How to Break Free from Abusive Body Image Issues | Mind Pump 2560

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 and diet healthy again it's a good conversation to have i think uh I think Margaret um was helping somebody out in the chat 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 we've mentioned this topic we've obviously had a lot of live callers uh where we've given some advice on it but I don't think we've ever done an organized episode uh where we kind of go a deep dive on this the steps or the actions to take if you're struggling with this yeah no and I think that um because it's it's way more common than the average person thinks we see it a lot in our space it's it it I think it's dis it's disguised to the average person in fact many times it's disguised as health uh and uh we think that this person is this uh just great representation of what a healthy body should look like when in reality uh this person is uh got crippling obsession with exercise and uh nutrition uh in 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 uh body image issues or distorted body image is so prevalent in modern societies that it's probably I mean I would venture to say it's more rare to not have something sure related to this it's so prevalent and I'm going to call some people out make people feel uncomfortable and and by the way I think there's a sliding scale right or you could be way over here or you 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 you know women wearing shoes that are so uncomfortable they get blisters but now I got to put them on cuz they they look good uh it's you know uh 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 uh than things that should be higher than it right it's it's making it a higher priority than things that should be prioritized above it um and it causes lots and lots of different problems by the way I'm speaking of from personal experience this is a lifelong struggle of mine um and people in the fitness space in particular like I said in the very beginning uh we're more towards the extreme uh 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 often times why we enter into the fitness space it's because it allows us to obsess even more uh over this thing in a work uh environment so it's very very difficult so you know what does this look like well there's extreme versions I think that um are are easy to spot but you know it's really it's when your workouts and diet now you know I I do want to say this um exercising and eating right is 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 um 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 uh 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 uh the the studies on this are very interesting you know overdoing exercise and over obsessing over diet do do anything but make you healthier they actually make you less healthy um and again the data shows us you actually reduce lifespan um and longevity because uh of those obsessions such an elusive problem because it seems like you're you're really just tackling healthy behaviors and you're trying to take it all on at once and um you know it's hard it's hard to tell somebody too when they're on this kind of journey of like you know trying to self-improve and and trying to physically um change things so that they are in a healthy place and when they get really obsessed and they get hyperfocused on it and it can get away from you just like anything else it's u while pursuing these things it seems like it's a very healthy way to 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 uh and two like being able to uh allow people to uh peer into what you're doing and give you feedback and listening to that feedback from your peers um a lot of times we can get into this little like isolated horse blinder situation where we're just you know pedal to the metal uh because I feel like I'm I'm doing all the right things if you had to put a percentage on it amount of the percentage of people in the fitness space not general pop what would you what would you put on it that have this to a degree or another oh god 90% 90 wow that's 90 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 deal with this maybe even Yes i think some people uh you know come out of it uh when they stay in there long enough but especially new people yeah that's why they get in but I would say it's I would say it's 90 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 what also tend to these people a lot of times uh this is what saved them from another addiction that's right and so uh 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 let's let's let's say it's somewhere up there and I don't know if I even disagree with you i I definitely think I would definitely say it's the majority i definitely think it's more likely than it is not uh likely now if we if we say 90% uh are that what percentage of those people do you think are aware ooh that they have this body image issue like like would you say you if you said 90 and then I would turn back around and say I bet you more than half of those if not a higher percentage are not even aware totally yeah they they still they still believe that uh because it's also their career you know because it's 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 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 they lost 70 pounds and they their calories are low they're overtraining and they're so scared of reverse dieting they're so scared of of reducing the amount of exercise because what if I become that that person again mhm the other 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 then be different it's going to 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 uh aside from getting healthier so if you're poor health and you get healthier dramatic improvements to your life quality okay beyond that uh it's very little contribution in other words I had it explained to me by do by Arthur Brooks once he said if you had somebody who was already healthy but let's say on a scale of one 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 would wouldn't even register in in improvement that's how that's how little of uh 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 um it's not uh a panacea but it's 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 that you think about a lot and that you fear uh moving away from like hey take a week off i don't know if I can do that right today's program giveaway is maps strong if you want to win that leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours we drop it subscribe to this channel turn on notifications uh if you win we'll let you know in the comment section we also have a sale this month maps Performance and Maps Performance Advanced both 50% off if you're interested go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code march50 for the discount all right back to the show yeah this message is not for the person who can't string 30 days together right the opposite of if you're if you're somebody who hasn't put 30 days of good eating and training together this is not this isn't although they also I 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 sure the fitness fanatic and if you get into that cycle it becomes a bad uh right becomes a a bad relationship so it's very very challenging uh 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 um so I think we'll start there yeah so let's let's uh let's pretend like we just got a client that you figured this out you've been training them maybe for a little while or whatever and you've re you realize this now like okay this this client has this issue you're for sure now like I've been training them long enough if 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 you say number one is to take time off from your workouts uh depends on the person but typically a week a week take time off the workouts and take time off from measuring and weighing your food and I'm assuming that when you prescribe that it 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 s what does that mean does that mean I can't go for a run does that mean I should do nothing exercise-wise or like what do you kind of prescribe like some low impact options yeah like get them to go outside and just walk you know after meals yeah i like walking i like reflecting and journaling uh during that process and then measuring a weighing you got to go off also and then now the fear is and 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 de lo week yeah I'm taking a week off really it's part of my programming though is what I do so what I do is I led into that week off sure by training more so I can have the week off and it's still just about their performance and they're happy it's still part of the program you know what I mean really take a week off um and then the weighing and measuring the fear is that because I don't have the structure of weighing and measuring I'm gonna go in the opposite direction and completely binge 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 is listening to me and taking the advice a thing that I add here is is to journal how you feel through this whole process so when you don't prepare your meal and you get anxiety or stress like that like document that i want to like write that down how you felt why you felt that way peer into that when you uh normally would go to the gym at 5:00 after work to go lift and you come straight home document that how did you feel what was going on i think uh during this time when they're taking that time off of their of lifting and weighing and measuring food uh it at least documenting without any like real structure or formalities around it just just write it down so we can talk about it yes and it's it's this is so powerful because uh for a couple reasons one if you're like me uh 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 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 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 and I'm just going to 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-sized bag of Doritos i just ate an entire pizza here's how I feel here's why I'm doing 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 you know 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 so that's why the journaling is so important that can look like journaling could look like prayer it could look like but really keeping a you know keeping track i like writing it down so we can we can talk about it when you get back to my session like when I see you in a week I want to sit down and I want because here's here's other ones you've you've seen in this case right you see the the binge person then you see the other person who uh 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 uh 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 want to put all this weight on so bad so then they they lean on the I'm not going to give myself enough food that 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 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 yeah cuz sometimes it's like it's one or the other uh in this case in terms of their like focused intentional uh 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 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 to have somebody 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 know just to hammer it home um 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 in this way what you're trying to do is loosen the grip uh that this slave master has on you because you're a slave to it that's what it is when you so 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 when when those 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 so one of the first things you just like an abusive relationship with somebody like a human you got to 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 that's why that's the first step and it's also one of the most difficult ones uh by the way Legion great supplement company try their creatine gummies get 20% off by clicking here next up uh is to make it real by telling other people so challenges behaviors unhealthy behaviors uh are they grow and flourish in the dark mhm they any kind of unhealthy behavior that you 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 what it 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 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 yeah so 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 a D load week." You know what I'm saying 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 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 success 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 often times the people that are the best people to tell uh your challenge with uh to are well first of all people you trust and that you you know care about you but they're often the people you don't want to tell because you're afraid they're going to tell you how it is they're Yeah they're going to hold they're going to hold you accountable really honest yeah and and they they're