Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1995: Seven Reasons Your Favorite Fitness Influencer is Unhealthy

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover seven less than ideal traits many fitness influences possess. The origins of body dysmorphia in the fitness space. (3:09) Hacking the game through social media. (5:44)   7 Reasons Your Favorite Fitness Influencer is Unhealthy.   #1 - They have an eating disorder. (9:02)   #2 – They abuse exercise. (15:51)   #3 - They are narcissists. (21:01)   #4 – They are body obsessed. (25:51)   #5 - They have substance abuse issues. (30:31)   #6 – They aren’t authentic. (33:22)   #7 - They aren’t fitness/health experts. (40:14) Related Links/Products Mentioned For Mind Pump Listeners, visit Integrative Health Practitioner Giveaway for your chance to win a scholarship! January Promotion: NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS SPECIAL OFFERS! (New to Weightlifting Bundle, Body Transformation Bundle, and New Year Extreme Intensity Bundle) You get massive savings with each offer. Mind Pump #1985: The 6 Types Of Fitness Influencers You Should Unfollow Mind Pump #1875: Tainted Science With Max Lugavere Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Joe DeFranco (@defrancosgym) Instagram Bret Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about why your favorite fitness influencer is unhealthy. They're just unhealthy. This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors.

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the seven reasons why your favorite fitness influencer is probably super unhealthy. Did you ask, shucking. Did you ask Andrew to put a warning on this one? Why? Oh, you're gonna get, you're gonna ruffle so many feathers talking about this, dude. I don't think so, though. You know what, maybe. Oh, wow.

Let's take a little time. I think it's all time. I think it's all time. Just in hitting me on the head. Yeah, you think that? They're gonna be watching this. Yeah, I know. How much you wanna bet?

How many fitness influencers are gonna repost it? Oh, it's true. Exactly. We were actually talking about you. No, I remember how shocked I was as I started to work in the fitness industry and I started to meet people who not trainers necessarily, although they can kind of be in this category, it's not the same.

But as I met people who were, and back then there was no fitness influencers. There was no social media But you'd meet bodybuilders competitors physique type people who would present their bodies on stage or whatever The more of them I met the more I realized just how unhealthy That space was and I've said this before I've never seen as many Eating disorders and body dysmorphine and stuff like that. Then I've seen in the fitness industry at large,

the fitness influencer industry is even worse. It's far worse. You run into some of the most unhealthy people. The challenge though is they tend to present themselves, or that's what they do, right? They present themselves as being these epitome of health and it's just really, really bad kind kind of sleight of hand, right? It's a big lie, and so it's good to talk about this

because a lot of people follow this people, and a lot of people think that their advice is great, and that these are the people that I should emulate if I want to be super healthy. Not true, not true at all. Going back in the day, it was magazines, right? For the most part, we had a lot of examples of that with bodybuilder magazines,

but even just like it swimsuit editions, or whatever, like we were just very body focused with a lot of the presentation of it, which resembled like the ultimate healthy body, and that wasn't the whole story we were getting. Well, I think it's been, you compare it to that. God, what would you say? 1,000 times worse now because now you have this, because back then, you'd have this magazine

that you would see and you would look at this physique and admire it. Like, oh my God, it's amazing. And that's my favorite body builder. That's my favorite swimsuit model or whatever. But you really didn't know them, they weren't really communicating with you and giving you advice or telling you what to do. Just like a personal relationship. Yeah, now with social media, this now in powers all these people that are thrusted into

an authority position for, you know, none other than maybe the way they look, and now you give them this immediate platform to disseminate information around health and fitness to potentially millions of people. And so, boy, when I had the opportunity to go through the bodybuilding circuit. I kind of knew this already. But I bet it's still shocked to you. Oh, it's shocked a shit out of me, because I didn't think that it would be to the level that I saw. Of course, I like you guys.

I mean, when we started the podcast eight years ago, we led from a place of vulnerability. We shared our own insecurities and the things that drove us into fitness and how we worked through that and how that's made As better coaches and trainers to connect to our people. So we obviously we had worked through and we led with that foot from the get from the get go here But when I got into the competitive phase and was gonna go meet the best dieters and bodies in the world I expected to see another level of professionalism on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on I was floored by how rampant these things that we're going to talk about was in that space. And then it really made me go like, God, it's a lot worse than I think it is.

