Why You Should Not Trust Fitness Transformation Photos

You’ve seen them everywhere: dramatic before and after transformation photos promising incredible results. But how reliable are they really?

In this episode, we break down why transformation photos are often not what they seem. Sometimes they are completely fictitious and at other times they can be misleading, even when the person in the photo is real.

We talk about some of the obvious factors, like lighting, pump, and performance enhancing drugs, plus some that most people never consider, including selection bias, and how it makes you feel as the consumer of that content.

We also discuss:

• Why transformation photos are such powerful marketing tools
• How social media amplifies the most extreme visual results
• What transformation photos can show (and what they absolutely cannot)
• The difference between real progress and curated progress
• How to evaluate fitness claims more critically

This episode isn’t about calling individuals out, it’s about helping you better understand what you’re actually seeing online.

If you’ve ever compared yourself to a transformation post and wondered why your progress looks different, this conversation is for you.

P.S., If you want to support us and would like monthly lifting workouts, you can join the Momentum by Sohee fitness app. http://momentumbysohee.com

Alternatively, if you are interested in fat loss science, you can purchase Ben's best-selling comprehensive fat loss book, Everything Fat Loss. http://geni.us/EverythingFatLoss

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Do not trust transformation photos. I've actually been pissing people off about this topic since I think 2018. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

And actually both of us have done posts about this over the years as well. But it is.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

It always riles people up.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yes. Initially, this episode was going to be about the top 10 biggest scams in the health and fitness industry as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Which we were very excited by.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

And this was obviously on the list. But we actually decided that maybe we'll do a bit more of a deep dive on each individual one. So today's episode is going to be dedicated to specifically transformation photos and how they can be very misleading.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

So every time I talk about this, it pisses people off. It pisses off coaches, especially, because coaches obviously use transformation photos. However, I think any coach who is good, any coach who is good who listens to this episode should say, fair enough. That is what my prediction is. I think that any ethical coach, even if they use transformation photos, will listen to this episode and go, you know what? Yeah, good points. Agree. If you are listening to this episode and you are skeptical, I'm pretty sure we're going to convince you as well. Let's dive in. So we have six points that we want to discuss. And before we get into this, I'm going to kind of rip the band-aid off now. When we say that transformation photos are a scam, it is very important to know that not all transformation photos are a scam. We don't actually have anything huge against anyone who ever uses a transformation photo. That's not the point of this episode. However, they are a very, very popular tool in the fitness industry. In my opinion, too popular, too relied upon. And I think most people need to understand why you should never ever trust transformation photos in isolation. Is that enough of a caveat?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Okay. Let's go. Point number one.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Reason number one: some people and some businesses have legit used other people's transformation photos to sell their services, which is a full-on scam.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So this one actually is a full-on scam. This is like, let's lead with the strongest point. Yeah. So, for example, there was a BBC article that was published years ago where a personal trainer has their photos stolen and were then used to promote diet pills. Yeah. That is a quite a clear scam. No one should argue with that. That is 100% a scam. People are stealing other people's photos to then sell products that that person has never used without their consent. Right. That is 100% a scam. Everyone is on the same wavelength there.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

And then as a similar example, this is something that I got to witness happening in real time on social media. There is a very, very, very popular fitness influencer who is kind of known for doing stuff like this, stealing content, stuff like that. But apparently she was called out big time a few years back because she stole someone's before and after tummy tuck surgery photos and used those photos to sell her own weight loss program. And then when you tried to call her out for it, all she would do is block you and then keep using the photos.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

