Are Beauty Standards Sabotaging Your Fitness Goals?

By Cassie Therrien-Abell  |  Lifestyle

Why does chasing the "right" body type backfire?

I competed in bodybuilding early in my career specifically to understand that world and to serve clients coming out of it. Here's what I saw firsthand: to be competitive, you have to reach a body fat percentage so low that temporarily losing your menstrual cycle for months is considered normal in that sport. Obviously that's not a healthy state to be in. But it doesn't stop those physiques from being glorified constantly.

The problem isn't that aesthetic goals exist. The problem is when we can't separate what we actually want from what we've been told we should want.

I can't tell you how many times a female client has come to me with a photo from social media showing me how she wants to look. She works really hard, gets about halfway there, and then realizes that what she actually loves seeing in the mirror looks nothing like those photos. Or, in a lot of cases, she gets all the way there, hits that finish line, and then realizes she no longer recognizes herself in the mirror.

Both of those outcomes are just as heartbreaking as not starting at all.

What did "fitness advice" from male colleagues actually look like?

While I was working at a luxury gym early in my career, I asked more experienced male colleagues for advice on building my business. The suggestions I got a lot of the time were things like growing my hair out, wearing more makeup, or spending more on clothes.

On two separate occasions, two different men who had seen my bodybuilding photos told me I almost had everything it took because I really knew my stuff. I just needed to go back to that physique. These were fitness professionals. They knew what it took to step on stage. They knew what a dangerously lean physique looked like. And they still said it.

What bothered me most wasn't that my appearance was being put ahead of my knowledge. What bothered me most was how many women I've talked to since who have a version of the same story. Most of us have internalized beliefs that we use to make ourselves small. And those beliefs show up everywhere, including in how we set our fitness goals.

So what's the actual solution to tuning out beauty standards?

The answer isn't to get better at filtering through beauty standards and picking out the messages you like. The solution is to put the whole thing on mute.

You do that by starting to mentally reframe your goals around your own desires, values, and passions. Before you get caught up in outward appearance, focus on what you want to teach your body to do. Focus on how you want to mentally and physically feel along the way.

When we focus on what we want to be able to do with our bodies, that's what actually drives aesthetic goals that are personal and meaningful to us. Not borrowed from someone else's Instagram.

How do you figure out what you actually want from your body?

This is the part nobody wants to hear: it takes time. What I call finding your deep motivator is not something that's going to happen overnight. It means really evaluating what you're passionate about and what's actually going to improve your quality of life every single day.

A few questions to start with:

What do you want to be able to do physically that you can't do right now, or used to be able to do and miss?

How do you want to feel when you wake up in the morning? When you get home from work? When you're with your kids?

What would it mean for your life, not just your body, if you hit this goal?

You can still have aesthetic goals through this whole process. Most people do. But to understand what body is actually going to make you feel your most confident and your best, you have to start putting your goals in the context of how you want to live, not just how you want to look while you live.

Want help figuring this out?