01557: The Beach Body Conundrum

For the bulk of 1st quarter of this year, I'm sure we've dealt with our fair share of contacts who have been counting down to summer across their social media updates. And usually the tone isn't just about looking forward to the holidays ahead or something but more about the perceived pressure to become more fit in time for the summer. And sometimes, I really just don't get it.

Mandatory disclaimer - I'm fat. There's no getting around that. And when fat people talk about people who work out a lot, naturally the first instinct is to scoff and dismiss it as envy or something. But I'd like to think that given you read this blog, you respect the fact that I put a fair amount of thought into the stuff I write about here.

Now I totally respect people who believe in working out for fitness. These are typically the ones who go to gym only as a smaller part of their overall fitness activities. These are the ones who run marathons, swim regularly or perhaps are engaged in a job that requires regular physical exertion. Thus they level of physical fitness is more a natural side-effect of what they do.

And I can also understand single people who feel the need to increase their chances of attracting other people. Granted, it's a somewhat shallow basis for starting a possible relationship, but then single people have to do stuff like that to get ahead of the pack. So given they're constantly trying to look better throughout the year, at least it's not exactly an isolated event. I feel bad for these guys in completely different ways, but this is still outside of my beach body confusion.

But what never makes sense to me are those who work out merely for the same of peacocking at the beach. Narcissism is never going to be a turn-on, but I doubt these folks really think about that. They work out in order to be seen and ogled at the beach by whoever gives them the time of day. And while a lot of these beach body posers are single, there are also a fair amount of them who aren't and so I can't help but wonder what that person's partner is thinking. Would you want your boyfriend to work out for some undefined audience to see and not necessarily for you? Shouldn't your sense of self-worth be more based on what your partner thinks and not what the general public think? If you're constantly dependent on the world at large to provide you some sense of validation, you're really not going to get far in life.

Yes, working out is important for general fitness. Yes it helps with people who enjoy marathons and other sports competitions as a hobby. But if you only really work out just before going to the beach in order to display yourself to the world, well, I can't help but feel that all you're really showing off what a shallow meat head you are.