Body Shaming
I get what Maria Kang is trying to do. She's trying to shock and motivate people by stepping just a bit beyond the typical "Here's what Body for Life did for me" testimonial. The problem is that she comes across like that friend of yours who joined the gym and started shopping at an organic food store and is now telling you all these facts about working out and diet and fitness and you think to yourself, "Could I just get one solid throat punch in and make this person shut up for 10 minutes?"
Well, believe it or not, I was that person at one point in my life. I'm sure I drove my friend nuts with all my blathering on about diet and fitness and working out. This was probably about 10 years ago. A friend from work convinced me that we needed to start going to the gym. At that time I probably weighed about 185 lbs and was pretty flabby. My first day at the gym I was shocked to find out how difficult it was to bench press a 25 pound dumbell. Yup, I was a chubby weakling. Working a desk job and not having a whole lot of physical activity joining the gym seemed like a good idea. I started going to the gym 5 days per week. I had a weight training and cardio routine that I switched up every 4 to 6 weeks. I had a very strict diet and one that most people could not live with... hell, I couldn't live with it today. On average I spent about 2 hours per day at the gym and about 3 hours preparing food. I was also working at a job where my average work day was 8 to 10 hours plus I was in an on-call rotation that would always take up at least 1 hour per day as well as weekend work that ranged from 3 to 10 hours so I didn't have a lot of free time. For 6 months, my daily routine was: wake up, eat and get ready for work, go to work, go to the gym, come home, say hi to my family, eat, cook, work a bit more and then go to bed. Wanna see the results?
This is me before the major lifestyle change. OK, to be fair, I didn't think about taking before and after photos until I had been working out and dieting for a couple of weeks and at this point I had already lost 7 pounds.
This is me about 6 months later. There is a bit of a physical change but frankly not a huge change and not anything that people would really notice. It's not like I would walk down the street and people would say, "Oh that guy works out and is very conscious of what he puts into his body. Good for him!"
It didn't really matter what other people thought I was really doing this for myself and I was convinced that looking better would make me feel better. I wasn't feeling good about how I felt physically or how I looked and I think it's clear from my expressions in the photos that in the after photo I seem happier. But I can tell you that the happiness was directly proportional to the amount of physical change I could see and like everyone who embarks on this type of "lifestyle change for the better" I hit a plateau and the good feeling I got from seeing the physical improvement switched to frustration when I plateaued and the physical changes stopped. My plateau happened after the above photo was taken and I don't have any photos of my "peak" point but really, I don't think I looked a whole lot different.
At this point I would see guys in the gym that were just monsters. Huge and ripped and bench pressing skyscrapers and I wanted to be more like that because in my head I thought that there was a direct correlation between muscles and happiness. I was not happy with myself unless I was making progress so I decided that I had to take thing to the next level. I tried supplements and eventually started taking a vasodilator to get more of a pump and hoping that it would get me past the plateau. I suppose it did but the result wasn't quite enough so I started a prohormone cycle. It wasn't quite the same as a synthetic anabolic steroid injected sub-q. It was just a pill called methylated one testosterone or M1T. The problem with M1T being an oral supplement, was that it can cause liver damage over a long period of time. I did a 3 week cycle of M1T and my strength almost doubled. I was in a cutting cycle diet-wise at the time which means I had adjusted my diet so that I was losing weight while I was taking the M1T... probably not the best idea.
My weight didn't really change. I was sitting at about 175 pounds and my body fat percentage was about 10% but I nearly doubled the weight I was pushing. For a guy who is barely 5' 7" and 175 pounds I was bench pressing 85 pound dumbells. Considering that 3 weeks prior, before starting my M1T cycle, I was bench pressing 45 pound dumbells that's a pretty significant increase.
Adding the prohormone on top of everything else I had to incorporate a supplement component in my daily routine which included the M1T, stuff to help flush my liver and Tamoxifen (Nolvadex) to... well... combat some of the side effects that guys really don't want when they are taking steroids. I think this was where the scales started to tip the other way for me big time.
I was not healthy. I felt lethargic all the time. I was sick more often than not with cold, flu, sinus infections, etc. Even though I had a six pack and physically I looked pretty healthy and toned, I was not healthy at all. My flexibility which had previously not been great was even worse so I was starting to feel clumsy and less coordinated. On top of all that, I had even less time with my family or just generally having a life. I'm not sure exactly when it happened but suddenly it clicked. I wasn't unhappy before because of how I looked, I was unhappy because I wasn't doing fulfilling things in my life and no matter how much I worked out or dieted, my quality of life was never going to improve. If anything it was going to get worse.
So, back to the whole body shaming thing... For Maria Kang, maybe working to create a sculpted body is her thing. Maybe she feels fulfilled in her life and she is able to maintain that body and spend time with her kids and be a great mom and run her business and feel great. Just because it works for her doesn't mean that it's going to work for everybody.
Finding the things in life that make you happy is tricky business and we seem to have this horrible habit of looking outward for fulfilment and happiness. We think we want what other people have. We think that looking like a super model or body builder will make us happy. We forget to look inside. We forget to understand ourselves and discover our personal passions. I think Maria's question is a good one, "What's your excuse?" But it's not about fitness. Why aren't you discovering your passion in life and pursuing it with all you've got? What's your excuse for looking outward to find happiness? What's your excuse for not getting to know yourself and being true to yourself? What's your excuse for not allowing yourself to be happy?
At the end of the day, we have to be happy being ourselves. That's all we can be and if we refuse to accept that we deprive ourselves of finding our passions and enjoying our lives. So, let Maria enjoy her life. If she is doing something that appeals to you, try it. Maybe you'll love it. If it doesn't improve your life then try something else. Keep trying, keep experiencing life until you find your passion and don't ever think that you have to limit yourself to just one passion.
She makes me want to punch her in the throat. Even in high school working out hours and hours a day, I didn't look like that. It's unfair to set everyone to the same standard. People are different. Healthy and happy is what matters. Or, if you're me, slightly unhealthy and happier.
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