going to be honest with you and um and you might also be afraid of of create destroying this image that they may have of you like this person thinks I'm so perfect right the last person I want to tell is this part 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 um next is to stop weighing yourself and studying yourself in the mirror y stop measuring yourself stop all the tracking of your body and paying attention um of your body creates a crazy obsession crazy obsession and uh you know the way the scale lies to you yep uh it can fluctuates all the time and if this is you by the way uh 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's sleep oh we had so much fun yesterday weigh yourself on the scale i gained two pounds ruined negative immediately yeah days ruined i would have clients like this like I 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 the pound yeah ruined 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 on their eyes they get on a scale i lost seven pounds i'm so excited yes uh the other one's staring at yourself in the mirror and studying yourself what a sub and that by the way that mirror it's like those fun house mirrors in the in the 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 themselves cuz they don't see the truth they don't see it no you look when you when you have this uh you see only your flaws mhm yep amplified yeah there that's 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 going to take more than a week right like obviously the Oh this one's for a long time right so the the advice is to first take a week off to create space like you said create space start this 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 uh the scale and becoming comfortable with how they feel and our training without without it and you know I I'm looking for the I don't even care anymore normally it's 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 so you could track them but few 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 well I could I need this data right i need 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 the what it weighed and just say "Hey we're doing good don't worry about it." U later on I realized that I don't even I rarely ever weighed class yeah then I stopped then I stopped alltogether then I was just like "It's not even that necessary." And 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 get out get out from the mirror stop studying yourself yeah yeah i was say you can you could brush your teeth without being fully like you know half naked in front of the mirror too looking and studying type of deal but this this takes a while because uh 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 uh you know you don't want to gain any weight um 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 healthier then you get on the scale and you gained 5 lbs right real quick that'll throw you off yeah or if you're that guy like me does 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 going to throw me in the opposite direction so you got to 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 puppies so this is Yeah oh puppies so this is a uh fun to talk about th this point because by the time um 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 I'm cleaning up my Instagram i'm going to unfollow everybody it's nothing personal but I want and like that's I would tell them to announce it so they're comfort it kind of kills two birds one stone too right i'm coming forward with what I'm doing and going through yeah and I'm going to I'm going to do that i'm going to reset my algorithm and so I would unfollow everybody and then that point on I'm going to make a very conscious decision on following somebody and if 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 I'm certainly not going to uh allow myself to justify it with 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 uh training a client now I'd be more prescriptive and be like unfollow everybody refollow 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 uh just how um powerful it is in this regard i mean when you're on social media well you have to understand I've used this 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 yep against other people okay pitting yourself against somebody else yeah and so you know if you're if 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 6'5 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 or 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 when as whereas the truth is actually very different walk around the real world people 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 adolescence and teens because of their use of social media it's exploded the problems with those kids and and I know Justin said the puppies thing kind of tongue and cheek but there's some truth to that like you know I've 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 that does feed the soul that does give me the things that uh 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 cuz it's I mean the the natural knee-jerk reaction is that it's evil and it's 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 the it picks up on when your eyes are looking at the longest it it it whenever you go to another page and you follow a certain account it's 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 uh your impulses with that and you can really like prescribe yourself um you know which what account is going to benefit and fuel me what's going to feed me and what's going to help me along this 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 going to have the option to click or to make recommendations on like a like a settings page like 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 okay because it it picks up how long you hover mhm it picks up of course likes comments it picks up uh all the things and the related things with your behaviors and it's really really smart your algorithm will switch very quickly uh on that kind of stuff so one of the most effective things you could do is to is to prune your social media and it gives you this option i can click on 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 and get rid of the stuff if you don't do that your subconscious will direct it right back i mean you can even hide content i don't know if people know that but yeah if like it's something you see something repeatedly and you're like "Ah what like why am I still looking at that?" you can and you don't want to you know completely