In fact, it's probably harder to find somebody on social media that is really, truly a good influence in regards to health and wellness. Yeah. It really is because if you've hacked the social media game and you've gotten fame through that medium, you most likely didn't get it the same way that a real good coach or trainer would get. That doesn't mean there's not these anomalies like

to, let's say Joe DeFranco, for example, who I think we all respect as an incredible coach, but he also put decades into training real people in real life first, and then he adopted, you know, podcasting and social media and stuff like that, right later on. So I would, I'd venture to say that he's a bit of an anomaly in our space when it comes to, you know,

quote unquote unquote fitness influencers or coaches online. Yeah, Brett Contreras and two, he's another one that's been really kind of hammering this point with the fact of having that previous knowledge and experience to then be able to relay to this newfound audience. And it's like, if you don't have that,

if you don't have the leg work behind what you're presenting there, then this is where we get into this conundrum Yeah, you know you brought up a good point about How before they were in magazines and now they have social media and they're posting daily It creates the illusion of someone who's real and someone is telling telling the truth and they're honest because you see their day Oh look at their workout. This is what they did yesterday, this is what they're doing today. So it creates this illusion that you have this connection with this person, they know what they're talking about.

When in fact, they really don't, they are, it's really no different than the high fashion model industry. When you look at the high fashion, would you take fitness diet and nutrition advice from the high fashion model, runway model, right? Some people would, but I think most people would know, you're probably not a good idea. It's really not that different.

It's really not that different. It's quite similar. And in this, the stuff we're gonna talk about today, mirrors quite effectively or quite a lot, what that space looks like as well. The first one that you're gonna find, and by the way, this doesn't apply to everyone. I wanna say that again at first.

Of course, there's anomalies. Of course, there's people out there that are exceptions. We're not talking about everyone, but we are talking about a huge percentage. So it is a huge percentage, but again, this is also a huge generalization. So I'm gonna be clear. We're not talking about anyone specifically,

we're talking in general terms here. So if we're hurting someone's feelings, well, if what we're saying is true, then deal with it. But if what we're saying is true to you, then it's not like dig into that a little bit more. Yeah. So number one is that they likely have an eating disorder. Now, when people think eating disorder or disordered eating, the first thing that may think is anorexia, right? Someone who's anorexia. Then the second thing might be bulimia.

Bulimia. Then maybe third thing would be like obesity, right? Someone who's just eating a ton. Then you see someone who's like muscular, fit, or have nice glutes. They look good in the bikini. You think, how could that person have disordered eating? Disordered eating can look a lot of different ways, but basically it's an unhealthy relationship with food Somebody who consistently counts every morsel that goes in their mouth every single day

Someone who stresses out in panics where they don't have exactly what they're supposed to eat or Somebody who when they go off their super regimented strict diet It's almost like you took off the chains and they went in the complete opposite direction. That's also disorder eating. You know, perfect eating, there's a term for it. It's called orthorexia. Orthorexia is a medically recognized eating disorder. Or orthorexia is somebody that has to eat perfect all the time

and it creates a lot of tension and stress in their lives. A lot of fitness influencers fall either in this category or they fall in the category of, they're like that half the time, then the other half the time, it's not just no rules, it's the opposite. It's, I'm gonna go crazy, I'm gonna binge, I'm gonna do everything, follow any competitor post show for the month or two afterwards

and you'll see what I'm talking about. And it looks pretty crazy. I've trained bikini competitors who gained 30 pounds in the two months post show, 30 pound, I'm a tiny people, 110 pound girls, getting up to 140 pounds in the one and a half two months post show. I mean, that's crazy. Now, this one will be one of the ones that for sure

offends a lot of people because there's a lot of influencers in the fitness space, this is just kind of where they're currently at in their journey. They just haven't worked through this yet. And sometimes it's a necessary evil for some people. Let's say you're somebody who, and this is the people that will strike a cord with, where they struggled with a different eating disorder. They over ate or they benged a lot and some of that and you know tracking macros

and weighing their food and meal prepping was their the first step. It was the first step. That's right. It's their first step in the right direction of being healthier and it's changed their life. And so they and they so they get really defensive when you talk about this because they're still in that phase of their lives. It's like safeguards for them.

