Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2560: How to Break Free from Destructive Body Image Issues

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

How to Break Free from Destructive Body Image Issues The HIGH prevalence of body-image issues in the fitness space. (1:11) The extreme versions that are easy to spot. (4:30) The characteristics of this avatar. (9:11) How to Break Free from Abusive Body Image Issues #1 - Take time off (from workouts, measuring, and weighing). (12:11) #2 - Make it real by telling others. (18:41) #3 - Stop weighing yourself and studying yourself in the mirror. (21:36) #4 - Turn off social media or change the algorithm. (25:45) #5 - Start back up with a VERY different goal. (31:46) Questions: How common are body image issues? (33:56) Does competition contribute to body image issues? (35:44) How can I help someone who is struggling with body image issues? (37:22) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for 20% off your first order (new customers) and double rewards points for existing customers. ** March Promotion: MAPS Performance or MAPS Performance Advanced 50% off! ** Code MARCH50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #2320: Throw Away the Scale! Body Image in America: Survey Results - Psychology Today Body Image Statistics 2024: 57+ Shocking Facts & Stats Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks)  Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in the history of the world. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we talk about abusive body image issues, body dysmorphia. You see yourself differently. You prioritize workouts and diet above where they should be.

How do you break free from that? By the way, we have personal experience, so we will help you. We'll break it down in this episode. By the way, this episode was brought to you by Legion, great supplement company. One of my favorites are their cretein gummies. These are tasty gummies that have cretein in them.

You take five of them. There's five grams of Crateine right there It's never been so easy to not skip Crateine. Go check them out. Go to buylegion.com That's B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump get 20% off We also have a sale on some workout programs MAPS Performance and MAPS Performance Advanced both 50% off You can find them both at mapsfitnessproducts.com. Use the code MARCH50 for that discount. All right, here comes the show.

Body image challenges, extremely prevalent in the modern world. Here's a dirty secret. It's even more prevalent in the fitness and health industry. It's true. Trainers, coaches, gym managers, and gym fanatics, huge percentage of them struggle with this. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how you can break free from this abusive relationship

and make your workouts a diet healthy again. It's a good conversation. Very good. I think Margaret was helping somebody out in the chat. Yes. And brought this to our attention as a single topic episode that we haven't, I don't think we've ever done. Like a pure episode?

Yeah, we've talked, we've mentioned this topic. We've obviously had a lot of live callers where we've given some advice on it, but I don't think we've ever done an organized episode where we kind of go a deep dive on the steps or the actions to take if you're struggling with this. Yeah, I know. And I think that,, it's way more common than

the average person thinks. We see it a lot in our space. I think it's disguised to the average person. In fact, many times it's disguised as health. And we think that this person is this just great representation of what a healthy body should look like when in reality this person is got crippling obsession with exercise and nutrition in a way that is unhealthy.

Although it may not look that way on social media. It's far more common than you think. Well, even if we back up a little bit, I think body image issues or distorted body image is so prevalent in modern societies. It's probably, I mean I would venture to say it's more rare to not have something related to this. It's so prevalent and I'm going to call some people out, make people feel uncomfortable. And by the way, I think there's a sliding scale, right? Or you could be way over here or you'd be way over here, right?

Way over here are the extreme forms that are easy to spot, like severe anorexia, bulimia, you know, lots of anabolic steroid abuse. Like that's way over here, but over here, and somewhere in the middle, it's like women wearing shoes that are so uncomfortable, they get blisters, but now I gotta put them on because they look good. It's plastic surgery that people do. It's the obsession with my appearance or my image.

Studying myself in the mirror, it's placing how I look higher than things that should be higher than it. It's making it a higher priority than things that should be prioritized above it. And it causes lots and lots of different problems. By the way, I'm speaking from personal experience, this is a lifelong struggle of mine. And people in the fitness space in particular, like I said in the very beginning, we're more towards the extreme. In fact, it's rare to run into a trainer or a coach

or a gym owner or manager that doesn't suffer from this or doesn't struggle with this in one way, shape or the other. It's very common. In fact, it's oftentimes why we enter into the fitness space is because it allows us to obsess even more over this thing in a work environment. So it's very, very difficult.

