by Ellen Como

Ellen Como is a Santa Clarita Personal Trainer and has been in the fitness industry for over 30 years. She writes a weekly column, published on hometownstation.com and on her personal website, ellencomo.com.

Fitness – The condition of being physically fit and healthy.

Living a life physically fit and healthy should be your goal. But, thanks to social media fitness has become an unattainable, filtered, photo shopped and unrealistic con job generating millions of your dollars to give you false expectations that if you follow their diet, their workout and buy their cookbook you too can look like they do.

What these social media reality fitness “experts” aren’t telling you is that you are only seeing a small portion of what they are doing to look the way they do. For each video or photo you see they have prepared for it. Then they use filters to appear anyway they want you to see them. It is attractive, they do make fitness look desirable and that is why you are following them and buying anything they are selling.

You buy their program, you jump in with all the expectations that you will finally have that body (their Body) that you have been dreaming of having. After all these ads are jammed with people just like you who have lost weight and gained the body of their dreams. You are finally going to possess the secret that so many before you have found to have the body and lifestyle you see on social media and ads.

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You wait in anticipation to receive all the components of this program to arrive in the mail but they have leaked a few parts of the program that arrive in your email. Your excitement is growing daily as you visualize how your life will change when you receive this program. The day comes when you open you mailbox and there it is!!! You tear the box or envelope open, you get your pad and pen ready and get your workout clothes on.

Your plan is to make a grocery list for your new “diet” and go to the store to buy your new food list items then come home and do your first workout. All of a sudden that excitement from holding this secret in your hands starts to fade. You have seen this diet before, there is no secret here only a few new recipes with a lot of the same ingredients in them. It’s a slight twist to what you have seen but no big revelation.

Well maybe the secret is the workout so you put it on and it seems really familiar, the sequence and pace might be different but the moves are basically the same. You ask yourself how does this social media “expert” look so different doing the very same thing you have been doing in the past? You are healthy, you do look good just not what you see as ‘social media good”. Or maybe you have a lot of weight to lose and you have tried this very thing many times and it has never worked. At this point you let out a huge exhale of disappointment that you will never have to body you desire.

What these social media reality fitness “experts” aren’t telling you is that you are only seeing a small portion of what they are doing to look the way they do. For each video or photo you see they have prepared for it. Then they use filters to appear anyway they want you to see them. It is attractive, they do make fitness look desirable and that is why you are following them and buying anything they are selling.

Can I share a another perspective with you? Social Media Reality Fitness Experts do this for a living. This is what they spend all day everyday working on. They are sharing a quarter of what they do and how they eat because they know if they shared with you what it really took for them to look the way they do very few would be buying what they are selling. Or if they shared the special filters they were using you would go buy the filter not their program.

I have 2 questions for you:

1. Are you being realistic with your body type?
2. Are you allowing social media to dictate how your body is supposed to look?

Next week I am going to expose the real secrets of the Social Media Reality Fitness Experts and what they really do to look like they do, how they entice you with their “lifestyle” then break down what their lifestyle really looks like.

I will also give you a realistic approach to fitness anyone can follow to live a physically fit and healthy life and let you decide for yourself what you are willing to do.

What I won’t have available is the Top Secret filters, photo shop, body paint, video camera angles or special lighting. Oooops! I think I said too much already.

Ellen Como has been in the fitness industry in Santa Clarita for over 30 years.  With her experience working in Gyms and as a personal trainer she has developed fitness training programs and fitness plans for men and woman of all ages.    Her passion is creating overall wellness in all her clients and sharing menopause fitness with women going through all the phases of menopause. Visit her website for latest news, products, and personal training at ellencomo.com.