That's right. And if you've been in this space long enough and you've been successful in it, both building your own physique and helping other people, there's a good chance that you've been here at one point. I just think that most people that have taken their physique to an extreme level of like leanness and looking shredded, right?

And building a very impressive physique required some level of, you know, orthorexia to get there, you know, to some extent, whether they were aware of it going into it or not. And so, and then, of course, you attach that to the success that body's had, the attention that it gave you. So in your mind, this is not a negative thing and how dare you attack me or somebody who is weighing or measuring their food. And I'd want, I don't want to come off that way. But to understand that this is where a lot of fitness people

get stuck is they get this part down. It changes maybe their binge eating or bulimio or anorexia that they had or whatever or they're just obesity that they had before and then now they become this fitness person through weighing and tracking and measuring and meal planning and they don't move out of that. I'm glad you said that. That's very true. I also want to be clear that all of us at one point

have probably struggled with one of the things that we're going to talk about on this. All of us, or I'll speak for myself, I got into fitness initially because of body just morphia. And I had to sort of eating in the opposite direction. I would like try to eat more to gain weight. So I don't want to come across as like, you know, we're better than everybody type of deal.

We just train people for a long time. And it's older. It's older. It's just old. And you train a lot of people. It's just seen a lot. When you train people for decades and you're not trying to get fame and, you know, clicks,

and it's not this glamorous, make tons of money job, and you do it for the passion, love of it, you're forced to grow and learn, you're forced. You're not gonna be a good trainer for 25 years unless you work through some of the stuff. But I'm gonna differentiate counting macros in a healthy way and counting macros in a disordered unhealthy way.

If you're a counting macros person, and it really creates a lot of discomfort and stress in you when you know you can't eat according to your macros or you're gonna go out to eat or you're gonna go off for a week and it creates lots of like, stress. turmoil within you.

Now you know you have a problem. If you count macros and then you have the occasional night out you want vacation like, oh it's okay you know whatever I'm gonna to enjoy myself or I'm with my family, it's not that big of a deal, then, then you're probably okay. So this, when it becomes a disorder is when it really, when it really has this negative impact on the rest of your life. And it causes a lot of problem. Healthy eating enhances your life. It improves the quality of your life, all of it, not just the way you look.

Disorder eating takes away from your life. So that's the big difference. I also think another red flag is, if you get defensive when we talk about some of this. Yeah. Because that just shows that you identify with that way of eating so much that somebody talking about it as it could be an unhealthy thing

triggers you to defend yourself in that situation. That's also a red flag that potentially is an issue for you. If you, again, we're not talking to any one specific person. We're talking about something that's very common in our space and much of us have somewhat, have some sort of relationship with going through that ourselves. So understand that if you get triggered from someone talking about that, you may well be one of those people that are still in that phase of your journey.

Now next would be that they, that many of them abuse exercise. What does that mean? How do you abuse exercise? Anything can be abused or used like a drug, including exercise. And a lot of people in this particular category work out to the point where it's not just not effective, it's beating them up, it's beating themselves up, it's a way of distracting themselves, it's punishment, it's a punishment. And a lot of these fitness influencers

look as good as they do in spite of the fact that they do this. You know, you'll meet somebody like this and they'll be like these really fit lean looking people. You'll look at their workouts and they'll be like these really fit lean looking people. You'll look at their workouts and You'll realize like man, they have such incredible Ability to withstand punishment that they actually can still look good while beating themselves up as much as they do which by the way Judging a fitness influencers Knowledge or health by the way that they look is not very effective now. You can do it in extreme cases like if somebody's obese

by the way that they look is not very effective. Now you can do it in extreme cases, like if somebody's obese, probably not so great, or if somebody's like so lean, they look like they're gonna die, not so great, but oftentimes you'll have two people that look both fit and healthy, one of them is not gonna have great health. And remember health is not just physical performance,

it's also mental, health, psychological health, gut health, you know, all those hormonal health, all those other things, but a lot of them abuse exercise. They use the gym as a drug, they go to the distract, they beat themselves up, they beat themselves up harder when they go off their diet, they beat themselves up harder when they feel tired or stressed.