So I don't quite know how this works legally. We are not going to say their name, but I do have a screenshot of the post where someone accused her of stealing her post-surgery photos. And I think it's okay for me to put that on the screen, and that's not, you know, we're not saying it. We're just saying that allegedly someone is stealing someone else's post-surgery photos. Again, that is 100% a scam. No one is arguing with that. And I have actually made a post on social media for something very similar where people will often tag me on posts and say, hey, BDC Carpenter, is this legit? And I had one on TikTok, I think two or three years ago, is this legit? And as always, I put on my detective hat and cap and whatever, and I looked into it and it fully, fully wasn't legit. So after doing a little bit of research, I managed to find the original post. So there is a current trend on TikTok and Instagram where if someone has posted before and after photos, or nowadays before and after videos, where there's a photo uh video of them looking in the camera, sticking their stomach out, and then cutting to one where they're slimmer typically. Before and after transformation photos do tend to be weight loss more than anything else. And I actually managed to find the original person who posted it, and it was a woman who had lost a lot of weight. But in her posts, if you look at the little hashtags at the bottom, she had the hashtag hashtag gastric sleeve. So again, she had surgery to lose a significant amount of weight, and once again, her videos were stolen by a company who was marketing them for weight loss supplements or whatever. So that is unequivocally a scam. That is the strongest evidence that weight loss transformation photos or before and after transformation photos can be used black and white for scam purposes.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

And hopefully anyone tuning in, all of you will be like, yes, fair enough. That's not legit.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Now what we're going to do is move into things that we think aren't necessarily scam territory, but more like quite close. You need to be really fucking cognizant of these practices in before and after transformation photos. So this isn't black and white, that's a scam. This is more like dodgy gray area, somewhere in the gray.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Okay. Reason number two posing, lighting, editing, surgery, and steroids can all change how you look in a matter of seconds, minutes, without an actual true body transformation necessarily taking place. So you've done several videos on this over the years where you'll manipulate your lighting, you'll get a pump at the gym, you'll use people will use like, you know, oil spray, ham spray, stuff like that to make themselves look shinier and more muscular.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

In photo shoots, by the way, that is literally a thing where a photographer would come up with it.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Pam in photo shoots or even like shea butter.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

They would warm it up and slather it on you.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

I once had a photographer uh putting coconut oil on my back. Yes. Yeah. That's very, very funny.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Anything to get the shine. But I know nowadays too, what's really scary is that there are even video editing apps that will, in real time, while you're recording, edit you to make your waist look slimmer, to make your butt look bigger. And I think that's really, really scary because some of them, especially if for to the untrained eye, you don't know what to look for and you wouldn't be able to tell that that's been altered.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah, I have done many videos like this to try and demonstrate to the audience just how easy it is to be bamboozled by photo editing or video editing. And there are many different ways of doing this. So, for example, let's say the less egregious. I take a selfie in the best lighting possible, but I add on a darker shadow filter. So my abs look more defined, I look leaner, whatever. That's kind of most people know that that's common. But nowadays there are photo editing tools where you can make your waist smaller and your shoulders bigger and your arms bigger. And a lot of people are actually caught out on this because you will sometimes see in before and after photos where something on the wall behind them is warped. Has been warped. Where there's like a dimension thing. I I might be able to put a video on the screen, but there's like a dimension resizing tool. So if there's a selfie of me now, what you can do is literally just drag the waist in on both sides. But because it moves everything in the photo, maybe parts of the chair that's you will often see that the chair is slightly warped or the wall behind or the door frame or whatever. And that is to me, that is more egregious because that's actually changing body dimensions. That's not I'm standing in good lighting and I've got a good pump or whatever. This is like I'm physically editing my photos to make me look like I don't look in real life to fool the audience that I am in I don't like the term, but quote unquote, better shape than I am in real life. That to me is deep in the grey, the dark grey of scam territory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Okay, now tell us about the Gold's Gym anecdote of yours.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

