Body Image – Muscle Dismorphia
Jeremy Scott – Jeremy Scott Fitness
I want to chat with you guys for a minute about Body Image and also my personal thoughts on Muscle Dismorphia.
I meet so many beautiful-athletic-fit “way above average women” in my business ..
It’s Scottsdale we have some sexy folks living here….
Even with that said over the years I have seen too many of them exhibit numerous symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder.
Many of you are saying “what hell is that?” – Per my good friends over at the Mayo Clinic –
“Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can’t stop thinking about a flaw in your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined.” When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, often for many hours a day. Body dysmorphic disorder is also known as dysmorphophobia.”
Now to some degree I think we all feel “self-conscious” of certain areas of our body be it, breasts, stomach, arms, legs, butt whatever it is most of us have something we don’t love on our bodies.
I think that’s a Normal feeling we can all work on some things we don’t like…….but when it becomes an obsession – taking up hours of your day thinking about it, starring in the mirror at your “trouble issue” day after day, not wearing or ALWAYS wearing certain clothes to always hide your “flaws” it becomes more of an unhealthy habit or disorder.
I am here to tell you guys – we are all a little crazy, but listen when I say “LOVE WHAT YOU HAVE, LOVE WHAT YOU WERE GIVEN and WORK HEALTHY, SAFELY, AND POSITIVELY TO CHANGE the things you don’t love just yet!”
The reason I can relate to you guys more than you even realize is because I use to be obsessed with my physical appearance. I just wanted to be “BIG” whatever that term even means as its changed so much…back 5-6 years ago I wanted to be BIG more than anything it literally dominated my life.
I had what you would call Muscle dysmorphia aka bigorexia) a disorder in which a person becomes obsessed with the idea that they are not muscular enough.
“Those who suffer from muscle dysmorphia tend to hold delusions that they are “skinny” or “too small” but are often above average in musculature.” – Sounds like a younger Jeremy Scott to me!
“In this disorder a person is preoccupied with thoughts concerning appearance, especially musculature. As with other forms of body dysmorphic disorder, muscle dysmorphia – people ignore information that their body image is not consistent with reality.”
I just wanted to be 190lbs and ripped that was it, I would train with my good friend who if you ask him today also exhibited many traits of Muscle Dysmorphia for a long time. He is also a “fitness model” like myself and I know 100% for a fact like many other guys and gals in our industry he hates some parts of his body and might still even obsess about them today.
Back in the day we would step on the scale daily wishing, wanting, waiting for the numbers to go up. Eating non-stop, lifting hard-heavy, doing what we thought were all the “right things” – thinking one day it would just happen.
But day after day I would go from 182lbs to 184lbs back to 181lbs back to 183lbs and so on…sound familiar to anyone out there? “Scale Watching”
Basically I was fucking crazy and wanted to look like “Arnold” at 190lbs and for some reason in my delusional mind I thought it would happen…..
Similar to women looking at Victoria Secret Models trying to get that type of body or whatever type they are trying to attain!
To save you the roller coaster ride….. I type this blog today at 214lbs and recently clipped at 7% body fat – that’s 24lbs bigger than my goal 5 years ago of “190lbs and ripped” – and if you consider 7% ripped I guess I met that goal too.
I tell you that to tell you this – the number means nothing I got to 190lbs and still wasn’t happy, I still didn’t like how I looked, I was too skinny, and too fat at the same time. Sounds weird right I will explain…
Even as recent as a year ago competing on stage shredded I looked in the mirror before pre-judging and thought – man your arms are way too skinny and your stomach is too “thick” – 100% honest to GOD truth guys and this is a photo from that day….
Jeremy Scott Fitness
Yes the morning of this photo I thought “man your arms are too skinny and your stomach is too thick!”
The society we live in, the culture of certain fitness circles, certainly the vanity side I work in for parts of the year – that stuff fucks with your head.
Women you have it the worst…. this Photoshop, airbrushed, bullshit they feed you girls isn’t real…..it’s not realistic and even if it was that girl on the cover probably has 2-3 things she is working on she doesn’t like about her self as well.
The point again we are all a little crazy – YOU HAVE TO LOVE WHAT YOU GOT and WORK HEALTHY, SMART, AND BE POSITIVE about things you wish to change. The key words here being healthy-smart-positive!
FLASH FORWARD…
The other day while I was training alone for the 1st time in my life I looked in the mirror and thought “man Jeremy you are in pretty good shape” – this is coming from me – a guy who has numerous sponsorships, been in tons of magazines, billboards and gets paid from these guys for lets be honest “how I look with a shirt off!”
So again for the record guys you and I are not so different at the end of the day!
If you take anything away from this let it be this “NEVER compare yourself to the anyone else, your genetics, your goals, your stresses, your body is 100% yours DON’T be concerned with every imperfection – it’s those imperfections that make us unique and make us Sexy!”
I get it you have to love your body and I am all for positive-healthy work to make it better, just don’t let your pursuit of it ruin the rest of your life and consume you. The journey of healthy eating and training should be fun, and getting sexy-healthy is fun.
I once lived my life around training, eating, meal prep, getting big & ripped…now those things fit into my life in a healthy balanced way.
I set the standards for myself; I love being lean; I love eating healthy, and the byproduct is a body I am happy with.
Eating healthy, training like a bad ass, and loving your life is the sexiest things you can do regardless if you love your butt and thighs or not. Eventually if you do enough healthy eating and badass training the rest of your body will get the message trust me on that.
Until next time guys eat clean, train hard, be nice to people and LOVE YOUR BODY it’s the only one you have!
Body Image – Muscle Dysmorphia
Jeremy Scott – Jeremy Scott Fitness