delete that account because maybe you're attached to them in some reason or what 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 um probably some time with the mirror and the scale and that but we're working towards this process now uh 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 um what what am I telling that client how are we going to approach our fitness now you got to go you got to uh 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 all right 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 going to run you're not doing crazy cardio you're not doing crazy circuits you're going to rest for three minutes you're going to train like a powerlifter and all you're going to focus on is getting strong now if my issue is building muscle and I just want to keep building muscle I don't put me in that direction that'll be very easy i can go to powerlifting training no problem i can go to bodybuilding no problem i would need to focus more on stamina mobility yoga stretching endurance running all the opposite things circuits you know stuff that works opposite of of what my issue is um that's the that's got to be the focus for a long time and maybe forever if this is always going to be a challenge of yours and what you'll find is slowly you'll be able to move away from uh what that challenge was and we see this more commonly in our callers who are trying not to gain weight and very commonly with women we'll have female callers call in who are afraid of reverse dieting so afraid and oh my god I'm doing so much cardio and I I'm overtraining 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 you're doing powerlifting and uh and it works it works if they can follow it uh but again that's the opposite if your issues like mine was which is I always want to build muscle yeah got some questions how common are body image issues you know I there's they're very common i kind of touched on that a little bit right you did but I in in in adults in the US it's over 50% of people that will report is that a true stat uhhuh over 50% of people will say that admit it that that will say that yeah they admit it in the in the gym nearly one in three health club users report significant symptoms of body disorder so that's interesting so the you have 50% of the general population that just admits it which to Justin's point that are admitting it that you know the other half probably just just ignore it or don't realize it and then you have onethird of anybody who's already actively pursuing with severe with more severe symptoms and 70% of those people have had an eating disorder wow yeah wow is that high huh yeah well in that population so onethird of gym goers uh have significant body disord by the way think of all your gym Think of all the gyms we've ever managed and think of all your members it's probably 1/4 to onethird are fanatics the ones that always show up it's probably them now of them 70% have had an eating disorder is what the stats and eating disorder people think right away of like bulimia and that direction but orthorexia too orthorexia has a bit eating disorders where you just have to measure and everything has to be accurate by the way look I I I want to just give people some empathy we live in a world that celebrates how you look so much and and reinforces it so much and tells you that your beauty is so important so much uh that that of course of course and then we're told that obesity is so unhealthy and we're so unhealthy and what we 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 you show me a chronic marathon runner uh especially female and I'll show you someone who's who's so scared of gaining a single pound you you know bodybuilding of course going on stage and showing your physique about the only one that would I would say is well it's not necessarily because you could also be obsessed in that direction too but we tend to to put people in the direction of like a powerlifting competition if they have body image issues if they or unless their body image is like was mine powerlifting would not be a good idea yeah yeah someone someone who's obsessed with strength and numbers uh then that's that's not going to help that person but you know Yeah well let's be competition is 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 you know like that's uh because usually comparing literally comparing yourself to something else yeah that's what it is unless it's some healthy version where you're just trying to kind of you know 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 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 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 the 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 there's by the way there's nothing wrong with true love with love or you're you hey man you know that's not good for you you know or whatever when it's appropriate that's totally fine but if they feel judged uh harshly or there's no grace they will stop telling you what's going on and they that's it you can no longer help them so that's the most important yeah i think the the 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 of course well you Yeah i mean but I like you absolutely could be uh that person if you truly care about this person and you're like trul I want to help them well one of the first things you 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 I think in this situation is you know allow allow them to work on it be supportive uh and don't add fuel to the fire this was a breakthrough for me as a coach because initially I was that hardcore trainer um 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 uh I had to kind of figure it out later i I 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 cuz 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 they talked to me the entire time and then they finally did uh figure it out so uh that's in my opinion that's definitely one of the most important things all right I know you like that episode if you did check this one out 30% body fat for men this is way too high this is actually a bit high for women as well so in today's episode we're talking about how you can go from 30 to 10 what is 10% body fat this is when you have a visible six-pack can you go from 30 to 10% yes it's possible but not if you guess along the way so we're going to talk about how you can do that in today's episode now there's a huge range right of like body types some people can run uh a little bit heavier uh and or a little bit higher