Social Media Always Makes You Think There’s 10 More Pounds to Lose

One of the most frustrating things for me is when a coaching client loses weight, but then she says, “but I still have 10 pounds to go.” The first time I heard this, I was intrigued – and said, “okay! Let’s lose it.” Most of the time, it wouldn’t budge.

Finally, after one-too-many of these frustrating conversations I decided to ask for two responses:

A. What do you think your ideal weight is?

B. Can you show me a picture of where you are now, and where you want to be?

I was shocked.

Most of these women looked great – normal, healthy, fit weights. Did they look like anorexic Victoria’s secret models? No. But they looked objectively great – and this is coming from a male perspective (and trainer perspective).

Instead, what I found was that most of them were comparing themselves to idealized (fake) images they saw on social media.

Social Media Makes You Think There’s “Always 10 Pounds to Go”

When I realized that most of my clients looked good already, and maybe just needed a tiny bit of toning, I was surprised.

Then angry.

Then sad.

I thought back to all the dozens of people that felt discouraged, where I felt a personal sense of failure, because I failed to help them get their “ideal” body.

I couldn’t believe that they had essentially reached a healthy weight – but what they thought was a healthy weight was completely distorted by reality.

The problem is that social media makes you think there’s always ten more pounds to lose.

The problem is the social media shows that one angle, of that one person, that one time, after six hundred pictures.

The problem is that social media shows impeccable lighting, at that right moment, in that one shot.

And the paradox, the cosmic irony of it all, is that when you meet one of these people modeling on social media, you realize that they themselves don’t even look like their pictures.

They are chasing the same ghost of perfection.