Can You Be Healthy Without Instagram?

I’m the first person to roll my eyes when all that fitspiration shit jogs its hyperactive ass across my Facebook news feed. A person sitting at their computer typing about how active their lifestyle is seems contradictory to me, and their quest to convince me they love waking up at 5am single-handedly raises my blood pressure. I’ve often wondered why these healthy folk can’t adopt a similar level of diet and exercise promotion as us unhealthy ones (none). I feel like the incessant sharing of accomplishments is an attempt to fill a void, like the crevices between their ribs. But surely I’m not telling you anything new when I say that Facebook and Instagram have become as paramount in the fitness world as running shoes and sports bras, am I?

And it all got me thinking (rare).

During my life I’ve fallen in and out of fitness and general health. I’ve crawled through the absolute fucking trenches of complete inactivity and total fatness. During these dark times I was the sole reason my local kebab store implemented a loyalty card system. I was so unhealthy I’d sweat in air-conditioning and had recurring nightmares filled with nothing but the imagery of slight inclines and sets of stairs. I even petitioned with my 85-year-old neighbour to have an elevator installed in my two-story apartment complex. I hated where I was and I had a chip on my shoulder (that I would have eaten were I given the chance), but the hurdle to health looked monstrous. Alas, one day while struggling to tie my own shoelaces, I decided I was unhappy with the impending doom of my fast approaching cardiac arrest. But of course, like any fat, unmotivated individual, it took me a long time to do anything about my dissonance; like, six months, or 154 kebabs, depending on how you’re counting time.

Though I eventually got there. I traded fried foods for fruits and the couch for cardio; I went to the gym and ate healthy and I bought shirts that fit me rather than shirts that hid me. I stopped having recurring nightmares and the addition of an elevator in my unit complex went unnoticed until my neighbour baked me a congratulatory cake to celebrate our accomplishment. I ate the whole thing and called it a ‘cheat meal’, which is apparently a thing in the fitness community. Even when I decided to drink that devilish juice normal people call booze, I’d mix it with diet carcinogenic stuff to lower the calories, because at that stage of my life uncovering my six pack was remarkably more important than avoiding brain cancer. That thought process alone is proof enough that my aesthetic changes paled in comparison to the gargantuan swarm of paradigm shifts and epiphanies that lit fire amongst my brain’s neurotransmitters; the whole ‘healthy’ thing really was more of a mentality than anything else.

In waving goodbye to the flabby, kebab-fuelled blimp of shitness I once was, I’d clasped onto my access all areas pass to this new, exclusive group of elitists; they didn’t have a name or a clubhouse or a logo, but they did have this renowned mentality I speak of. It was a mindset that allowed them to shun claims of narcissism and self-indulgence, and instead focuses solely on the advancement of their health. They cared purely for running further and lifting more. Night after night, while others slept, they would sweat. I did too, for a while at least. Then I got over it, and in one fell swoop a brawn man with a two-litre protein shake and veins thicker than my biceps quickly revoked my membership.

Now, I’m somewhere in the middle; right between the Michelin Man and GI Joe.

I’ve walked on both sides of the fence and it’s made me realise a few things. The first waft of wisdom that adorned me was that most unhealthy people are just as obsessed with being healthy as healthy people are. While Mr Fitness is squatting so hard he spends the next three days looking like a drugged fawn, Mr Wake And Bake is exerting the same amount of mental energy blocking out the toxic waves of positivity emanating from his active brethren. He won’t ever admit it, but he’s jealous and envious and if he were given the chance to trade places without strenuous activity, he’d snap it up faster than Taco Joe’s $2.99 quesadilla special. Let’s be honest, it’s hard fucking work hating fit people, because not only are they doing everything you wish you were, but they’re using Instagram to rub it in your fat goddamn face.

Which brings me to my next post-fit-and-fat revelation; social media has made being healthy a members only club. People don’t just go to the gym anymore, they broadcast it. The 21st century workout culture has spawned these muscly, photo-wielding internet warriors. In their plight to be healthy, they’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with social reassurance and peer gratification. Like any addiction, many of these fitness fanatics have made great sacrifices to be where they are now, but not in that praise-to-the-lord martyr kind of way. With each rep, they’ve waved goodbye to social enrichment and the joys of youthfulness, relying on Instagram likes and Facebook shares to justify their ploy for muscular greatness.

And so it became glaringly apparent that unhealthy, disgruntled people are obsessed with being healthy, and healthy people are obsessed with showing off how healthy they are. That conclusion left one true question standing strong and tall atop the highest peak of Mount Olympus: is the current obsession with fitness a byproduct of our lust for health, or merely a superficial result of social and cultural conditioning?

——–

Sammy Attwood is the founder of Your Friends House. He enjoys eating breakfast at cheap restaurants and is incapable of using his Twitter. You can follow him on Instagram though: @sammy_attwood.