running

You may be seeing interval training everywhere. Whether it is actually HIIT style or some other interval training, it’s out there and it’s growing.

Why might you ask?

Interval training has too many proven benefits and reasons to do it, why shouldn’t you?

With interval training, you go from cardio to strength training. You do something that is heart pumping and then a time period of something that lowers that heart rate. With HIIT, it’s exactly as the name says it is. You interval between a very high intensity movement and combine it with periods of either a complete rest with no movement or you do something like light jogging/walking. You can do this in any time frame, from 30 sec each or 60 sec high and then 30 sec low, etc.

The Benefits?

Interval training, especially HIIT training has been proven to promote fat loss, it increases your metabolism and has been known to continue burning and keep your metabolism boosted even up to 48 hours after your training session.You can also get a mega burn and workout in a smaller time than doing a steady workout of any kind. With HIIT, you can burn many more calories and wear yourself out in less than half the time of a normal cardio session. Instead of running at a steady pace for 60 minutes, you can get even more of a workout and more of a burn in about 15-20 minutes. Who wouldn’t choose the latter of the two?

Another great benefit I haven’t even mentioned yet is not plateauing. If you are a runner and run the same speed, same distance and same time each day, your body is going to get used to it. You will plateau. But if you keep your body guessing and it never knows what is coming next, you can’t plateau. Your body will always be surprised, from changing the times and speeds you can do a different workout each time.

What if I am not that fit? I am just a beginner.

HIIT/interval training does not mean you have to sprint at level 12 for 2 minutes at a time. HIIT is meant to be what is high intensity to you. If you haven’t ran in 10 years, you won’t be sprinting at level 12 anytime soon. And that’s fine. If you get a good heart rate intensity at speed 4, choose it. And you don’t have to sprint to get the benefits of interval training, you can change the speeds, the resistance, and incline depending on the cardio machine you are choosing. You can also choose other things besides just running on treadmills for cardio. You can also do the bikes, eliptical, rowers, etc. Interval training isn’t set in stone and you shouldn’t feel pressured to have to do the same workout as anyone else. Everyone has a different fitness level. If you are out of breath and your heart rate has significantly increased, you do not have to go further just because the person next to you can go two more levels above you. Never strain yourself.

It’s YOU VERSUS YOU.

I keep seeing pictures of ‘amazing’ transformations all over the internet (or even just fit people pictures meant to be motivational), but there is a common problem with a lot of them:

-different posing

-different looking people

-too ‘perfect’ looking

-different editing filters

-different clothing

These factors can pretty much make anyone become a fitness model and major ‘fitspo’ person on Instagram. Before you go starving yourself, buying into the pills/shakes/teas/wraps or whatever else is being advertised with the ‘crazy, fast’ results, be sure you inspect the picture being shown. You can even save it to your computer and proceed to upload it into Google images to do a reverse image search to see if the brand or person using it actually stole it from some poor innocent soul who simply worked hard for their own results.

I am going to show you a few pictures to hopefully help you realize how easy it is to deceive with technology these days and to be careful when you are looking at any fitness/weightloss/transformation pics moving forward.

This is a serious issue. Each of these people sucked it in, changed their position, their hair, or the filter and that was it. But we are all buying into these ‘fake fitspo’s’ and buying into the crap they are advertising.

I feel like these fake pictures are causing even more serious problems with the self esteem issue that is already a concern for so many people, especially females.

Fitspo is for fitsporation. It is to be fitness motivation. It should be motivating to view and see to want you to get healthy, eat right, and go work out. This shouldn’t be a body shaming thing, and yet, it is. Pretty much each of these women above really aren’t fat, they have their problem areas, but everyone does. Yet, to be liked on social media, you need to suck it in, flex, pose, and change the filter to get recognition.

And what about people who do the opposite for getting healthy? The recovering people who lived with eating disorders and starving themselves? There are many out there, looking to put on weight and mass rather than losing. These people have triggers to make them want to go back to restriction, and how does this make them feel?

There are even so many ‘fitspo’ pictures going around that have been so horribly edited and modified that the fitness model (who looked fantastic prior to the editing might I add) just looks like a Barbie. Boobs and butt are made to be huge, abs are made to be chiseled, and so on. What is so wrong with the imperfections that even make us human? If health and fitness isn’t all about looks, why has this fitness world on the internet taken the turn towards looks? If you aren’t looking like you are about to take the stage for a fitness competition, you pretty much get the boot. And sometimes, even if you do look that good, you will still get the photoshop done to your picture.

Fitspo is mean to be inspiring. It should be of average people most people can relate to making real changes. It shouldn’t be only of skinny people with a quote plastered on to the side of it. And it shouldn’t be so sexual like it is now. Big boobs and a bubble butt mean nothing in the definition of ‘healthy’. When did health and fitness become so sexualized? Oh right, everything has to end up becoming sexual eventual in this day and time I suppose. But really, can we not with the boob jobs and implants and calling it ‘fitspo’.

Show me a real girl or guy lifting some heavy weights, or running a marathon. That’s real fitspo. Or show me a person overcoming a terrible disease/tragedy/disorder/disability.

Here’s to no more fakes. No more filters. No more lies. No more editing. No more boobs. No more butts.