It's all smoke and mirrors
writes
Andrew Dixon about the fitness industry. Many of us knew, or suspected, that, of course, but who knew that a before photo and an after photo
that look like an interval of "months of hard work and dieting" could be produced in
only one hour?!
There is no doubt that we live in a world of manipulation, false
promises and exaggerated claims. This is especially true in the fitness
industry.
… The reasons these programs become so popular is because they are
presented and marketed very well. These marketing campaigns use
testimonials and before-and-after transformation photos. Before I claim
it's all bullshit, I want to make it clear that there are definitely
some very impressive, genuine physical transformations out there. What I
do take issue with are the transformations that are manipulated with
Photoshop, professional lighting, postures to degrade or enhance their
look, pro tans, sucking in or pushing out a bloated belly or flexing
muscles vs. not flexing to obtain an optimal look.
I decided to take my own transformation photos to see what
was possible with just a few easy tweaks. About six months ago I was
around 185 pounds and about 16 percent body fat. I was feeling
particularly bloated on the day, so I asked my girlfriend to take a
before shot. I then shaved my head, face and chest and prepared for the
after shot, which was about an hour after I took the before shot. I did a
few push ups and chin ups, tweaked my bedroom lighting, sucked in,
tightened my abs and BOOM! We got our after shot.
As you can see [two photos above], I'm no bodybuilder, but I had enough muscle on me to
catch some shadows from the all-important overhead lighting.
Just a few weeks ago I took another series of photos in an attempt to
be a little more deceptive. I wanted to show a series of progressions
that look like a few months of hard work and dieting. I'm about 200
pounds and 19 percent body fat in this photo series. This took under an hour to produce.