It literally becomes a tool of self-fledgulation. Yeah, well, one thing, like we're talking about red flags, like one thing I noticed, and I'd get occasional clients that would want to go so intense that they would vomit at the end of their workouts. And this is something that they were actually coming in desiring that outcome. And on top of that, too, I think there's sort of a process when you start like

equating calories with your exercise. So calorie burnage. I think that that's a slippery slope where people will start kind of equating last night's pizza to be this like 500, you know, 1000 calorie burn thing. I have to like get to the first thing in the morning to just beat myself and work it off. And I've seen this happen over and over and over again. So it's something that always tends to come up

that I have to kind of, you know, talk them through and get them out of that mindset. So these first two are one of the two most common things that I saw in the bodybuilding community and to your point you're making right now, Justin is one of the things that I recognized pretty quickly with the people that had success in this category were they just had an ungodly amount of discipline and ability to sacrifice. Like, it was admirable. It is, it is a bit admirable.

And it commend their ability to do that. And that was more common than them really understanding nutrition and program design. They just had this resiliency and ability to hammer themselves and train. And never, no day, I mean, that's where the hashtag, no days off came from is the mentality that many of these trainers and competitors

would have towards working out is just that, they were able to consistently, and I know the saying goes, you can't out work a bad diet. Now, these people aren't necessarily having a bad diet because they're for the most part, probably prepping and counting, but they most certainly play that game with the calories and budget of what they can't, can't eat. And it's something they constantly think about and obsess about all the time, no matter where they're at,

eating wise or who they're with, that's constantly going. And I felt a bit of this myself when I was in that space. And it's a bit of a necessary evil if you're going to win. Like if I'm going to be one of the best and I'm competing against everybody else who's dieting and train the same way, I better be a bit obsessive about this. And here's where we kind of have to be distinctively clear with sport and health and how those aren't always in a Miami. Yeah, this is a fitness influencer. Yeah, so that's a sport you're describing, right?

And this is necessary to get there same and that's my background. I had to be able to get out of that same kind of mindset because I always did admire the discipline of people that would work the extra bit and always do more than everybody else in the gym. However, when I started to consider my own health and how it was deteriorating, I had to consider a whole new way to do it. Yeah, and that level is not healthy anyway.

It's not, you don't look at professional athletes or bodybuilders as people who can tell you how to be healthy or fit forever or long term. There's a terrible segment to the population for that. They know how to win. They know how to compete, but when it comes to influencing others on fitness and health, not very healthy. The exercise abuse part is a big part of it.

The next one is that you'll often, in this category, people often run into unhealthy narcissists. It's a very, and this sounds obvious, right? You're putting your body out there, look at me, I'm so whatever, I'm so great. But, you know, there's a certain level of narcissism that's required to put yourself out there to do a podcast or to start a business, have people working for it.

You have to, at some level, think that you can do things that other people can't do. Narcissism gets unhealthy when the universe revolves around you, okay? If you've ever hung out with a fitness influencer, with lots of followers, go hang out with them for a day, and you start to realize that the, they literally feel everything revolves to the point where I've met, I've met fitness influencers or bodybuilders who will date a person,

and oftentimes narcissists will date people that they're also unhealthy and they tend to gravitate towards them. They'll have spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends that do everything for them, prep all their meals, take care of everything for them. Take all the pictures, fill them in the never-situations. Wild, I knew a guy that competed.

He didn't even make any money. He wasn't make his girlfriend made all the money, supported him, made all his meals, took care of everything. It was the most narcissistic relationship I've ever seen. And she was in there as well. And you see this quite a bit. And they're not very, I mean, taking advice from people like this, not a good idea. Yeah, you guys ever want to get a good laugh, you know, show

up to an event or something where there's 10 or so, you know, competitors that are all, you know, fitness influencers on social media and watch them all take a picture together. It's the funniest thing ever to watch. It's not quick level? The level of narcissism of like critiquing everyone and taking turns is like it turns like a quick little photo of hey we did this turns into a 45 minutes of getting the right angle the right lighting. I look good you don't look good that we can't use this one I was like oh my god this is a situation like that because we'll take a picture. Oh so cringe.

Whatever. But we've done that right when we'll take a picture. I'm like, so crazy. Whatever. But we've done that, right? We've met some of them. We'll take a picture. So, you said something I think is a really good point, though, that makes this challenging. Because to put yourself out there, to share photos online and to go out with the intent

that I'm gonna build a network of people through social media, I'm gonna start a podcast, does require some level of narcissism. And you know, a therapist would tell you that there is a healthy level of narcissism. And I think the self-belief, but yeah, it is narcissism. Yeah, right. I mean, that's how I like to say to you.

