The Truth About Fitness Selfies and Food Porn

The dawn of social media has created an illusion of transparency in the fitness industry.

Unfortunately, all is not what it seems.

That ripped dude you’re following on Facebook? He eats more than just Pop Tarts.

That “beauty queen” you follow on Instagram? She doesn’t live under the perfect selfie lighting of her bathroom.

In this article we’ll expose the reality of:

1. How fitness selfies skew the perception of a lean and healthy physique.
2. How food porn creates a false impression of what it takes to get fit.
3. How important it is to share the emotional side of your fitness journey.

I pride myself on being completely transparent, so let’s take a look at my social media profiles for a little dose of reality.

The Not-So-Transparent Truth About Fitness Selfies

Other than a few of my “before” photos, you would be hard pressed to find unflattering pictures of me on my social media profiles.

The same could be said about my wedding album and family portraits hanging around my house. It’s normal to share the photos that show us at our best.

However, I recently realized that my fitness selfies may be misleading.

Many of the photos I share are captured under ideal lighting conditions. I’ve mastered poses that create the illusion of a tighter waistline, and I take pictures after a workout when my muscles are more defined.

But here’s my biggest fitness selfie secret…

Selfie Secret

Instead of taking a photo, I record a video. Then I extract all the frames in the movie as still images, which are milliseconds apart. From there, I select the photos that capture my physique at its best.

To give you an example, let’s take a look at some progress pics I shared last year:

Now let’s compare them to some frames captured just a second or two before or after the above photos:

Not as impressive, eh? Yet it’s the exact same lean and healthy physique.

My Fitness Selfie Motives

I take these fitness selfies both as a form of accountability and as a way to measure my progress.

I also take fitness selfies because I want my online friends to see that I walk the talk. I share my honest experiences with workout and nutrition plans, whether they are my programs or those of a trusted colleague.

Once or twice a year I also take part in a professional photo shoot aimed at capturing my physique as a work of art. It’s me at my absolute best, in peak condition, striking flattering poses under optimal lighting.

During a 60-minute session, the photographer captures hundreds of pictures. Afterwards, it takes them hours to sort through them all. By the time they’re done, I’m lucky if I end up with a dozen great shots!

Shots like these are the ones I share with my online friends:

But here are some images from the same photo shoot, where I don’t look quite as muscular or impressive:

Why am showing you these? Because I want you to see that even under perfect conditions, I still cherry pick the best images to share with my online friends.

I don’t want you to compare yourself to my photos or anyone else’s, especially when you don’t know the whole story behind the photos.

Focus on your own journey and embrace the process of sculpting your personal masterpiece.

The Food Selfie Phenomenon

Just about everybody has taken pictures of their food and posted it across social media, myself included.

But as a fitness professional, I feel a responsibility to represent my nutrition lifestyle in an accurate way. 90% of the foods I consume are healthy, natural, whole foods. The other 10% includes a variety of my favorite treats.

I try to make my social media reflect my entire lifestyle. Therefore, 90% of the food selfies you’ll see on my social media profiles will be of healthy, delicious meals. Yet I might take the other 10% may at a favorite fast food restaurant. For example, here’s what I ate during a recent boy’s night out with my son Shayne:

Unfortunately, as transparent as I am with my nutritional lifestyle, some people still only see what they want to see.

Some ignore the fact that I spend most of the week in a caloric deficit, and choose to focus on the less healthy 10% of my diet.

They make comments about how I can get away with eating cheat meals because I must have a super high metabolism (which isn’t the case). In fact, my maintenance level caloric intake is what most calculations predict for a male my age, size, and activity level. Bottom line, I’m a normal average guy.

Then there are other people who only focus on the healthier 90% of my diet, telling me they’d rather “live a little“ than eat what I eat.

(I guess they didn’t see the line-up of beer cans I posted on my social media profiles the other day.)

In both cases, these people are often struggling to lose weight. They’re most likely overwhelmed by all the conflicting fitness and nutrition advice out there. Their frustration gives us all the more reason to be as transparent as possible on our social media profiles.

Plain and simple — if you follow someone who posts nothing but cheat meals, you’re likely only seeing a small part of their diet. Likewise, if you follow someone who only posts healthy meals, you’re still not seeing the whole picture.

A Call For Emotional Transparency Across Social Media

Lots of people have started to reveal that their fitness journey made them feel terrible, even as they were posting happy selfies.

It’s happening in communities everywhere: paleo, vegan, CrossFit, bodybuilding, you name it. Some people have even had near-fatal consequences, but were afraid to speak up because they feared a backlash.

Yet some people still wear it like a badge of honor. CrossFitters brag about how they’ve ripped up their hands. Powerlifters are proud to bleed from their eyeballs. Bodybuilders boast about how they almost passed out on stage from dehydration. Fortunately, these are extreme cases that only represent a small part of each culture.

Your transformation should be an enjoyable process. Yes, there are sacrifices to make, but there’s no need to run yourself into the ground. It’s my belief that if your transformation is making you feel awful, you are doing something wrong.

Don’t wait months or years later to disclose the truth, no matter what fitness or nutrition culture you belong to. Share your feelings and emotional experiences during your transformation.

If you make it known that you’re having trouble, you’ll likely receive help and guidance from your community.  Plus, you may well prevent someone else from making the same mistakes.

We’re in this together. The more open we are about our experiences, the more we can learn from each other.

The Take-Away

I love social media and the transparency it’s brought to our industry.

I’m grateful that social media is leveling the playing field for fitness pros who operate with integrity. It’s been pretty tough to compete against “fitness experts” who lie and mislead their fans and customers.

Thanks to social media, the unethical scammers are being exposed. Even better, consumers are becoming more educated about the rampant false claims in our industry.

There are plenty of sincere, transparent, and ethical fitness pros on social media.

Just look for the ones who aren’t afraid to reveal their flaws and share their experiences — the good and the bad.

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