So I was doing a workout in Gold's Gym, Venice, the Mecca years ago, and it was one evening, I don't know why we're in the gym so late. I think it was like eight o'clock or something, and I was standing outside, and when it's dark and there's overhead lighting, that is perfect gym lighting. I describe it as anabolic lighting. Fitness models, fitness models know the best place to stand in the gym. I've even been to photo shoots where the photographer has said, I have the best gym for gym lighting. You should fly here because it's better than any gyms that you're going to find. That's how important lighting is for gym photo shoots. So I was doing a uh finishing my workout, I think I was doing bicep curls standard, and I was standing outside, and I said to you, Could you just film a very quick clip of me doing bicep curls? And then I was finishing my workout, and then when I went home, I did a video of me just standing in front of the mirror, and the whole point was to show the audience, you listening or watching, just how much of a difference lighting can make. And this is my way of trying to bring you in on the secrets of fitness models, so you are less likely to be taken advantage of by marketing. And I put them side by side in a video while like playing consecutively, and the whole point was this is how much of a difference lighting can make. And I posted the video, and I remember several people got very angry at me because they were adamant I was talking shit. Someone literally said you had taken these months apart, one is before a steroid cycle, and one is after a steroid cycle. And I remember actually taking a screenshot of both videos where you click the like get info button on your phone that showed the timestamp. And it's like you recorded this, I can't remember the time, but it was like 7 pm or 8 pm. And the next one was like 30 or 40 minutes later by the time we'd driven home. And the whole point is, even when I was being as transparent as possible, like don't trust everything you see in the gym. There's a lot of like camera trickery to make people look as muscular as possible or as lean as possible, even though I was being transparent about it, people were accusing me of lying about transparency and assuming that I had taken them literally months apart.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, I think that's kind of funny. It's a bit ironic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yes. I felt like I was doing people a favor and then it almost got people more riled up than if I had just posted the flattering lighting version.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah. Hence this episode. Yes. Right. Number three, transformation photos on their own don't say anything about how the individual's physical health, mental health, and overall well-being changed, whether it improved or got worse from the before to after photo. In fact, it's very likely and actually quite common that the individual was put through quite unhealthy methods to achieve that physique transformation. And this is something that I have insider knowledge of, as do you. We know we can tell lots of different anecdotes of this. And the one I will tell is from my own personal experience, back in 2013, I was part of an online group coaching program as a client. And I was put in the I forget the exact name, something, something along the lines of the get shredded program. And unsurprisingly, we were put on very, very low calorie intake. We were lifting weights four days a week, high protein, strict approved food list, very limited approved food list, of course. And all these women in the group were high energy, super supportive, very excited to be there supporting each other. Adherence was fantastic. But again, macros at overall calories were low. And I remember somewhere, somewhere along the way, I don't I can't remember if it was four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks into the program, all of a sudden the coach prescribed everyone a surprise cheat day. Now, I have my own thoughts on cheat days in general when we don't have to go into it now. Strong cosine. And it was on a Sunday and it was, you know, happy Sunday. You guys have a whole free-for-all day. You can eat as much of whatever you want. And unsurprisingly, I want to say the vast majority of the clients in that group binged the entire day. Okay. And then, of course, the next day, they said, okay, now it's time to get back to your macros restriction. So at the end of the program, as you can imagine, they got pretty good before and after photos to then use to sell their other programs in the future. But what they failed to mention, zero surprise, is that a lot of these women then went on to continue to struggle with binge eating in the years afterwards. And I know several of them not only gained all the weight back, they ended up weighing more and carrying more body fat than they did before. Now, when you end up in that position and you're binge eating, which is a huge red flag, we should know. Imagine how distressing that is. But curiously, the the head coach conveniently chose to ignore the aftermath of what he had done to his clients. And this is a sad story, yes, but unfortunately, it's not uncommon. This is very much, I feel like is not too much of a stretch to say it's kind of the norm in the industry to do stuff like that. Because what they care about is getting the tr the photos to then sell more services and make more money. That's kind of how I saw it. Either that or they genuinely don't understand or don't care how it impacts people's well-being long term.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