We learned this from that psychologist we had on the show years ago early on. She did that test with us and she said a certain level of narcissism. She's like, all of you are narcissistic. It's healthy and you'll find this in entrepreneurs, people who start businesses and stuff like that. But it definitely can tip into the unhealthy. Yeah, and my point I was making is, so you start, that you go out on this journey and then, and you have this amazing physique. And so you're getting this flood,

it's like this little, this vicious cycle or circle of you getting told how great you are. Oh my God, you help me, how great you are. Oh, you look amazing. And you start to smell your own farts. And then you don't even, you lose the self-awareness around, this is a, got went from a healthy level of narcissism to, you know, very unhealthy narcissism. And I think that when you're in the social media world and you're

putting yourself out there, you're creating content for others, that's a very fine line that, I mean, an off-air, the four of us talk about this all the time and keep each other in check because even as quote unquote self-aware, I like to think all of us are, it's easily can suck you in. And so if you're not somebody who's already like on the watch for that, real easy to get sucked in that.

And I think a lot of these guys and girls definitely fall into this. No, not to go off into it too much of me. You need really good friends. Thank you. I'm just going to say that, not to go off into too much of a tangent on this, but if you, if the, if everybody around you is always telling you how awesome you are, you're in a bubble.

You need to find other people or put yourself in other places where people disagree with you, challenge you, and don't tell you so great all the time, because you're never gonna grow, you'll never change, and you might start believing it. That's actually terrible. You start to believe you're the most awesome thing on Earth. That's not good at all. And a lot of these people in this space definitely think they're the best things on Earth.

And we meet them because of our podcast, and I used to be a little bit surprised by it because I'm like, God, people like that really exist. Doesn't surprise me anymore. Now I'm like, okay, I know what to expect. Kind of the norm. Next is they are probably or many of them are body obsessed. This goes along with types of body dysmorphia.

Body obsessed is like, and you see this as they start to age. As they start to age, they really, really are challenged by the fact that you're not going to look the way you did when you were 20 anymore. Things are going to change a little bit. They really fight hard, and they start using plastic surgery and things like that to offset it. I know that there's maybe a healthy level of this, and I understand that in society now, it's quite accepted many of these things,

but the body obsession can get quite extreme in the fitness influencer space to the point where they will sacrifice anything for a look, including their health, including their friends, and the relationships around them. This is the danger of building some sort of a following around your physique. You know, I've got a, you know, I wouldn't agree point. Maybe one of the biggest, most famous fitness influencers, and I have become friends like

we contact, we've talked to each other on a, and I won't put this person out there, but this person has is is very, very well liked. And his, you know, his presence online, he's always, you know, put his, you know, a lot of this stuff is with his shirt off. And he's had always maintained this great physique all the time. And he's getting old. I mean, he's been doing it for a very long time.

He's been doing it for, I think, over 10 years now. And he's getting in a place in his life for once it's settle down and have kids and not have this pressure of like, I've got to look a certain way to keep this brand and thing going and he makes, he's obviously huge and very successful. And so he's in this weird predicament in his life

that he created this kind of monster or he created this huge brand and name around himself and part of that is representing his physique as like look at where it's at and maintaining that all the time. And he's just, and it seemed all right when he was doing it because what a lot of these fitness influences say to him, I'm like, oh, I love fitness.

I love working out. And that's because they're at that place in their life. Like that, they love to do that over a lot of things and then, you know, and just like these experiences. It's different when you have to. It's also different, you have a child. Have you get married, you have, you find something that you love more than yourself.