So, you know, what does this look like? Well, there's extreme versions, I think, that are easy to spot, but you know, it's really, it's when your workouts and diet, now, you know, I do want to say this. Exercising and eating right's great for you. Very good for you. One of the things that they both provide

when done properly is they reduce stress. A telltale sign that you're in the wrong, that the relationship is going sour or south is when they produce more stress than they take away. What does that look like? You can't miss a workout or nothing can mess your workouts up. You go on vacation and it's like, oh no, I got to wake up and I got to make it to the gym

every day that I'm at the hotel. Or you book a hotel and the number one thing that, one of the number one things that helps you determine where to stay is what's the hotel gym look like. With diet, it's eating out causes so much stress for you that you refuse to do it. Or you have to go ahead of time and calculate things and figure out what I'm going to eat. Or you fast leading up to going out. You start to structure your diet around something that's supposed to be connecting between you and your partner or your friends. When it becomes a stress, this is a sign that this is a problem, that this is an issue. And the studies on this are very interesting. You know, overdoing exercise and over-obsessing over diet

do anything but make you healthier. They actually make you less healthy. And again, the data shows this. You actually reduce lifespan and longevity because of those obsessions. Such an elusive problem because it seems like you're really just tackling healthy behaviors and you're trying to take it all on at once. It's hard to tell somebody too when they're on this kind of journey of trying to self-improve

and trying to physically change things so that they are in a healthy place and when they get really obsessed and they get hyper-focused on it and it can get away from you just like anything else, while pursuing these things it seems like it's a very healthy way to tackle a lot of things, but there has to be that balance. There has to be that listening to your body and that feedback. And two, being able to allow people to peer in to what you're doing and give you feedback and listening to that feedback from your peers.

A lot of times we can get into this little isolated horse-blinder situation where we're just pedal to the metal because I feel like I'm doing all the right things. If you had to put a percentage on it, the percentage of people in the fitness space, not general pop, what would you put on it? That have this to a degree or another? Yes, yes.

Oh God, 90%. High, yeah. 90, wow, that's really high. Easy, easy. Think about all the trainers, all the people you've ever worked with, majority of them, one way shape or another.

You say initially, yeah. Kind of deal with this. Maybe even. Yeah. Yes. I think some people come out of it when they stay in there long enough, but especially new people. Yeah.

Yeah, that's why they get in there. But I would say it's 90. Wow. Because it's definitely a majority. That's the first conscious decision is to change the way your body looks. Well, that's the big pull. You know, I also tend to, these people a lot of times, this is what saved them from another addiction.

That's right. And so it's really hard to see this one as a bad one because it's like, oh, I gave up cocaine for exercise and fitness. This is not bad. This is much better. I had this sex addiction or whatever the addiction was. Many times that same person just learned how to shift

it over towards working out and eating and it served them from a, you know, strength, muscle look. And so they don't even realize it. So you think 90, okay, so if let's, let's, let's say it's somewhere up there. And I don't know if I even disagree with you. I definitely think, I would definitely say it's the majority. I definitely think it's more likely than it is not likely.

Now, if we say 90% are that, what percentage of those people do you think are aware that they have this body of magicians? Not a lot of them. Like would you say, if you said 90, then I would turn her back around and say, I bet you more than half of those, if not a higher percentage, are not even aware. Totally. Yeah.

I would agree with you. They still believe that- Because it's also their career. Yeah. You know, because it's an easy way to excuse because, oh, this is what I do. You know, I work in a gym. This is my life. This is my life.

It's, one of the characteristics of this is that you're doing this out of fear, not out of love. In other words, you're afraid of being that fat person again. Right. Or you're afraid of being that skinny person. Or that drug addict. Or that, yeah, whatever you were, you're afraid of that. This is why

when you get someone, we have callers like this all the time, right? They lost 70 pounds and their calories are low, they're overtraining, and they're so scared of reverse dieting. They're so scared of reducing the amount of exercise because what if I become that person again? The other characteristic is you think that your life is going to become great once you get to whatever impossible goal it is you're reaching for. If I could just get this buffed or just get this shredded,

then everything's gonna be different. It's gonna be different. What's funny about this is, by the way, again, if you're a data person, although I'll tell you what, if you're in this, logic doesn't really help. It didn't help me. But if you look at the data on this, maybe this will kind of open you up a little bit. Aside from getting healthier,

so if you're poor health and you get healthier, dramatic improvements to your life quality, okay? Beyond that, it's very little contribution. In other words, I had it explained to me by Arthur Brooks once. He said if you had somebody who was already healthy, but let's say on a scale of one to 10, they're a six in terms of attractiveness, okay?