So how I would describe this is imagine you as the listener or the viewer, imagine you are a personal trainer or similar and you want to market before and after transformation photos of your clients. Now, if there is a small difference between the first photo and the second photo, people are going to say, I don't really see much of a difference. They're going to assume that you are not a very good coach because you are not promoting the drastic, amazing results that you got with your clients. But what that means is that people are only rewarding the most severe physical change. And what is the most severe physical change that you can do with a client? So imagine that you are doing, say, an eight-week or a 12-week transformation, which are convenient blocks that coaches will often sell. If you wanted to have the most drastic results between photo one and photo two, what would you do with your clients? And the answer would never ever be a very gentle, health-promoting, uh, mild calorie deficit with healthy behavior change and that kind of thing, what you are more likely to need to do if you want to stand out in the world of competitive before and after transformation photos is have the most severe results. So if you were an amazing coach and you said, Okay, I want to improve your diet so your relationship with food is improved, you really enjoy going to the gym, you feel amazing, your your vitality is better, your sleep is better, your quality of life is improved, and you're working on all these things so your your clients feel great. But then I come along and say, Okay, all of my clients, I'm gonna put you on a celery juice cleanse, and you are going to have nothing but celery juice and protein shakes for the next 12 weeks. You're going to be on an ultra-low calorie diet. Many of you are going to feel like you want to binge eat because you're so hungry. Tough shit. You're not going to do that. You have to stick to the plan. People could feel dreadful, they could be nutrient deficient, their sleep could go to shit, they could be weaker in the gym, all of these things. But because I have put them on an ultra-low calorie diet, my transformation photos would look better than yours. And that is why, as so he has explained, transformation photos only reward physical change, meaning that a lot of the time people don't just overlook physical health and mental health, they are actively sacrificing physical health and mental health solely to achieve the most extreme before and after photo that they can.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah. And I think that's something that we all need to keep in mind is when you are looking at these photos and thinking, oh, I want to look like that, you gotta ask yourself, okay, but are you willing to make those kinds of sacrifices?

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

And sometimes your the temptation is too high, but I'm hoping that you would care enough about your health to be like, oh yes, I remember from Sohi and Ven's content that fat loss is not the same thing as health improvement.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah. Next one, next point. So he has already touched on this slightly, but I want to go in a little bit deeper with it, is the before and after transformation photos tend to be a very, very short time frame, which means that a lot of the time people ignore what happens in the long term. And we actually talked about this during the episode 95% of diets fail, where old research studies, one of them specifically called out weight loss research papers for only kind of bragging about the changes that would be achieved in the short term. So if I put everyone on this crash diet that I've just been talking about, and all of my clients lost a shitload of weight in month one, but if they regain it in month two or month three, whose fault is that? But that is not seen in my photos because I can say, look, all of my amazing before and after results eight weeks apart. But if my clients have then gone on to overeat, if they've then gone on to have a bad relationship with food, if they've then gone on to regain the weight that they've lost, you as the person being marketed to don't see that. So you are essentially seeing a very, very short snapshot in time rather than zooming out and saying, okay, I can see a before and after photo, but what about the after after photo?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I actually know of that reminded me of someone that I know from online who herself went underwent a very drastic fat loss transformation. And then, as you said, she ended up gaining the weight back plus more. But on social media, you would never would have known because she kept posting all her leanest photos pretending like she was still that size to sell her coaching services, even though she looked nothing like that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

So that to me is that's not a scam, but that is definitely flirting on the end where you're like misleading for sure. You it's definitely misleading, it's intentionally misleading the consumer.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

I'm sure if you called her out, she'd say, Well, I never said that this isn't my current physique, or whatever. You know, those kinds of things happen, but uh unfortunately this is the case where especially when you're done using paying for the coach of services and you go on your merry way on your own, they'll might they'll might say, Oh, well, it's not you're not paying me to care about you anymore. So what you do after you leave me is is your business, or they might say, That's your problem, you should have had more discipline. Or whatever, whatever they tend to say. Yeah. This is that's what's in my head.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Okay. Next point. Okay. You need to keep in mind that coaches only need a small percentage of their clients to be successful to market the results that they got. And I have, in my opinion, quite a terrible example of this. I'm going to have to obviously leave it nameless, and I might have to change some of the information a little bit because I know someone is actually quite lawsuit happy. So I knew of a very popular personal training company at a certain time in my life that may or may not exist now.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Rhymes with? I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

