Many of us, men and women alike, are extremely judgmental about our physical appearance. I don’t have enough fingers in all my limbs combined to count the number of days I stood in front of the mirror hoping my love handles would suddenly disappear.

The unrealistic body standard society imposes on everyone seems to be proportionally growing alongside social media’s influence and is gradually becoming almost impossible to meet.

Whether it’s “flat-belly-hip-gap-full-lips” syndrome for women or the “jacked-square-jaw-6-foot-giga-chad” ideal for men, it seems like we’re comparing ourselves to some sort of an impossible and out-of-reach human standard.

I witnessed the harmful and venomous effect society inflicts on us hundreds, if not thousands of times—the prevalence of the link between male six-pack obsessions and female 'thigh gap' obsessions with self-worth is astounding. I saw it amongst my clients, my friends, and my family as well.

I'd be lying if I said I was immune to this myself either. Having been active in the fitness industry for over 13 years now, I believe I’ve done enough work on myself to the point that I’m finally good with how I look.

However, you’d be right to call me out if I told you my appearance doesn’t matter to me at all.

Even though today, at 35 years old and 5’11, I weigh 94 kilograms (about 215 lbs), I still catch myself scowling at my reflection when I notice a love handle popping out of my pants. I also often wish my biceps were bigger or that my calves had more volume—just like the action figures I used to play with as a child.

When I was younger, things used to be a lot worse:

At age 21, I weighed 64 kilograms (141 lbs.). and bordered on an eating disorder. My head was full of neurotic thoughts about my body—and that’s an understatement. In fact, I was so insecure about my appearance that the first time I took off my shirt in public was at age 25, after four years of training—and even then, I felt insecure.

Today, I no longer look in the mirror with the same obsession I had in my 20s, and I feel better in my body than I ever have. Even though I don’t have visible abs. Much of my newfound confidence was due to the knowledge I gained as a professional, as well as the work I put in as an athlete.

But if there was one thing that allowed me to set my heart at ease on the matter of how Ik, it was the understanding that my perception of things was deformed by the online environment I was living in.

In this article I hope to expose the online environment for what it is—an illusion—while at the same time giving you a couple of practical tips you can apply as of now that will give you the means to look better, feel confident, and be healthy, all while living your life.

Because in the end, you’re not asking for much—all you want is to be healthy and energetic, make some money to get by, hang out with friends, find a partner, maybe have a family, and ideally, look pretty good while doing it.

And that’s totally doable.

Why have things become so complicated?

Navigating through life these days isn’t easy, especially when it comes to health and fitness. We’re constantly bombarded with people telling us they know “the secret” to good looks or a healthy life, and they all seem pretty trustworthy—because they are all jacked, right?

For you, the average Joe/Jane, it’s getting harder and harder to navigate through this space, especially when you:

  • Have no official education in the matter.

  • Have no time to sit and educate yourself, considering you have a career, a family, or any sense of a social life.

  • Are being bombarded with heaps of misinformation, ads pushing cookie-cutter programs, or magic bullet solutions (the latest Ozempic farce comes to mind).

But worst of all are the social media influencers pushing much of the misinformation out there, mostly for personal gain, while at the same time distorting our perception of reality.

Every gym rat with abs and every 22-year-old with yoga pants and a large behind peacock their gains in front of their smartphones at the gym and offer you a link to buy their coaching/supplements/OnlyFans content.

They mislead you into thinking that looking exactly like them is easy. Or that it’s just a matter of effort and time management. That you can do it too. That, in fact, hey, everyone is doing it. Who cares about your 9-5? “Live your dream!”

They make us think that looking like them is common and basic. That you’re somehow not good enough if you don’t.

As we’re about to find out, not only is getting “Instagram-level jacked” a 9-5 job by itself, it’s also an extreme edge of a genetic spectrum that we somehow completely normalized—and it’s far from healthy.

Our basic beauty standards are all twisted

As of the time of writing this article, the general standard for the human body has changed dramatically since before social media was invented—mainly thanks to social media itself.

Consider this: In the past 15 years, the way our society sees the world has been shaped much through the lens of social media, simply because we see it all the time. Our subconscious mind is programmed to think that everything we see very often is a common thing, which makes sense in a way.

When we think something is common, we tend to undervalue it because if it’s common—well, it cannot be that hard to achieve.

And so when I open my Instagram feed, I get bombarded with an endless stream of videos and photos of male influencers flexing under perfect lighting, each with biceps bigger than my head or veins that could shame a map of Nepal.