And instantly it completely reshapes your priorities. And this thing that was so natural as a priority for you, like, oh yeah, I don't ever miss a workout. I never miss a meal. Like now it's shaken up because your priorities have shifted yet, you have built this entire brand around the obsession around your body. And, you know, there's a lot,

there's quite a few famous Instagram and YouTubers that have built their, and I always, when I see a young one start it that way, and they're 20 something, and they lean into the shirt off type of deal. You automatically put a shelf life on your back. Oh, right away I see that, I'm like, oh man, you think it's good right now, but at one point, there's gonna be a time in your life where you're gonna wanna

eat a little extra calories and skip some workouts, and you're gonna put yourself out there, and you're gonna just hear so much criticism and then you fall on the trap of what is very common in the space, because these fitness people will get an incredibly good shape, pay for a photographer to take 500 photos of them, and then they drip them throughout the year pretending like they look this way

when they're really not. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I don't know if we've ever said this, but the reason why we chose a podcast as our form of media, well, two reasons. The first one, which we've talked about before, is it's long form and fitness and health, you can't really communicate it effectively

in an Instagram post or caption. You need long form discussion. We knew this is trainers. The second reason was because we had a body for audio. Yeah, we didn't want, I mean, I remember talking about, I mean, at the time Adam was competing, he was in peak shape. And I remember, all of us talking about, I was like, I don't wanna have to look like this

or my authority is due to the way I look all the time because what's going to happen in 10 years? 20 years. We plan on building a business and working in fitness and helping people for as long as we want and it's hard to do when you're 60, maybe not when you're 20, but if you plan on doing this for a long time, podcast is great because it's my voice and my knowledge and my communication. It's not just,

you know, how I look. And, you know, I'm glad, I'm definitely glad we picked this over the other ones. All right, the next one, I remember how surprising this was for me in the fitness space. It's not surprising anymore because it's now it's part for the course. But you would be people who are not in the space would be shocked. Oh yeah. Yeah. They would be shocked to see the substance abuse issues in fitness. It's remarkable. That's actually a surprise.

But I know you guys have stories, but I've me just like showing up to a party and I've seen a lot of these people from the gym and a lot of them were passing on alcohol, like no, no alcohol, no way. Teller. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be a lame party wherever. And then you come to find out like what they're doing in the bathroom and then party.

And on top of that, I'm like, oh, okay. That's what we're doing instead. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, um, it's excessive. And I think the average listener probably thinks like, oh, like steroids, right? No. They think that too. But no, cocaine and ecstasy, Molly and, you know, heroin and prescription pills. And I mean, I, I was, I was somewhat not. No party with a bunch of fitness influencers. And it's a lot of drugs. I was, I was somewhat naive. No party with a bunch of fitness influencers, and it's a lot of drugs. I grew up somewhat naive in the world of drugs.

I was a small town kid who I didn't see cocaine for the first time until I got into my early to mid 20s. And it was around the fitness community. Like I saw most of the drugs that I was exposed to was other health and fitness experts. And they really do, they really, they go so hard on the training and dieting and keeping themselves physically fit that they go, one of their ways of binging isn't necessarily always on food and calories.

It's through other means. That was the thing that shocked me the most is because I was kid, you know, 18 years old as a trainer. And it was a while before I really hung out with other people in my space, I was still a kid. I wasn't even old enough to drink. And they didn't drink because of the calories. A lot of them didn't smoke cigarettes

because of this, maybe how it affects their lungs and the stamina and stuff like, oh, some of them did, because they like the fact that it killed their appetite. But everybody did all kinds of other drugs. They passed on the beer, passed me the pills. And I remember as a kid seeing this and going, this makes no sense whatsoever,

but it's super prevalent in the space. And it's more prevalent in the fitness influence. We're talking about the gym space. You go with fitness influencers with all these followers whatever and it is a, it's a lot of substance abuse. You see a lot of it and the more a substance kills your appetite or gives you energy to work out the day after a party.

The more likely it is to be abused, which is pretty crazy. All right, the next one is that they're just so not authentic. They are not really telling you the truth about themselves. They're preaching this health and wellness message when they are anything but they typically don't talk to about, talk to their fans or whatever about their own challenges and struggles, unless it's scripted as a concentrated way of creating authenticity,

but they're just not real, they're so fake. And how long ago was it where that company shreds got in trouble for photoshopping all the photos? About six, seven years. I mean, that's one silly example of inauthenticity. Is the photoshop photos and the changing how they look and the filters and now it's getting even crazier. Like photoshop is so crazy now.

A face to the eye. A eyes gonna make it even more ridiculous. You know, here's what I'm eating. That's not really what you're eating. You know, here's my workout is. I remember there was one person we knew who would post this workout and they were insane, like, guys of beast, how does he do all that?