That I literally was like, what the fuck? Um yeah. May or may not exist now. Doesn't matter. Some of the coaches may still be doing this, doesn't matter. Who knows? Anyway, they were very, very well known for having incredible before and after photos. That is how they marketed their services. That's how they confessed they marketed their services. Now, I know of a trainer who left the company, and in a very, very candid conversation afterwards, they said we put people on very, very, very painfully strict diets. As in the kind of diet that if I read it out to you now, you would listen to and say, What the actual fuck? How are personal trainers doing that? Is that even legal? Because if I say here is your diet plan, a personal trainer shouldn't actually be providing meal plans to clients legally. That's not what personal trainers are supposed to do in this country. This was in England. And they said, We give people very, very, very, very strict diet plans. We scream at them in the gym. So imagine I'm coaching you and you're doing a set. I'm not telling you to do one more, you can do it, you can do two more. Come on, you've got this. I mean, I'm yelling in your face. And often there are multiple coaches yelling at you. And the results they got were incredible. But the coach admitted after he left the company, they left the company, could be a guy or a girl, who knows? Doesn't matter, that they only got amazing results with a very, very small percentage of their clients because so many of them couldn't handle it. Which goes back to what we talked about before. If you put people on a very, very, very restrictive diet, you get the best physical drastic change, but it's not necessarily health promoting. So if I took 100 people or a thousand people, if you're doing online coaching, it could be more than a thousand. If I got a thousand of my followers to pay me for, I'm gonna do a rapid fat loss plan, 12 weeks. In fact, let's play this out because that's what coaches do. Starting tomorrow, imagine I said, okay, I'm taking a select number of clients, I'm gonna do a rapid fat loss 12-week plan, comment before and after, and I'll send you the details. You pay$100 or whatever, I immediately get a thousand people paying me$100 to join this rapid fat loss plan. And I give everyone a really ridiculously strict diet. I give people a horrendously intense training program that I know most people aren't going to be able to stick with. But if 1% or 5% of people actually manage to stick with it, I can say, here are 10 amazing before and after photos, here are 50 amazing before and after photos. Those are the ones that you see on social media. Right. Bear in mind a lot of online coaches are training dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of clients. Often it's not them, even when they say it's them, but that's a side topic. They only need a small number of amazing photos to make it look like they're getting amazing results.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Which is quite scary. And the reason why it gets perpetuated, of course, is that it is a very effective sales strategy. That's the kind of proof, I say quote unquote proof, that prospective clients will look for before deciding to hire, fork over their money to a coach.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yes. And I think this is important to know that this isn't actually a dig, this isn't a dig on coaches. This is a dig on coaches abusing a popular tool. Because if you want fat loss or you want muscle growth, for example, having a coach that ethically posts before and after photos might be something that you actually really appreciate. We don't necessarily have anything against that as a concept. It's more the fact that people are often very visual and seeing a before and after photo, a picture often paints a thousand words, so to speak. So if I had a written client testimonial saying Ben's amazing trainer, we did this, we did this, we did this, but then someone else posted a before and after photo where they've got a client that lost 50 pounds in eight weeks or you know, something extreme, a lot of people are going to be more drawn by the second one. Right. Even though you don't necessarily know about anything about the protocol that was given, how they felt, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Okay. And last reason, number six. What? Do you want to say it?

SPEAKER_01 26:05

No, I I'm more than happy for you to say it. This, like, okay, I number six, before you say it, this is something that most people will never think about. So we've talked about reasons that these photos can be used and and kind of abused and misused, but this is coming at it from a new angle that I don't think people will realize. Yeah. I just wanted to sex it up a little bit, you know?

