People who attribute a high level of fitness to good genetics

 

Yesterday I was on instagram, and I saw a photo of a friend of mine who is a beautiful (and high level) WBFF Bikini Pro.  The picture was of her in a sports bra, and she had tight, toned abs and a physique that any woman would love to have.  I almost died when I scrolled below the picture to the comments and saw a random woman’s comment:  She clearly got that from her mama, I’ve been doing Insanity (or some other crazy P90 type workout) for 3 months and “eating well” and I don’t look like that.  I didn’t answer, because I think answering people that troll on the internet and giving them the attention they crave is much like feeding a child dessert after they’ve had an explosive tantrum at the dinner table…..but……It made me think that I’d like to say something about it here.

 

Three months of doing “something” that’s vaguely fitness oriented where you are “sort of” eating well, but not tracking exactly what you are eating, or how you are getting progressively stronger isn’t going to give you an amazing physique.  You MAY look a little better with what you’re doing, but there’s no promise of that, simply because you aren’t tracking it….which means you could be eating a whole lot more than you think, and you may also be taking in far less protein than you optimally need.  If you’re giving your fitness 50 percent of your attention, you will get 50 percent of what you could get out of it, and that is only if you have actually taken the time to read and research, and learn what you are doing.  If you don’t know what you’re doing, and waste time by coming into the gym 6 days a week and performing ab exercises for an hour you will actually look basically the same as when you started, especially if you aren’t watching your diet.

 

Getting to a high level of fitness takes discipline, knowledge, consistency and….patience.  The WBFF pro that was in the picture clearly lives a healthy lifestyle.  She gets progressively stronger, schedules in time for her workouts, is aware of what she’s eating, and makes her fitness a priority in her life.  To say that its genetics is inaccurate, and also implies that you couldn’t do it. I think it’s fine that fitness isn’t everyone’s priority, but truly…it doesn’t happen by accident.  When a pilot lands a plane safely, or someone paints a beautiful picture we don’t attribute it to genetics.  Like every other taken, fitness can be learned and improved over time.  Toned, fit bodies aren’t gifted, they’re earned.