They're a six, and then they spend all their time, all their money, all their energy on going from a six to a nine, their overall happiness level wouldn't even register in improvement. That's how little of an impact it has on your actual overall happiness. It would barely register going from a six to a nine, spending all your money and time and effort trying to accomplish this. So it's not a panacea, but it's definitely something to try to become aware of.

And the ways, I mean, I don't know, I think the best ways I would explain it is like, do you stress out when your schedule is off with your workouts and your diet is off? Is it something that you think about a lot and that you fear moving away from? Like, hey, take a week off. Oh, I don't know if I can do that, right?

Panic. Yeah, this message is not for the person who can't string 30 days together, right? No, no, no. Like, if you're somebody who hasn't put 30 days of good eating and training together, this is not, this isn't for you. Although they also, I'm glad you said that, Adam,

because that person who hasn't strung together 30 days of exercise could be suffering from body image issues and could slowly be using that to motivate themselves to become the fitness fanatic. And if you get into that cycle, ooh, it becomes a bad relationship. So it's very challenging, but again, I think we're probably speaking more to the person who's obsessed right now

I think that's easier to identify that obsessed person So I think we'll start there. Yeah, so let's let's let's pretend like we just got a client that you figured this out Mm-hmm. You've been training them maybe for a little while or whatever and you've you realize this now like okay I this this client has this issue. You're for sure now like I've been training them long enough I got to know who they are, I see this is actually an unhealthy relationship. Take me through the steps on, like, the first thing that you do for that person or tell that person.

What's the first thing that you say? Number one is to take time off from your workouts. How long? Depends on the person, but typically a week. Like a week? Yeah. Take time off the workouts and take time off from measuring and weighing your food. And I'm assuming that when you prescribe that,

that probably comes with some parameters too, because you probably know that that person will find something else to do. Or like, what are you telling that? Like, okay, take a week off. Okay, Sal, what does that mean? Does that mean I can't go for a run? Does that mean I should do nothing exercise-wise?

Or what do you do? Sometimes you gotta prescribe some low-impact options. Yeah, get them to go outside and just walk. That's it. You know, after meals or something. Yeah, I like walking. I like reflecting and journaling during that process. And then measuring and weighing, you gotta go off also.

And then another fear is, by the way, you could flip this, okay? Somebody who's into strength training could flip this time off, I've done this, into a deload week. Yeah, I'm taking a week off. Really part of my programming those. So what I did is I let into that week off by training more so I could have the week off and not lose it. And it's still just about their performance and they're happy about that. It's still part of the program. You know what I mean? It's really take a week off. And then the weighing and measuring, the fear is that because I don't have the structure of

weighing and measuring, I'm going to go in the opposite direction and completely binge. Yeah. And you might, you might, and that's okay. You might do that and that's okay, but we got to create some space between you and this, this unhealthy relationship first. So if, if I've got a client that is listening to

me and taking the advice, a thing that I add here is to journal how you feel through this whole process. So when you don't prepare your meal and you get anxiety or stress, document that. I want to write that down, how you felt, why you felt that way, periods that when you normally would go to the gym at five o'clock after work to go lift and you come straight home, document that. How did you feel? What was going on?

I think during this time, when they're taking that time off of lifting and weighing and measuring food, at least documenting without any like real structure or formalities around it. Just write it down so we can talk about it. Yes, and this is so powerful because, for a couple reasons.

One, if you're like me and I do this, and let's say, okay, let's say my issue is weighing and measuring food. It's not, my issues are different. But let's say that was my issue. And I go off weighing and measuring, and then I end up just binging, right? Which is a risk, it's a real risk, it's totally fine.

It's a total real thing, it might happen. Because I'm not weighing and measuring, now I feel like I'm off the, you know. Off the rails. Yeah, off the rails, well I'm just gonna go, right? If I waste that by not documenting it, and allowing myself to become aware, it's a waste. That's right.