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Reason number six is that these kinds of fat loss transformation photos are actually not good for the consumer's well-being. Okay. We've pinpointed two papers that we're gonna talk about briefly.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Talk about the findings. The first one was from 2023 and it surveyed 161 female participants. Okay, and they said, okay, we're gonna randomly assign you to one of three conditions. We're gonna have you view uh three different sets of images depending on the group. Okay. Uh the first is a fit ideal body only image. Second condition was a body transformation photo where they see the before and then they see the after body transformation photo side by side. And then the third was a control condition where they looked at random travel photos, okay? And this is two quotes from the paper that I want to emphasize. The first one said viewing fit ideal only and body transformation imagery was associated with lower body satisfaction and higher appearance comparison. All right. So you were less happy with your body after looking at other people's fit bodies or transformations. Second quote Individuals may benefit from limiting exposure to fit ideal and body transformation imagery, particularly if they are vulnerable to engaging in appearance comparison. Right. Basically, it'll make you feel worse about yourself is what they found. Next paper.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Second paper, similar findings, essentially, where you can look at transformation photos side by side, or you can look at one or other, so to speak. And to use the exact quote transformation content does not inspire healthy lifestyle changes, and that the inherent messaging has harmful short-term effects on women's mood and self-objectification. So this is kind of similar to quote unquote fit spiration imagery, where if personal trainers and fitness models post lots of photos of themselves, topless, six-pack, whatever, if they're a guy or similar for a woman, it can make the viewer feel worse, kind of like a self-comparison tool. But in this instance, it's specific to before and after photos. So if you look at before and after photos on the internet, it is possible that you will feel worse about yourself after viewing that kind of content. And I think part of it is because, and I know people have commented on this when I've talked about it in the past, it's because a lot of people, one reason, I'm not saying this is the strict because, but one thing that people have pointed out to me before is they often relate to the before photo. So if someone relates to the before photo, it's kind of like before and after photos are often kind of implying, look how shit I was before, look how happy I am now. And I think a lot of people, if they see themselves in the before photo, it can kind of feel a bit shamey. Like, well, I look like that, and they're talking about how terrible they were by comparison, or you know, whatever. It's that cliche that the first photo is they're looking sad and I'm so much better now that I don't look like that anymore. Yeah, and I I know if people relate to the first photo, it can be a bit kind of insulting.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Is that is that fair? Yeah. So basically, it didn't make them feel better about themselves, it made them feel worse about their bodies and also didn't necessarily motivate them to actually engage in healthier behaviors. Which I think would come as a surprise to a lot of people because maybe you are intentionally following a lot of I quote quote unquote FitSpo pages in an effort to try to inspire, get inspired and motivate yourself to get fitter, to lose fat.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Yeah, I think that I think there's a misconception that for the average person, I'm not speaking for everyone's psychology, I think there's a misconception that if people are looking at photos of guys and girls that are shredded to the bone and flexing and doing all of the fitness model cliche stuff that I used to post as well. I think there's a misconception that the people posting it think it's very motivational to the viewer. And I think there are a subset of people who probably do find that motivating. When I was a young teenager, I would look through glossy magazines and be like, oh my god, I want that guy's physique. And I literally even I remember the mod the male fitness models that I looked at, like, oh my god, I want their physique. But there are a lot of people who look at those photos and they are not motivated, they are more put off or demotivated or feeling worse about themselves by consuming that kind of content.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Also, as a fun fact, we found this during our prep for this episode. According to a 2018 piece on The Guardian, even Weight Watchers has ditched before and after photos. Now, this is of course eight years ago. I don't know what they're doing now. They may have brought them back, who knows?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

I went to their website and it it definitely isn't the same kind of marketing that it used to be.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

In a good way, it's better now.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Uh or it's let's let's park that, but that's they're not so basically they're not.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

You can confirm they're not. You don't see before and after photos. So basically, if at least not as prevalently, right, which I thought was a nice step.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

