The online Health and Fitness world has exploded in the recent years. These days you've got doctors quitting their jobs in favor of becoming YouTube influencers, Instagram taken over by shredded teens in perfect lighting conditions, lots of photo editing, enhancement drugs, starvation and props (pads etc) to make themselves look bigger than they are, celebrity fitness trainers using fake weights, and juiced up bodybuilders making people sick with their overly expensive diet plans.
But this last year, another thing emerged from this culture. Fanboyism, diets / regimens turning into cults/religion, and the utterly useless drama and bullying from big content creators.
The online Health and Fitness world is filled by scam artists with huge egos, aimed at confusing the masses with their "free content" instead of helping, with the end result being most people conned into spending thousands of Euros or Dollars into unneeded supplements, books, training programs and ridiculous diet plans, that not only fail to deliver in their promise to get you shredded in just 6 weeks, but they also bring negative long term effects to one's body and relationship with food. Eating disorders, yo-yo dieting and weight fluctuations, hormonal imbalances, injuries, nutritional deficiencies, onset of permanent chronic illnesses.
Then when people start speaking out about how the expensive plans they paid for didn't work for them, or got them sick, some of them influencers have the audacity to say stupid things like "it's because I got perfect genetics and you don't, you were destined to be and stay fat", etc. This also results in the common folk adding more excuses to their already huge list, and even attack anyone with an Instagram account with a needle emoji to accuse them of steroids, as to make themselves feel better for their lack of discipline.
What truly bothers me though from everything I just said, is that this superficial culture does not have enough people advocating good health and longevity with disease prevention.
From demonizing foods to eating whatever crap as long as it fits one's calories, most of the diets and programs do more harm than good. That protein powder with the harmful artificial sweeteners, that pre-workout that gives people the jitters, and even messing with their sleep, to preferring cancerous diet-sodas than full fat milk (something that our ancestors survived and thrived on, while having the most active lifestyles).
Ridiculously low body-fat year round is not as healthy as most claim. Ask any woman who competes. Loss of their periods, migraines, the development of permanent thyroid (and other) disorders, chronic fatigue and mental disorders.
The new generation is also not patient enough. They're always looking for that new cool training gimmick, the most efficient fat burner, and going on hormones and substances without giving it a second thought, completely forgetting the ancient Greek warriors having spectacular and athletic physiques just with calisthenics and a very basic nutritional regimen (most of it being grains / bread, fish, milk, cheese and legumes).
What my point is, what I'm here to tell you, and what this blog is all about, is that:
- We don't need the invention of more nutrient-deficient diets
- We don't need the invention of more useless supplements
- We don't need any more ridiculously expensive programs with fake promises
- We don't need any more drama with bullying, criticizing and fighting on which method is best
- And we most certainly don't need to increase people's risk for (potentially permanent) damage and harm from these programs and diet plans
As much as I am all for more research to see where we've gone wrong and how to fix it, a lot of the rest of our technological advances have brought us more harm than good, leading to an obesogenic environmental roller coaster that we can't get out of.
That 1 hour heavy weight training you did in the morning, is not gonna undo the rest of your 23 sedentary hours. Those 5 days of extended fasts, calorie counting, vegan keto pre-made packaged delivered meals, detoxes were all for nothing as soon as you splurged into that McFlurry or Pizza Hut's stuffed crust pizza (or cheesy bites, or whatever's that really called) during your "planned" cheat weekend.
Do you really want to spend your entire life stressing over numbers and labels, complicated workout programs, vicious cycles of starvation and binges, having a bunch of apps on your phone with annoying notifications to remind you when to drink water, when your feeding window starts, when to take a poop, and feeling lost and being a pain in the butt whenever you have to eat out with friends or while traveling?
I thought technology was there to make things easier for us, and alleviate stress, not add it, so we can enjoy life and be productive and present in goals and people that matter.
Surely there MUST be a simpler way to do this.
Well there is, but tweaking your lifestyle and changing your habits and mentality is not gonna come easy. It's gonna require work from you and you alone, to unlearn all the BS that you've been taught. But once you do, you're gonna feel free, healthy, and relaxed, without the guilt trips, without the unfair comparisons, without the disappointment from fake products and services, without feeling jealous of other people's physiques. Because you're gonna do it for your mental and physical health, not to impress a bunch of perverts on Instagram who don't really care anyways.