All you did was binge. If I document it, allow myself to feel the shitty feeling, and talk about it, I just ate a family size bag of Doritos. I just ate an entire pizza. Here's how I feel. Here's why I'm doing it. I couldn't stop myself. My God, I was eating it and I felt like a machine

and I couldn't stop myself. And here I am, 30 minutes later, my stomach hurts. I feel so much shame, whatever. If you do that, you're not wasting it. You're actually using it, leveraging it for growth. If you don't write these things down, like if I just took a week off of working out and I made it part of my programming and I didn't document how I actually felt, I wasted it. So, that's why the journaling is so important. And that can look like, journaling can look like prayer, it could look like, but really keeping track of what's happening.

I like writing it down so we can talk about it when you get back to my session. That's right. When I see you in a week, I want to sit down and I want to, because here's other ones you've seen in this case, right? You see the binge person, then you see the other person who after they're done eating,

they're documenting things like, I was still hungry, but I was afraid to eat anymore. Because I knew I wasn't measuring and weighing. I wouldn't even finish my plate. Or I would skip meals or do things like that because they don't have the control of the measuring and documenting part. So they don't wanna put all this weight on so bad.

So then they lean on the, I'm not gonna give myself enough food to make sure I don't overdo it all this weight on so bad. So then they lean on the, I'm not going to give myself enough food to make sure I don't overdo it. And so you see that sometimes. And all of it is valuable information when we are trying to gain insight on our relationship with food and exercise. And so that's kind of what I'm telling the client is like,

hey, there's no judgment here. It's just literally, let's just document, see how you feel, what goes on during the meal times, what goes on during typical exercise times and tell me what's going on. And then when you get back, we'll unpack it together. Because sometimes it's like it's one or the other in this case, in terms of their like focused intentional pursuit of either, you know, cutting or losing weight or like, you know, not putting weight on or it's the opposite. It's like, I got to keep, you know, trying to push myself to get muscle and I can't ever like not have X amount of protein or X amount of meals throughout the day. And, you know, sometimes that's like,

you know, a challenge in itself to have something kind of stop and like, maybe we don't have this meal like right then. And, you know, there's no panic there. Like we got to address the panic of that. Yeah. And again, you again, just to hammer it home, when you break free, what you're doing is you're trying to, or what should I say, when you take time off and do it this way, what you're trying to do is loosen the grip that this slave master has on you, because you're a slave to it, that's what it is.

When you're so, it's so stressful to miss a workout or not get the right workout, or it's so stressful to miss a workout or not get the right workout or it's so stressful to not measure or weigh or force feed yourself in the case of someone who feels like they're too skinny. Then when those feelings are because you are a slave to this particular thing, it is driving you. You are not in control, it is in control. And some of the first things,

just like an abusive relationship with somebody, like a human, you gotta break free for a second. That's what people say, right, an abusive relationship. Get out of the house, go hang out with some friends, and create some space. Then you start to get this awareness. Oh my God, I didn't believe it had so much control over me. Oh my God, I can't believe.

And so that's why that's the first step. And it's also one of the most difficult ones, by the way. Next up is to make it real by telling other people. So challenges, behaviors, unhealthy behaviors, they grow and flourish in the dark. Any kind of unhealthy behavior that you have, if it's just you, and we lie to ourselves often because we say, I'm going to handle this, I don't need to tell anybody. Nobody needs to know about this. I got this.

Really, what it does is it has a grip on you and it's growing and you're not making it real. So it's very important you tell people you trust, I got this problem. By the way, I'm going to say this right now, if it's an alcohol or drug issue, people right away are like, oh my God, I'm with you. You may get this if you tell somebody you have an issue with exercise, you have an issue with diet.

Well, you may get the honest, which is like, oh my God, I knew you had this issue, I'm glad you're telling me. You might also get this. What do you mean you're so healthy? Like, I wish I could work out as much as you. So pick the people wisely who will hear and empathize with you and will support you,

but mostly it's to make it real. It's a real thing. And then of course, there are professionals you could talk to like therapists. But I do think aside from telling a therapist, because it's really easy to disconnect from a therapist, like you could just not show up to your sessions anymore and it's gone, the people around you, it's much more difficult to tell people around you. To your earlier point, it's real easy to lie to yourself and say, oh, it's the D-load week. Or justify it another way versus, I mean, isn't that, I mean, I'm assuming

