The Magazines Are Lying to You!

When you’re standing in line at the grocery store, or looking for a magazine to…

When you’re standing in line at the grocery store, or looking for a magazine to read when you’re doing your cardio, do you ever stop and think how much truth there is to those headlines you see in the health magazines? How easy is it really to get 6 pack abs in 2 weeks? What IS the secret exercise that gets you buns of steel? Or how can you transform your entire physique by adding this one “super food” to your diet? These are great headlines that are meant to sell magazines, they don’t actually do what their claiming to do.
Now if you take a look at the pictures of those models on the cover they are just about perfect. They have the chiseled arms, 6 pack abs, and broad shoulders and are also cellulite free, but those models are not as perfect as they appears to be. Let me tell you a little secret. Celebrities and models won’t release their picture for any type of publication unless it’s been Photoshopped. Some actually have personalized Photoshop experts that do the air brushing for them, which means that every photo taken of that celebrity or model has to get approved by their expert before they get released to the public otherwise the magazines can’t use them.
The headlines are lies, the pictures are lies, yet the magazines still sell. Why is that? Well the fact of the matter is that they’re not even selling anything worthwhile, most of them are about 75% full of advertising anyways, however what they are selling is a dream or a fantasy. We should know that logically you can’t get 6 pack abs in 2 weeks if you don’t already have them, but imagine if you could? That little impulse that you got in the back of your mind just now (“imagine if you could”) triggers an emotional response that will allow you to purchase the magazine now and justify why you did it later. Congratulations you just bought a pipe dream.
The unfortunate things is that these magazines have quite an impact on people (women especially) who have body image issues. You want to see the damage these health and fitness magazines are doing? I’ll give you an example. I was at the gym stretching after my workout in front of the magazine rack and I saw a women’s fitness magazine that said “Lose up to 10 lbs in 7 days” then I laughed and dismissed it. However right beside it there was another popular celebrity magazine with a famous actress on it saying “My eating disorder almost killed me” coincidence? Right then It became obvious to me. We don’t realize how much damage these magazines and pictures 10 Tips For A Healthy Lifestyle are doing to us. When did we let the media dictate what “healthy” is? How does a magazine know what a good diet is for me? It doesn’t know me, and why would I trust a magazine to tell me what to eat or how to workout anyway? There is no way that the publishers of these health and fitness magazines have my personal health in their best interest. They know nothing about me, yet according to them I need rock hard abs and I need to get them as fast as possible. And to be honest, I’ve never heard a success story about someone who bought a health magazine or subscription and went on to achieve their fitness goals solely because of that magazine.
There is no secret diet, secret exercise or secret health tip that will make me lose weight or get ripped. It’s been the same since the dawn of human kind, and that is regular exercise and good eating habits. Quit trying to rush everything. We live in an age now where everything is instant, however when it comes to your health and your body, other than surgery, there will never be a short cut. If you want to completely change your body then give yourself 3 months, Boston Medical Center Pediatrics or 6 months, or a year, it doesn’t matter. You didn’t put the weight on overnight so quit trying to take it off overnight. Find a pace that suits you and work at that. I would love to have a client come up to me and say “My goal is to do consistent daily exercise for the next 10 years.” Now to some that might be considered unattainable for various reasons, but think of this, 50 years ago that wasn’t a fitness goal of anyone’s either, it was simply called living.