Now I am not a small man by any means, but one can’t help but think, “Not small” compared to what? When I look around me, the situation is very different. I don’t see that many hyper-jacked individuals, nor do I see many people that make me look or feel small at all.

Just take a look around at your daily environment—how many people do you meet per day who are “Instagram jacked”?

Social media and its algorithms paint a very different picture of reality for us, and we hardly notice it as it is happening.

These days, it seemsike six-pack abs, a V-shaped torso, massive pecs, 6% body fat, and a 315 bench are… well, “average.”

But let’s be real: what we’re actually looking at here is a cocktail of genetic lottery winners + a borderline full-time job. Hardly “Basic.”

And I don’t think I even have to mention the extreme beauty standard women have to keep up with:

Since forever, women have been subjugated to living up to society’s body standards: they are told to be thin, eat less, have big boobs, a thigh gap, a flat stomach, a large butt, thin arms, thick lips, long hair, large eyes, small feet, and the list goes on and on…

The normalization of these extreme aesthetics has a quiet, corrosive effect on the collective psyche. When the exception is constantly presented as “the standard,” it distorts our perception of what’s healthy, realistic, or even necessary.

The result is a growing undercurrent of quiet dissatisfaction—men and women silently measuring themselves against a benchmark that’s not only rare but, in many cases, unattainable. Over time, this doesn’t just impact self-esteem; it reshapes values. Wellness is no longer about vitality or longevity—it becomes about optics and self-criticism.

And in that shift, something essential is lost.

The influencer life

I’ve had many clients who wanted the influencer look—jacked, tanned, strong—but didn’t realize what it actually takes to get it.

Because they were high-achievers—Type A personalities—they thought, thanks to social media, that being ultra ripped is pretty common and that it’s only a matter of tuning their discipline up or fixing their schedule.

They were continuously berating themselves for failing to get to where they wanted, and it took much work of expectation alignment for them to sink back into reality.

Let’s put things into perspective:

In reality, most people simply don’t have the time or mental capacity to live the Instagram lifestyle while having a 9 to 5, a family, and other commitments.

Because not only is looking like an influencer a 9-to-5 job by itself—and a mix of hard work, persistent effort, and skill—but, in all honesty, there is another component that most people simply lack: genetics.

Even with perfect discipline, most people won’t achieve the look often presented as "normal" on social media. Not because they’re doing something wrong, but because they’re working with a different genetic blueprint.

This is so crucial to remember: most of these people represent a rare population group with extraordinary genetic potential. And that’s the main reason why following someone’s exact protocols won’t get you to look like that someone.

Here are a few more important notes to remember, without pointing at individuals in specific:

  • Many of these influencers use anabolic steroids or other banned substances.

  • Many of them edit their photos or videos with Photoshop.

  • Many of them know how to take the perfect picture at the perfect angle to make the picture look a certain way.

  • Most of their lives are structured around their appearance—their sleep, diet, and training habits all make up a huge bulk of their schedule because it's their livelihood.

  • While most of the “fitfluencers” look fit and healthy, reality paints a different picture. Most people who focus their training on their appearance find it challenging to climb a long flight of stairs or go for a casual jog. Their joints are riddled with inflammation, and they have endless orthopedic issues. But they’ll never tell you that. And I can personally vouch for this—the life of a full-time athlete (or a full-time bodybuilder) is never pain-free and is rarely considered healthy. Just take a look at this basic list of dead influencers coming from a simple Google search.

  • Many of these influencers’ lives, while looking shiny on “the gram,” are full of self-body shaming, external looks obsession, and self-judgment, which leads to a plethora of mental issues, chronic stress, and even life-threatening circumstances. Making your life about the way you look certainly comes with a price attached.

The clear takeaway is twofold:

  1. This isn’t the norm. Far from it. If you lift your gaze up from your phone and observe the people around you—even in "fit" environments like the gym—you will hardly see people who look like the average fitness influencer you’re following. Maybe none at all.

  2. Achieving this type of look requires an astronomical amount of attention, effort, math, and gym time—effort that most everyday people simply can’t or won’t invest.

It borders on the obsessive and is hardly healthy. It could very well end up in tragedy.

If you’re still not convinced, here is a small list of names of influencers you can look up who lost their lives on a journey to look a certain way in the spotlight:

Vittorio “Vito” Pirbazari (44), Ilia “Golem” Yefimchyk (36), Aziz “Zyzz” Shavershian (22), Satnam Khattra (31), Katie Donnell (28), Mila De Jesus (35), Ana Carolina Reston (21), Luisel Ramos (22), Jaxon Tippet (30), and Vanessa Konopka (28).

