hurtling recklessly toward something they can never reach.

Sadly, the fitness professional that inspired this blog is not an anomaly. There are many out there who confuse looking fit with being fit. So, before signing up with a personal trainer, maybe have a patient, investigative scroll through their social media. Ignore the imagery and focus on the philosophy.