Fitspirational - NOT!

With the popularity of Crossfit and fitness in the media, there have popped up many tumblr and other websites with inspirational pictures. The term “Fitspirational” has been coined to cover these.

But I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. While the wording may be promoting fitness, the pictures often times are not. It’s an insidious cross message that is harmful to young women and propagating the existing stereotypes of women in the media.

Here are a few examples:



While the sentiment is implying that you should workout hard, look at the girl in the picture. She is skinny and has no muscle definition. If she was really working that hard to be fit, she would build some muscle tone.

Here is another that caught my eye:



This one is especially egregious. This is just a skinny girl with some boxing gloves and fake sweat. Her legs are tiny with no muscle and so are her arms. Again, thin is being portrayed as fit. The part “This is not what fashion models look like” almost made me laugh. This is exactly what fashion models look like if you throw some water on them to look like sweat.

By using models such as these, the idea that girls must be uber thin and have no actual muscle mass is being shown as the ideal. That is what we as fitness lovers want to get away from. I don’t want my daughter to think that just being skinny is healthy. I want her to understand that it is OK to have some muscle. That she should be proud of the hard work she is doing and it is alright to have visible signs of it.

There are real fitness models out there. Think Jamie Eason or Dana Linn Bailey or Annie Thorisdottir.These women have real figures from years of hard work. (Yes, I know Jamie had a boob job, but give her a break she had breast cancer first). These are the images we should be promoting to girls. Notice Jamie has definition in her arms and back. You can't really see her legs well but her quads are awesome.




Too many are indoctrinated to the ones above and are “grossed out” by actual fit women. They have been told that being strong is manly or unattractive. It’s time to stop that ridiculous line of thought. Stop promoting unhealthy body images to our daughters.

That doesn’t even cover the fact that our sons are bombarded by the images as well and brainwashed into thinking that women should be weak, thin, and inactive.

So if you see these “Fitspirational” photos, pay attention to what they are really saying and not just the words. We need to become critics of advertising to put an end to the insanity of crazy beauty ideals.

Starting Out the New Year

A New Year has started and the gyms are packed with people hoping to quickly lose weight and change their lives.  I admit I’m guilty of being irritated by the lack of parking and equipment at this time of year. Sadly, the influx of new people will only last a few weeks. Then, they will get discouraged by the lack of progress and turn back to their old habits. I recently read two great articles on why people don’t see progress. I will briefly sum them up and also provide links to the original articles. Hopefully, someone will find something they can use.

Group Fitness Classes Don't Work1

How many people do you know that faithfully show up for Zumba or Jazzercise week after week and never see progress. They are putting in the effort, not seeing results, but keep thinking just a few more classes will get them that six pack they want. These classes are missing two of the main principles needed to see progress.

Overload- Basically, you have to give the muscles in your body a reason to change. In weight lifting you can do this by increasing the weight or tempo. But in these classes, people tend to use the same weights week after week. The instructor tends to do the same reps or moves at the same tempo and may not encourage the students to progress.

Progression- How many of these classes are trying to progress the participants from week to week?  It’s difficult to make the class progressively more challenging if new people are constantly showing up. So, they end up changing the sound track but not the moves.

What they don’t tell the participants is the truths of fitness: (1) Sometimes reaching goals is not going to be fun, (2) Following the crowd won’t always get you where you want to be, (3) Don’t waste your most precious resource, time.

Lastly, this is not to say that group classes never work. If you go from doing nothing to taking classes, there will be some improvement but you probably won’t reach your final goal.

Running and Women2

Women tend to use running as a means to lose weight. This is for many reasons.  Women are often highly recruited for fund raisers that involve running. These seem fun and easy to participate in. Not to mention make one feel good about supporting a cause. Many coaches recommend huge amounts of cardio to lose weight. However, steady-state cardio can devastate a woman's metabolism. It can do it to men as well, but not as often. The last trap is that we so often hear that to lose weight we just need to do more cardio. But this only seems to work if you have no base cardio rate.

T3 is a hormone produced by the thyroid. I,t along with the T4 hormone, are responsible for regulation of the metabolism. It is very important for weight management that this remain stable. 
 
It has been shown, that in women, T3 rates can soar due to cardio overwork, causing fat gain just when the people are trying do the opposite. It can also start to burn muscle and cause excessive bone loss. Things that no one wants. 


Conclusion - Both articles go much more into depth and I hope you will read them. The idea behind them can benefit not just women but anyone trying to meet a fitness goal. Good luck to anyone with a fitness goal in the New Year!  Here are links to both articles.

1.Group Fitness
2.Women Running Into Trouble