that is the philosophy on why the AA meetings start off that way, right? Hi, I'm Adam, I'm alcoholic, right? It's like they teach you to start like that. Yeah, first admit that you have a problem. And so if you are already denying that or not telling others and you're afraid to admit it even to yourself, the likelihood that you're probably going to follow through it, I would imagine is very, very low, right? Like if you're not even willing to say, I've got a problem, you're trying to hide it and fix it at

the same time. It's like, well, the chances of you being successful, the idea of this is to be successful, right? The idea is to help break those chains or loosen that grip, like you said. And oftentimes the people that are the best people to tell your challenge with, too, are, well,

first of all, people you trust and that you know care about you, but they're often the people you don't want to tell because you're afraid. They're gonna tell you how it is. Yeah, they're gonna hold you accountable. It's gonna be're going to, yeah, they're going to hold, they're going to hold you accountable. Be really honest. Yeah. And, and they, they're going to be honest with you.

And, um, and you might also be afraid of, of creating, destroying this image that they may have of you. Like this person thinks I'm so perfect. Right. Last person I want to tell is this particular, that's the, that's the exact person you need to tell.

And that's really makes a big difference. It really makes, especially if you relapse. If you relapse, it's these people that will help you get back on track. If you relapse and it's just you, good luck. Good luck. You're going to stay right on the same path. Next is to stop weighing yourself and studying yourself in the mirror. Stop measuring yourself.

Stop all the tracking of your body and paying attention of your body. Creates a crazy obsession. Crazy obsession and the scale lies to you. Yep. It can fluctuates all the time. And if this is you, by the way, here's another sign that you may have an issue.

The scale determines how you feel for the day. Right. Oh, I had a great night of sleep. Oh, we had so much fun yesterday. Weigh yourself on the scale. I gained two pounds. Ruin negative immediately. Yeah.

Days ruined. I would have clients like this. I'd train them. They would get leaner, build muscle at the same time, but they're trying to just lose weight on the scale. They feel good. Oh my God, my friends are saying I look so good. Get on the scale.

I only lost a pound. Yeah. Ruin their entire day. Or I've had people that I've worked with who were doing the wrong things and I'm looking at them and their health is not doing great, their strength is declining, they have dark circles in their eyes, they get on the scale, I lost seven pounds. I'm so excited. Like, yeah.

Yes. The other one's staring at yourself in the mirror and studying yourself. What is, by the way, that mirror, it's like those fun house mirrors in the, you know, what are they, the circuses or whatever, where you go in and it gives you this kind of distorted view of yourself. In extreme cases, by the way, I mean, we've all seen those cases of people

like extreme anorexia, and you ever think to yourself, like, how do they not know? How do they not see what they're doing to themselves? Because they don't see the truth. They don't see it. No, when you have this, you see only your flaws. And they're amplified. Yeah, and that's why it's amplified,

because that's all you are looking at. You know that one side of you looks this certain way, or you don't have symmetry here, or whatever it may be, or you carry a little extra body fat here. And so as soon as you go walking over the mirror, you are already visualizing those negative things about yourself. It just reinforces that.

This one right here is gonna take more than a week, right? Like obviously the first- Oh, this one's for a long time. Right, so the advice is to first take a week off to create space, like you said. Create space, start this process, but also understand that this is, most clients that I had to break away from the mirror

and the scale, it took months. Six months. Yeah, it took months of not using the scale and becoming comfortable with how they feel and our training without it. And I'm looking for the, I don't even care anymore. Normally, even after a few weeks, they're like, ah, it's hard.

I just want to check up real quick and see like, so this one's going to take a while. How many clients did you have where you had them stand on a scale backwards? Oh yeah. You could track them. A bunch, a bunch. That's actually normally what I would do later on

in my career, I just dismissed it completely. Early on in my career, I still made the case like, oh, I could, I need this data, right? I need this data to make sure that my programming and everything I'm telling this client is on par. And so I would tell them to step on the scale reverse, right, and I wouldn't tell them what it weighed and just say, hey, we're doing good, don't worry about it.

Later on, I realized that I don't even. I rarely ever weighed clients. Yeah, then I stopped all together. Then I was just like, it's not even that necessary. And the studying yourself in the mirror is literally that. So like, oh, what about when I brush my teeth, comb my hair? Yeah, that's fine. Do it real quick.