And the yeah, I mean the point was to me that was quite a big thing because Weight Watchers are a lot of people probably view Weight Watchers as very, very synonymous with wanky diet culture. And I'm not necessarily saying that I know the company has evolved a lot over the years, but a lot of people have negative connotations of like Weight Watchers and Slimming World for various things that they've propagated over the years. And one of the things I thought was interesting was apparently they stopped using before and after photos for the reason that they didn't want it to look like this. Is one of the things discussed in the piece. I don't know if it's quoted from them, but they didn't want it to look like lifestyle change had an end date. And I found that quite interesting. That's something that we kind of talked about in like short-term versus long term, but I think it's kind of interesting because if you're posting photos like here is Jenny, she's lost 50 pounds in two months or three months or whatever. There's something very aggressive, short-term, rather than we want people to create healthy long-term lifestyle change.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Right. And that's definitely a significantly less sexy message.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Is yeah, harder to get people on board. It is harder to get people on board. One other thing that I think was interesting. So I know I've pissed people off about this for many, many, many, many years. And I think if someone gets pissed off by it, to me, that's actually a red flag. And I'm not being You touch the nerve. Yeah, so I'm not being egotistical, like I'm right, you're wrong. If you disagree with me, you're the problem. I think that's not a healthy attitude to have. But I personally think that these are very, very fair points that people in the fitness industry specifically should at least be able to agree are a problem, because these are industry-wide problems. And a good coach, even if they use before and after photos, should still be able to admit that these practices are common. So, for example, probably close to 20 years ago, now there was a documentary that I remember seeing called Bigger, Faster, Stronger, and they were interviewing a guy and big like fitness model, bodybuilder kind of guy, and they were talking about the before and after photos, and they said, Oh, your photos are used to sell supplements, correct? And he was like, Yeah, so a brand will pay me, I'll take photos, and then I'll promote like a fat burner, for example, like specifically, that was what was claimed. And the interviewer said, But you also take steroids, don't you think that's misleading? And the guy was like, I mean, you could view it as misleading, I guess, but I still take the fat burner, and it's like, well, yeah, but if you take a herbal fat burner that does at least very close to nothing, and then you're taking testosterone and Tren and clambuterol or whatever he was taking, I'm not saying it was those things specifically. But if you're then bragging about the fat burner and lying about or hiding the anabolic usage and the performance-enhancing drug usage, isn't that an ethical I was gonna say ethical dilemma, but isn't that an ethical faux pas? And even the interviewer said, Do you not think that is ethically questionable? And he was like, Well, I'm I'm being honest, I'm still saying that I'm taking the fat burner that I'm taking. I'm just not telling them the other things that I'm taking. So to me, even coaches who use before and after photos should be able to listen to every single point that we've made and gone, yeah, that's a problem. And hopefully they would say, that's not how we do things. But yes, it is very common for those practices to happen.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Right. Wrapping it up, we have some quick takeaways for the audience. Okay. I've mentioned this before. Another reminder that fat loss is not synonymous with health improvement. So when you're looking at these transformation photos, remember, even if you do end up looking a certain way, perhaps briefly, does not necessarily mean your health is going to get better. It might get worse. We can't say based off the photos alone, depending on the methods you employ to get there. Right. But of course, the body changes, the the the photos will emphasize the body transformation changes only. They don't tell you, and my mental health went to shit. I lost my period, I lost my hair, my nails were brittle, I became cranky, I lost my social life, and this is all stuff that happened to me before too. So you don't know how their health changed based off the photos alone.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Yeah. I think although this isn't specific to before and after transformation photos, I think it is very important for people to remember that even if you follow the exact same diet plan, exact same training plan that someone is promoting, you are not likely to get the same results as they are, and you are not likely to look the same as they do. So if I told you my current training plan and I told you exactly what I'm eating, it would be unreasonable for you to think if I do what he does, at some point I'm going to look like he looks. Right. People have different genetics, the way their physique and their frame is built, people respond to exercise in different ways. Yeah. But it's a tasty looking piece of bait on the end of a fishing line to kind of dangle the carrot that this is how I can make my clients look. Right. Which is essentially the underlying message that is being promoted.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

And that actually kind of reminds me of the what ID in a day posts that are absolutely everywhere and will continue to be everywhere because they get such good engagement.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Which I hate. General haters may be strong.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

I don't love them. Hate is too strong. Especially, especially if the post begins with a body check. Right. Where again we're going back to showing the quote unquote the fit ideal or body goals. And then they show you the food that they eat, where the it's usually it's the implied message is I look this way because I eat this way. Yeah. So there's a lot of overlap here with okay, you could copy this person's exact diet, which by the way, I used to do as well, especially when I was all into the fitness magazine days. Oh, I looked at it. They would share their meal plans, right? The fitness model, and I'd be like, oh my god, I'm gonna eat exactly how they're eating. And of course, I never got close to looking anywhere near like that.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