Then you meet his training partner, he's like, dude, he does like one third of that. He post that, I work out with him, I'm a training partner. So there's fake weights. I mean, this is just like so much stuff that you're just like, why? You know, but they have to maintain this perception from the outside that they're always awesome and they're always doing the right thing.

And the like, they're always leading with their best foot forward. But that's just not reality. And it's just it's to me like I, I, I'll smell that first thing like out of anybody. That's the biggest thing I noticed. Listen, this was already a, a small fire that was going in fitness as is. They're just as we're just as broken as anybody else. And social media just threw gasoline on it. I mean, that's really what happened was that because now when you make a post,

you look through it through the lens of an algorithm and getting likes and building your business and adding followers. And that is one of the major drivers in what type of content do you decide to post and share about? And so, and the sales point, like only when it fits that narrative, do I post real stuff or maybe manufactured real? Like me crying because of something, or, oh my period, look what happened. Like these things are manufactured. Post to get my audience to perceive me as

more authentic than what I really am because the reality is all the rest of the stuff that I'm constantly doing is to chase follows and likes. And so it's unfortunate because it breeds that. It rewards that. And they're not the only one. I mean, to be fair, it's pretty much the entire social media. Yes. Platform in general. That's what they promote. Well, the average person is like this.

The average person. Exactly. They're not going to pull a track to that. Yeah, they're going to be like, oh, my husband and I are not getting along right now. We're getting fights. It's like, here we are.ocation, love you, pay for that. It's just, my kid screaming at you right now. You know, and you know because you'll see these,

like the fake authenticity tends to come along in trends, like you'll see like the girl who will say this, you know, Instagram, real life, and then she'll kind of sit like this, you see like a little role or whatever. And then all of a sudden everybody's doing it, you know, so it becomes like this little roll or whatever. And then all of a sudden everybody's doing it, you know, so it becomes like this trend about showing vulnerability.

This is unhealthy because it's an unhealthy way to present yourself. And it's unhealthy for the person, and they'll realize it at some point. Like, if you present this, one of the worst things that can happen, if you present a fake persona, one of the worst things, it's like a genie,

like those movies where people have a genie and they wanna wish, and the genie gives you what you want but the twist at the end is that's not what you actually wanted it turns out to be terrible. The worst possible thing that could happen to you with your fake persona that you put out there is that famous for it. Because now you have love for someone that doesn't really exist and that is torture and that'll, we met someone like this. They were a big YouTube social media star. They were nothing like the person they presented and they were tormented by it.

They actually told us how tormented they were. You know, and then you have the stories of like the fake vegan that gets someone takes a picture of the meeting fish and it destroys their whole career or whatever. Like, it's not great, it's unhealthy and it's definitely something to avoid. This is also too, like, you know, I'm gonna use this opportunity to talk about something

that I get questioned, like I did my live Q&A the other day and, you know, people all, you know, recommend or suggest somebody that's another, like, famous fitness influencer and stuff. And a lot of times I'm like at this point, I'm like dismiss about, I'm going to a long explanation of why I'm not gonna invite that person, just say, man, or pass, you know what I'm like at this point I'm like dismiss about I'm going to a long explanation of why I'm not going to invite that person just say, man, you're past. You know what I'm saying?

And inevitably you always get at least, you know, 10 or 15 people that are like huge fans of that person. Why why you such a prick? Yeah, and so then they come and it's just like, you know, when I see somebody like that that is in their mid 20s and just because they have a massive YouTube channel or following and I can't I can't personally see like what could I gain in value from having this person on the show. I'm not going to bring them on the show.

I'm just not because I'm aware of probably where they're in the journey. And now the consumer or the other person like, oh, they're really smart. I mean, they're super science based. And they put on this like, yeah, they're also 27 years old. They want to, how many people have they trained? 50, you know what I'm saying? Maybe in person, and most of it's done on virtual online. So they figured the algorithm out.