Get out from the mirror. Stop studying yourself. Yeah, you can, yeah, I just say you can brush your teeth without being fully like, you know, half naked in front of the mirror too. Yeah, looking and studying type of deal. But this takes a while because the reason why you should do this for a while is because this will derail you

very quickly. So let's say your fear is, you know, you don't want to gain any weight. Or your fear is of being that fat person again. And so you take time off. You're telling others. You're moving in the right direction mentally and spiritually.

You're healthier. Then you get mentally and spiritually, you're healthier. Then you get on the scale and you gain five pounds, real quick that'll throw you off. Or if you're that guy like me, you just, oh my God, I never want to get smaller. I never want to shrink. I never want to lose muscle. And if I study myself in the mirror and I notice I lost a little bit of muscle, very quickly can it throw me in the opposite direction. So you gotta get away from those for a long time. Next up is to ideally turn off social media, or second option is to change the algorithm that shows up on your social media.

So this is, yeah, all puppies. So this is fun to talk about this point because by the time, you know, by the time like social media got popular, I was no longer really training clients. So I didn't, this wasn't like a common thing that I had to recommend. But I think today, if I was training a client that was suffering this, I would be very, I'd actually, I would ask them to delete everybody, like and start over. If I, if I could get them like, Hey, listen, let your family and friends know, do a post,

whatever. Hey, I'm cleaning up my Instagram. I'm gonna unfollow everybody. It's nothing personal, but I want, and like, that's what I would tell them to announce it. So they're comfortable, it kind of kills two birds with one stone too, right? I'm coming forward with what I'm doing and going through. Yeah, and I'm gonna do that.

I'm gonna reset my algorithm. And so I would unfollow everybody. And then that point on, I'm gonna make a very conscious decision on following somebody. And if it's somebody who's going to be a constant reminder of how I'm not good enough, or they're so much bigger than I am, or they're so much fitter than I am, I'm not going to follow that page.

And I'm certainly not going to allow myself to justify it with, oh, it's motivation. Like no, it's not motivation at all. The goal right now is for us to justify it with it. Oh, it's motivation. Like no, don't, it's not motivation at all. The goal right now is for us to do this without that. So if I was being a training client now, I'd be more prescriptive and be like, unfollow everybody, re-follow family and friends and be very, very careful about. Yeah. I mean, social media is interesting. It's just turbocharged this to death. There's data that shows just how powerful it is in this regard. When you're on social media, we have to understand, I've said this point before, right? What you see often becomes what your brain perceives as reality in the world.

And then you subconsciously, we're always subconsciously, this is like human nature, challenging part of being a human, is you're always ranking yourself against other people. Okay? Pitting yourself against somebody else. Yeah, and so, you know, if you're, if you were, if you grew up in a dark room and all you ever saw was the NBA on TV, you would think, and you're six foot five,

you'd think you were kind of short. Because everybody is, you know, super tall, right? So, if you're on social media and what you're looking at are imperfect, sorry, perfect bodies that are impossible to accomplish. You look at ripped bodies, you look at whatever, and it's just in your algorithm,

and you're scrolling through, that becomes your reality. Whereas the truth is actually very different. Walk around the real world, people don't look like that. It's super rare, but now you're comparing yourself. This is actually more, this has been shown to really amplify body image issues among adolescents and teens because of their use of social media. It's exploded, the problems with those kids.

And I know Justin said the puppies thing kind of tongue in cheek, but there's some truth to that. Like, you know, I've watched my explorer page radically change just simply off of what I'm into at that time. Like, I mean, it looks so different right now than say it looked maybe seven years ago because of what I was into seven years ago and what I'm into right now. And so you control that and it doesn't take very long. You'd be surprised.

By the time you've gone through a couple months of liking specific stuff, that is what you're going to get fed. And so making a conscious effort to go, okay, I'm aware that looking at these other bodies that I'll never live up to is not a healthy relationship, but what is some healthy relationship stuff for me? What are some things that does feed the soul, that does give me the things that reinforce the habits, the behaviors, the relationship with myself that I want? Follow those pages and make a conscious effort to like a lot of that content. And you can actually start to control.