The good news is that you don’t need to look like a Marvel character to meet any beauty standard or to feel energetic and vital. It’s actually much simpler than that.

Once we begin to recognize the influencer lie—that these bodies are not common, that they’re only presented as if they are, and that algorithms strategically flood our feeds with them—it becomes easier to reclaim a more grounded truth: you don’t need to look like an influencer to look good.

You don’t need ultra-low body fat, perfect lighting, or striations in your delts to be confident in your skin. More importantly, you don’t need to live like an influencer—a lifestyle that often breeds anxiety, comparison, and the constant illusion of falling short.

What most of us actually need is far simpler: consistent movement, balanced nutrition, and the patience to let steady habits reshape our lives.

I’ll give you 3 easy principles to apply that, if you live by will give you all those things, with all the perks involved and without the risk of kicking the bucket before 50.

If it didn’t exist 10,000 years ago—reduce it

Let’s begin with a basic understanding of the difference between two types of foods: processed and whole.

Processed food is a general term for any food that has undergone some form of human intervention, thereby changing it from its natural form.

By itself, that’s not necessarily a bad thing—contrary to what you may have heard, not all processed food is evil incarnate.

For example, cheese is “processed food,” since its natural form is milk. By adding certain bacterial cultures to milk, we “process” it and get a result that’s different from its original state.

So let's get our semantics straight: When I talk about “processed food,” I’m referring to what we commonly call junk food, which includes but isn’t limited to McDonald’s or Burger King, cheese puffs, morning cereals, fries, KFC, fish & chips, pizza, pretzels, chocolate bars, ice cream, popsicles, candies, baklava, pastries like croissants, M&Ms, canned meats, sugary goods, etc…

A whole food, on the other hand, is any food you could theoretically find 10,000 years ago—before the agricultural and industrial revolutions, before mass food production, and before money-hungry large food corporations came into the picture.

Examples of whole foods include (but are not limited to):

Beef, veal, chicken, fish, seafood, vegetables of any kind, fruit of any kind, grains, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, milk, cheese, eggs, fruit, etc.

The main and most relevant difference between processed food and whole food, for the purpose of this article, is the following:

Whole foods are rich in nutrients and low in calories; processed foods are high in calories and low in nutrients.

Why is this important? Because most of our diets today are very high in calories and very low in nutrients, which makes us both overweight and unhealthy.

It's hard to overconsume calories when your diet consists mostly of whole foods.

It is also very easy to receive all the nutrients your body needs by consuming mostly whole foods.

For example, a plate of 400 grams of white rice, 200 grams of chicken breast, and 2 carrots equals exactly 698 calories and is packed with healthy protein, quality carbs, fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

When was the last time you ate a plate like that and still had room for more food? I bet even finishing it would prove to be a challenge.

Now compare that to 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream, which contain 745 calories, tons of sugar, practically zero protein, and still leave room for about 800 more scoops.

Important note: I’m not saying sugar is evil or that we must avoid processed food at all costs. Ice cream is tasty. Ice cream is fun. You can eat ice cream as long as you’re aware of the ramifications of eating too much of it so you consume it in proportion.

The maybe-not-so-good news is that the lower your body weight, the narrower your margin for flexibility.

For example, John, a 30-year-old man who weighs 70 kg and trains 3 times a week, needs about 2,500 calories per day to keep his weight the same. Just one 745-calorie ice cream is nearly a third of his daily intake! That leaves him with only about 1,700 calories for actual whole food if he wants to stay on track and not gain weight. He will get more calories at the expense of important nutrients.

Meanwhile, Jack, also 30 years old, trains 3 times a week but weighs 90 kg.

He needs about 2,800 calories to maintain his weight and can still eat 2,100 calories of whole food and meet his nutritional needs for building muscle after eating ice cream.

The general message here is, if we focus on eating whole foods and avoid processed food in general, we’re highly unlikely to consume more calories than we burn—and at the same time, we’ll give our bodies all the building blocks it needs to stay healthy, build muscle, and burn fat.

The idea is not to avoid ice cream forever—both John and Jack can enjoy some ice cream every now and then and even exceed their daily calorie limit as long as it doesn’t become a three-times-a-week habit.

Consistent, intense movement

One of my favorite coaches, Stan Efferding, once said a sentence that stuck with me:

“The best program is the one you follow. The best diet is the one you can stick to.”

I’m starting off with this sentence because I want to clarify that there are two extremely important factors when it comes to seeing results from your efforts to work out—intensity and consistency.