I remember reading like I think Muscle and Fitness or Flex magazine, and there were typically bodybuilders on there that were juiced up to the eyeballs. Yeah. And I'd be like, here is I nearly said a name there, here is person A's exact training plan, get the same results they do, and I'm like, oh, what are they eating? I'm gonna do the same thing. But of course, even if I still followed that diet for the last 20 years now, I've been exercising more than 20 years, I would still not look like them because part of the reason that they look like look how they do are for the things they would never talk about in the magazine.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Right. Now, unfortunately, no matter how much we talk about this, no matter how great of points we make, transformation photos are not going to go away. They are too lucrative, they are too effective from a sales standpoint that coaches and businesses will continue using fat loss and muscle gain transformation photos forever and ever.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

So when I've talked about this in the past, I remember I think it was a coach, and they very honestly said, Well, what would you recommend instead? And they they were being you know, it was a it was a fair question. And I don't think it's that radical to think even if someone used a before and after transformation photo, surely you would at least put in a testimonial underneath.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Yeah. Talk to me about what how your quality of life's changed, how you are now able to chase after your kids at the park and not run out of breath. How those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

I know this is like a super unnecessary caveat, but I don't want it to sound like we are prom we're we're pushing our ideals onto other people's goals. Like some people might not care about that kind of quality of life. When I was younger, I didn't care about quality of life. I was like, I want to look as jacked as possible. But the point that Sopey's making, which of course I agree with, is a testimonial would essentially explain the things that the photo can't. Right. So has someone's strength improved? You can't necessarily see that in a photo. Has someone's quality of life improved? You can't see that in a photo. Has someone's actual fitness improved? You can't see that in a photo. Has someone's flexibility or mobility improved? You can't see that in a photo. Do they feel healthier? Yeah. Whatever. The point is, any good coach, and I I kind of had this argument with someone on a post previously. I'm like, even if you are someone who posts body transformation photos, no shade, do it like the judgment isn't there for that. It's about the unethical use of them. Even if you are someone who posts body transformation photos, if you are a good coach, you have done a lot more with the client than what that photo says. Yes. So to me, it seems strange that you would not at least accompany the photo with all the other things you have been doing in that time. No?

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Correct. And my point to everyone else is hopefully, even if we can't control the fact that these photos are gonna continue to be everywhere, at the very least, you can be an informed consumer of this kind of content. Right? So if that means you know what to look for or you understand, okay, things aren't exactly as they seem on the surface, if that means you need to mute people, if you need to unfollow people so you don't see that kind of content, if you re if you understand, oh, you're so right, according to the research paper, same as me, viewing this kind of content puts me in a worse mood, makes me feel worse about my body, and it makes me want to exercise less and resort to unhealthy eating behaviors. If you know that's the case for you now, if you have the level of awareness, you can put safeguards in place and and and boundaries to protect your mental health and protect your your well-being.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Yeah, and importantly, I want to double reiterate because although I don't mind pissing people off if I think the message is worthwhile, I don't actually try and piss people off unnecessarily. And I don't want anyone to actually think that we are shitting on coaches here. We are both coaches. Yeah. We are explaining how some coaches, but also some companies, this isn't necessarily strict to personal trainers, it's companies that use photos in their adverts, for example, or diet product companies, or whatever. The whole point is you need to be aware that a decent chunk of these kind of adverts are probably at least slightly misleading for some reason. And a lot of the time they might not be the scam that we talked about in point one, but there is a good possibility that one of the other five or so five points that we made. Six, yeah. Five other points. Okay. Like the first one is a scam. In the remaining other five points that are like grey area kind of things, it is quite common that a decent chunk of before and after photos or videos that you see on the internet are using at least one of those things that would be a red flag if you knew they were doing it, but you probably don't. We are trying to make sure that you are a more informed consumer, so you are less likely to be missold shit, basically.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

And if you didn't know before, now you do.