I actually think this is going to be something that we train kids to do later on because social media is not going to go away. Most all your kids are going to use it. I think we're going to, we're going to get better at informing our generation coming up on how this works and then how to actively go pursue. We have to, cause it's, I mean, the natural knee jerk reaction is that it's evil and it's, you know, it's going to present you all these things regardless.

And you do have that bit of control. It's smart. It picks up on when your eyes are looking at the longest. Whenever you go to another page and you follow a certain account, it's going to track that and it's just going to present you what your natural habits are. And so if you can control your impulses with that and you can really like prescribe yourself, what account is going to benefit and fuel me?

What's going to feed me and what's going to help me along this path of like really building me up instead of me comparing myself. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because, and I do think the future looks more like this. I do think in the future, because of the awareness around social media, you're gonna have the option to click or to make recommendations on a settings page.

I want my algorithm to look more like this or this or that. Because as of right now, it is very hard to change your algorithm if you focus on what not to look at versus what Justin said, which is what to look at. Because it picks up how long you hover, it picks up, of course, likes, comments, it picks up all the things and the related things

with your behaviors, and it's really, really smart. Your algorithm will switch very quickly on that kind of stuff. So one of the most effective things you could do is to prune your social media, and it gives you this option, I can click on most social media platforms, I'd like to see less of this, you have to do that. Less of this.

And then go seek out the stuff you want, and say I want more of this, and like the things you want to see more of, and get rid of the stuff. If you don't do that, your subconscious will direct it right back to where it was before. I mean, you can even hide content. That's right.

People know that, but yeah, if you see something repeatedly and you're like, ah, why am I still looking at it? You can, and you don't want to completely delete that account because maybe you're attached to them in some reason or whatever. You can still just hide their content. So do that. We've taken the week off.

We've taken some steps to prepare. We know that this is going to be probably some time with the mirror and the scales for that, but we're working towards this process. Now it's been a week and I'm going to get back into exercise because exercise does provide a lot of good things for me. What am I telling that client? How are we going to approach our fitness now?

You got to go, you got to approach a goal or focus on a fitness goal that is so opposite of your body dysmorphia or your challenge that it takes you away from it. Alright, what does that look like? Well, if your challenge is you don't want to be that fat person again, well now you need to train like a powerlifter. Like your goal is to get strong as hell. If your challenge is I always want to be jacked and I never want to be skinny, then you need to go mobility or stamina.

You need to go in the opposite direction. Otherwise, your workouts will very easily, very quickly veer back to what they were doing before. So the person who's afraid of gaining weight, you're not gonna run, you're not doing crazy cardio, you're not doing crazy circuits, you're gonna rest for three minutes, you're gonna train like a powerlifter,

and all you're gonna focus on is getting strong. Now if my issue is building muscle, and I just wanna keep building muscle, don't put me in that direction, that'll be very easy. I can go to a powerlifting training, no problem. I can go to bodybuilding, no problem. I would need to focus more on mobility. Stamina, mobility.

Yoga, stretching, endurance running. Yeah. All the opposite things. Circuits, you know, stuff that works opposite of what my issue is. That's gotta be the focus for a long time and maybe forever if this is always gonna be a challenge of yours. And what you'll find is slowly, you'll be able to move away from what that challenge was.

And we see this more commonly in our callers who are trying not to gain weight, very commonly with women. We'll have female callers call in who are afraid of reverse dieting, so afraid, and they're like, oh my god, I'm doing so much cardio and I'm over training and I don't know what to do. What do we often do? We often tell them, all right, we're going to have you stop running, I'm doing so much cardio, and I'm over training, and I don't know what to do. What do we often do? We often tell them, all right, we're gonna have you stop running,

you're doing power lifting. And it works, it works if they can follow it. But again, that's the opposite if your issues like mine was, which is I always wanna build muscle. Yeah. Got some questions. How common are body image issues? You know, they're very common.

I kinda touched on that a little bit, right? You did, but in adults in the US, it's over 50% of people that will report. Is that a true stat? Over 50% of people will say that they- That will admit it. That will say that, yeah, they admit it. In the gym, nearly one in three health club users

report significant symptoms of body dysmorphia. So that's interesting. So you have 50% of the general population that just admits it, which to Justin's point, that are admitting it, the other half probably just ignore it or don't realize it. And then you have one-third of anybody who's already actively pursuing. With more severe symptoms. And 70% of those people have had an eating disorder. Wow. Wow.