They know how to regurgitate studies really well. Like, is there, is there ever a time where you don't think sales covered a new study? We haven't talked in length about it. Like, what value is that person really bringing to this? And it's like, they've done a really good job of creating this image of how brilliant, how smart, how great of a coach and trainer they are online. But sometimes people just don't even think about like, well, how good could that person

really be if they're only this old and they've never really trained anybody in person? Like, can they be that brilliant or are they just good at the social media? By the way, just to go on the other end of that, one thing that we set out to do is to use our platform to promote people who are really good, and they don't even have to have huge following. In fact, we'll have someone on the show soon, and I don't want to say they are yet because they haven't come on the show yet,

who they don't have a huge following, we just like their information, we like the way they present themselves, and we're gonna get nothing from it, other than the fact that we're gonna meet this person and use our platform to help boost them up, because in this space, in the fitness space, to do things the right way through social media,

you are at a disadvantage, unfortunately, to people who do it the wrong way. And so one of the things that we're trying to do is use our platform, because we're already big, to boost up those people who are do it the wrong way. And so one of the things that we're trying to do is use our platform because we're already big to boost up those people who are doing it the right way so that we now have more people on that side overpowering or at least trying to crowd out all the crappy stuff.

All right, last is that they're probably not fitness or health experts. This is the biggest one, okay? This is the biggest one for me. People giving fitness advice who have never trained a single person or maybe have trained a few friends or maybe just trained themselves. People give fitness advice and health advice who have no background, no education in it,

whatsoever, aside from the fact that they work out themselves and they look good. This is terrible and it's annoying and it's frustrating. And this is where all the bad information comes from. This is where all this shitty stuff comes from. It's from people like this. If you have somebody with a background in education and fitness and health who also has trained people for five, 10, 15 years, they probably have good advice.

And you'll hear similarities in the way that they communicate. You know, you brought up Brett Contreras recently. Yeah. Joe DeFranco. Us, we're all different. We don't know these guys before we met them on the podcast. a way that they communicate. You know, you brought up, Brett Contreras recently. Yeah. Oh, Joe DeFranco. Us, we're all different. We don't, we didn't know these guys before we met them on the podcast.

We all had different kind of somewhat careers or whatever. But we all trained people for a long time. When we answer a question, you'll hear similarities in it. Like, for example, oftentimes someone asks us a question. The answer is it depends. And we need more information to give you more of an individualized answer. It's almost always not these absolute answers. because we know that there's such a huge variability

in people's psychology, mentality, physiology, right? So people giving fitness and health advice to other people who don't know what they're talking about, poses real dangers and real problems. And it's caused a lot of people, a lot of harm, in the very least has caused people to leave their pursuit of fitness because they took this bad advice. You either didn't work for them or work for a short period and then they backtrack because it was so terrible

and then they give up altogether. And that's the part that frustrates me the most. Yeah, I think one of the, you highlighted two people that I think we have a lot of respect for in the space and in one of the most common things and one of the you highlighted two people that I think we have a lot of respect for in the space and in One of the most common things and one of the easiest ways for you to To know if somebody is like this even if you don't know how their history or background is when you do ask a question like that You don't get a straight answer as like as you would like. Yeah, you get it depends You get a depends and how many calories should I find when you get me? Yeah, and normally is a depends and then it's to follow it up with more questions

You know, well it depends tell me what you're doing for this Tell me how long you've done that. Yeah, what have you done in the past with this? Tell me do you like that? Do you not like and then they'll start to curate all these questions and then they'll give you an Opinion and they normally will lead with that. Well, it's probably a good idea to do this And not like oh this is better than that and this is also why, and I know I kind of jumped a gun on the last one, referencing somebody that recently that someone won on the podcast, but this is what I think of right away. It's like, this is a, you know, science nerd kid who speaks in absolutes and like it's, and when his, when he answers, it's what does the study and

the research say. And that a really good coach will not only formulate their answer from what the research says, but also what their experience is also what that person is telling them. It's a three-pronged answer. It's like, I wanna take the research that I'm aware of. I've considered the research, but also like no based off experience in first hand,

and then also like what your clients variables maybe can behavioralize. What they wanna do, what they wanna do, what they're gonna adhere to, experience and first-hand and then also like what your clients variables maybe behavioral. What they want to do, what they want to do, what they're going to adhere to. Like there's just so many things to consider. So yes, you have to ask more questions once you get the question. Yeah, for example, somebody's like, is fasting good to improve my health? Well, the science says yes. Science says yes, fasting is great.

No, it can be, it can also be terrible for you depending on the individual. And so you're gonna need more, you have to ask more questions to give the person the right individualized answer and real fitness and health experts understand this. Look, if you like, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides.

We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media, so Justin is on Instagram at my pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at my pump ad and you can find me on Twitter at my pump sell. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic.

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