“There is no better marketing tool in the fitness industry than a good transformation photo.”
This was the first (and potentially only?!?) thing I learned about the fitness business when I got started.
Sure, I read text book after text book on sliding filament theory. I attended Sunday afternoon seminars on how to get the most out of a Dynamax medicine ball or a TRX. I spent months shadowing sessions in order to properly articulate how to do an effective single-arm cable row (SPOILER ALERT: It doesn’t really take months to learn this).
But when it came to the art and science of the business side of running a personal training business, the only thing I was told was to get before-and-after photos - even if the client didn’t want them.
And if you look back far enough on my phone camera roll you will see many of my clients, awkwardly standing in front of a blue height grid, reminiscent of some sort of police line up, in their gym shorts trying to suck it in, puff it out and look good for their photos.
(RELATED OBSERVATION: When you take photos like this, people will instinctively not look at the camera. In every one of these photos these adults act like petulant toddlers who would rather look anywhere than at Dad shaking his keys in front of the lens.)
In the roughly 312 years that have passed since those iPhone 4 days, the industry has shifted.
The number one reason people went to the gym back then was to look better. If you went for your health or to develop strength or athletic performance you were an outlier. Made to feel more weird than a Jehovah’s Witness ringing the doorbell at a Diddy party.
Now if you admit to going to the gym because you want to admire your form in the bathroom mirror in the 8 second window you have before you cram an Eggo waffle down your throat and run out the door to make your bus, you run the risk of being criticized for being vain and training for all the wrong reasons.
And neither of these is fair.
To train only for aesthetics is to miss many of the benefits that lay beyond the surface.
But to want to look like you train and have a portion of your confidence and pride wrapped up in your physique isn’t wrong either, as long as it isn’t taken to an unhealthy extreme.
OK, so hopefully we are on the same page. Having aesthetics be part of the equation is absolutely fine and awkward selfies taken in a hotel elevator, while not exactly appropriate but cannot be resisted due to the killer lighting, can be one of the ways to assess progress.
Just make sure you get your pants back on before you get to the lobby.
With that established, let’s get to the helpful part of this post. Namely what goes into a good transformation and transformation photo but, perhaps more importantly, how much of the extreme transformations you find online are a big, deep manipulation.
Why tackle this topic now, you might ask. Is this just a transparent attempt to get ratings during the new year rush.
First off, how dare you!
Secondly, they are called “opens” in email marketing, not “ratings”.
Lastly, I am contractually obligated to show my own before and after photos on this blog at least once every 16 months and time is up.
What can I say? I was young and naive and signed the contract without a lawyer present.
OK, jokes aside, I’m going to use myself and these photos to make a few points about transformations and their presentation.
The first is that you’ll notice the “before” picture which was taken at my buddy Donny’s rehearsal dinner with one of those disposable point and shoot cameras that were all the rage at the time.
The “after” photo was taken by a professional photographer with what I have to assume was a very high end camera that most certainly has a “make him sexy” setting on it.
You can also see that while I really did look like that in the after photo, photoshop was used to up the contrast and make me look like a Greek statue. The black background helps as well. And while not particularly intentional, the before picture is not taken from the greatest angle potentially making me look worse.
OK, onto the other “tricks”. The first photo was taken about two weeks before my 28th birthday, which is when I decided to get my act together and not be a weak and wheezing mess for the rest of my life. The second photo was taken about 6 weeks before my 40th birthday. So, essentially, I implemented my plan for twelve years.
This is the thing most people don’t realize. They think a transformation takes twelve weeks, not twelve years. And while there are certainly more efficient ways to get results, there is no way to achieve what you see in that second picture in a matter of months let alone weeks.
So, how do people do it then? How do they claim on Instagram or in the pages of magazines that they have gone from blubber to Bieber in seemingly a snap of the fingers?
Well, they lie. Many of those photos are heavily altered. I copped to some photoshopping to enhance contrast and color. And while that makes the photo more viscerally impressive, it’s also not hidden. You can plainly see that it was done by my photographer.
But some of these photos that you see are more manipulated than a lottery winner at a strip club and passed off as genuine. And with technology being so good these days it’s a little hard to tell how something has been altered.
Even something as simple as posture and flexing - while not an outright deceit - can make a big difference as to how a photo looks.
The other thing to keep in mind besides technological tricks is the growing trend of relatively average Joe’s using anabolic steroids, SARMs, peptides, diuretics and other occasionally illegal, potentially dangerous compounds that are certainly effective but are going to be out of the morality or commitment level of most people.
And many people who use these hormonal enhancers don’t admit to it or go as far to vehemently deny it - something that has become known in the industry as “fake natty”. You know if there is a hashtag for it it’s going to be a meaningful problem.
OK, so we’ve gone over how many of these photos can lie - through technological manipulation, non-disclosed drug use, good photography and posing methods - but what about people who want to make significant body composition changes and do it on the up-and-up? Is it all hopeless? Can we take our shirts off at the pool without feeling as embarrassed as Steve Harvey announcing the wrong winner at a Miss Universe pageant?
The answer is a resounding “yes”. And, once again, your old pal Uncle Dan is here to give you a few pieces of advice that will go a long way.
The first stop on the transformation journey is to get your nutrition right. In particular you are going to want to get a calorie count that is in line with your goals (losing fat, gaining muscle, etc.) and get your protein requirements right. From there getting a hold on the rest of your macros and making good food choices will all go a really, really long way towards getting the body composition you want.
Next, you are going to want to prioritize strength training. Nearly everyone can use more muscle mass and strength training is actually a very good way to exercise without driving up appetite to outrageous levels that will blow your diet.
Speaking of, you don’t want to do extensively strenuous cardio for this same reason. Cardiovascular training has a lot of benefits when it comes to health and performance and somewhat for body composition. But for most, long and hard bouts of cardio are going to drive up appetite and have you blowing up your diet faster than Elon Musk has blown his reputation. Remember, exercise (whether strength or cardio) are great for lots of things - burning calories isn’t one of them.
What will help is general, not-so-strenuous movement. So making sure you get a high step count (10k per day is a good ballpark) or spend 45 minutes on a very slow step mill will actually go a long way.
As always, good sleep, good relationships, good mental health practices and even some key vitamins are game changers for both your results and your experience going throughout the process.
Finally, let’s tackle expectations.
As I mentioned before, the delta between my before and after pictures above is almost exactly twelve years. And while progress - even dramatic progress - does not need to take that long, it will take more time than you want or hope. Particularly if you need to increase muscle mass significantly as building muscle takes substantially more time than losing fat unless you are in the first two years of life or the first two years of puberty.
And, lastly, don’t expect some miraculous level of endless satisfaction. A scale weight or body fat percentage or even an envious transformation picture might have you thinking “”I am a golden God” for a moment and that is unquestionably a great and powerful feeling.
Research shows that self-improvement, whether physical or otherwise, does in fact lead to genuine and sustained happiness. And my hope is that if you reach a goal line you do feel great about it.
But true transformations are more than just moments in time.
They are a sustained effort of improvement over a long period. It’s one thing to touch the sun, it’s an entirely different thing to be able to live on it.