Eating disorder is that high, huh? Yeah, well in that population. So one third of gym goers have significant body, by the way, think of all your gyms, think of all the gyms we've ever managed and think of all your members. It's probably one fourth to one third are fanatics. The ones that always show up.

It's probably them. Now of them, 70% have had an eating disorder. That's what the stat is. And an eating disorder, people think right away of bulimia in that direction, but orthorexia too. Orthorexia is an eating disorder. It's where you just have to measure and everything has to be up to.

By the way, I wanna just give people some empathy. We live in a world that celebrates how you look so much and reinforces it so much. Very culturally driven. That your beauty is so important so much that, that of course, of course, and then we're told that obesity is so unhealthy and we're so unhealthy and what we do is we quickly translate that into

looking a particular way, not the health, but looking a particular way. So of course this is very common. Does competition contribute to body image issues? Oh, it depends on the competition, but absolutely. You show me a chronic marathon runner, especially female, and I'll show you someone who's so scared of gaining a single pound. Bodybuilding. Yeah, going on stage and showing your physique. Oh yeah.

About the only one that I would say is, well it's not necessarily, because you could also be obsessed in that direction too, but we tend to put people in the direction of like a powerlifting competition if they have body image issues. If they, or weight. Unless their body image issues like was mine.

Powerlifting would not be a good idea. Yeah, yeah, someone who's obsessed with strength and numbers, then that's not gonna help that person. But you know, yeah, then that's not going to help that person. But yeah, well, competition is not a health. Competition is sport and sport isn't healthy. Yeah. So rarely ever is that going to be the answer

for somebody who's trying to solve some sort of a relationship with exercise and diet is, hey, let's go put them in a competition. Yeah. You know, like that's- Well, because usually comparing, go put them in a competition. Yeah. You know, like that's- Well, because usually comparing, literally comparing yourself to somebody else. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is.

Unless it's some healthy version where you're just trying to kind of remind yourself, like, this is where I need to be and I got to challenge myself every day to kind of step forward. And all sport is on one end of the spectrum. It's not balance. Sport is- Sport. Yeah. And all sport is on one end of the spectrum. It's not balance. Sport is- Sport. Yeah.

I'm trying to be great at this thing, which what comes with being great at anything is sacrifice of other things. And so, you know, some parts of health are going to get sacrificed in pursuit of competition. So really ever is competition the answer for somebody who has body image issues? How can I help someone who is struggling with body image issues? You know, number one is this, the most important thing with this is to show them grace because if they're still talking to you and they're telling you, you are 99% of the way there.

The big challenge is when you don't show grace, oh, you screwed up again. Come on, man, you know better. Guess who's not telling you? Next time they screw up. They're not telling you anymore. So grace is the most important thing. If you can keep them feeling like they can trust you and they can tell you,

and that they're not being judged harshly, and by the way, there's nothing wrong with true love, where you're, hey man, you know that's not good for you, you know, or whatever, when it's appropriate, it's totally fine. But if they feel judged harshly or there's no grace, they will stop telling you what's going on. And that's it, you can no longer help them.

So that's the most important thing. Yeah, I think the most important thing is how you can help them is by not feeding into the body image issue, right? Like challenging that person, calling that person nicknames, things like that. I mean, well, you see, I mean, but I like, you absolutely could be, uh, that person. If you truly care about this person and you're like, I want to help them.

Well, one of the first things you can start by doing is not teasing, poking fun, or, or encouraging some of these unhealthy behaviors. And so, you know, less about what you need to do and more about what you need not to do, I think in this situation is, allow them to work on it, be supportive, and don't add fuel to the fire. This was a breakthrough for me as a coach

because initially I was that hardcore trainer. And what happened was clients who really struggled, they didn't tell me the truth. They don't want to tell me when they went off their diet or when they, whatever. I had to kind of figure it out. Later, I got so much more effective when the person came to me and I was the first person they told when they binge ate or when they screwed up or whatever, because they felt safe with me. And sometimes it took a long time. I had clients I trained for years

before they figured this out. But they talked to me the entire time and then they finally did figure it out. So in my opinion, that's definitely one of the most important things. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam.

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