And truth be told, the former isn’t worth much without the latter.

If you’re working out as hard as you can, finishing every workout drenched in sweat and feeling like you really gave it your all—but you do it 1-2 times per week—you probably won’t see any meaningful results.

You’re likely to see the equivalent amount of results—approximately zero—if you train 7 times a week but only spend 25 minutes walking on a treadmill while watching your favorite reality show on your phone.

Many influencers and coaches out there are selling you their programs with the promise of giving you the results they and their clients got. They present their “system” as the solution that got them to where they are. And people fall for it every time.

That is not to say their programs don’t work—most of them probably do.

But what does following a proper program give you? Intensity and Consistency.

And these two factors are also the main factors that got your favorite influencer to where they are on their journey.

The truth is that most people don’t see results because they either take it too easy on themselves or because they are inconsistent in their routines.

“Losing weight for a wedding,” for instance, can be a viable goal as long as it is a part of a larger, year-round plan and doesn't stop the moment the wedding date arrives.

In order to see any meaningful change, you want to train at least 3-4 times per week for approximately 45-90 minutes at medium-high intensity.

And it has to become something that is part of your life. It has to be structured in the calendar and thought about as something that doesn’t have an end date.

Whatever methodology you choose to apply this principle with—make sure it’s something that you find appealing or fun and that makes you come for more. It can be CrossFit, bodybuilding, HIIT workouts, powerlifting, Hyrox, running, swimming, sprinting, or a mix of all of the above.

But it has to be intense. And it has to be consistent.

Goal setting at the level of identity

Whenever we think about starting a new habit, we always have a goal in mind.

“I want to lose 20 lb,” “I want to make $5000 per month,” or “I want to look good for my cousin's wedding” are all viable goals that one could pursue.

One problem with the goal-oriented mindset is that it has an expiration date. We never think about the next step after we have achieved these goals, or we do, and then we live in a perpetual state of chasing, never truly satisfied.

Another problem, and in my eyes—a significantly worse one—is that goals are motivation dependent and are devoid of meaning.

In other words, there is no significant emotional attachment to a technical goal, and so when motivation isn’t there, you simply don’t do what you need to do.

In order to be consistent, we need to remove motivation out of the equation. We need to be able to do things even when we don’t really feel like it. We need to find a way, even when our motivation is absent.

And this is where meaning kicks in.

I’ll say something that might surprise you: People don’t really care about goals. They care about what accomplishing a goal makes them feel.

You don’t care about making 5000 dollars a month, looking good at a wedding, or losing X amount of weight; you care about what having those things will make you feel—the freedom and status of a high paycheck, the admiration by others of looking good at the wedding, or the confidence that comes with losing weight.

When setting any goal in life, it’s always worth asking yourself WHY first.

  • Why do you want it?

  • What are you really looking for?

  • What would doing this give you?

  • What do you want to feel as a result of accomplishing this?

Answering such questions will help you see the bigger picture and allow any goal to be set on the identity level instead of on the goal level.

In other words, the approach shifts from “How can I achieve what I want?” to “How can I become the type of person who has what I want?”

Once you’re focusing on what you are becoming, you’re no longer stuck on what it is you’re achieving. You’re constantly witnessing your own evolution of becoming and framing all of the goals as side effects of a deeper energetic force.

Suddenly, for instance, you could find that “looking good at a wedding” has more to do with you wanting to find a spouse so you can be a parent than just “fitting into X size.”

Maybe “losing 20lb” is more about you developing the discipline and confidence you want to stand up for yourself and live life according to your own values.

A goal is so much more achievable when you know the WHY behind it, and all of a sudden, motivation becomes irrelevant to whether you will take action or not.

In sum

In the end, the bodies we idolize online are often smoke and mirrors—lit by ring lights, filtered through apps, and shaped by a lifestyle that few of us could or should emulate. Chasing these ideals without context can quietly smash our confidence, take us out of proportion, and make us forget what really matters.

But there is a way back to sanity. When we eat food that nourishes rather than numbs, move with consistency and intensity instead of nihilistic repetition, and pursue goals rooted in identity instead of technical achievements, we begin to reclaim something essential. Not just a better-looking body, but a healthier relationship with it.

Because true wellness isn’t built in the mirror—it’s built in how we live, how we think, and how we show up for ourselves when motivation is absent.

As Carl Jung once wrote, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” And that journey begins—not with the pursuit of perfection—but with the courage to look inside with honesty and compassion and take swift action without judgment.