Suddenly, everyone wants to be a fitness influencer, thanks to TikTok, YouTube, and IG Reels. But the reality is this: if your camera and tripod is in my way while I’m trying to workout, you have zero influence over me, you will move your shit or I will become an influencer in your video too.
In an era (in America) were 45% of adults of overweight, 33% are obese (some even put it as high as 35-37%, CDC puts it at 41.9% in 2017), and 15% are morbid obese, being a Fitness Influencer places you in the top 5% of healthy people in America. But the thing is, sadly, most overweight and obese people in America are perfectly fine with their poor health, for the moment. Most of them don’t want to making any substantial changes and there is no fitness influencing any of those Influencers can do. They can’t make enough videos are share enough cute “motivational” quotes to change any new minds.
It’s really, mostly just hype. They will brag about the lives they’ve impacted and share “testimonials” with their client’s before and after pics, but those are few and far between. The fact is ONLY 5% of MORBID OBESE persons lose the weight and keep it off without surgeries [1]. And only around 20% of ALL people who lose weight, keep it off long term [2]. Those are VERY SMALL amount of people being deeply influenced. Number’s don’t lie.
The Numbers
If there was a large room of 100 people. Statistically we can assume:
- 45 of 100 are overweight or more.
- 15 (33%) of those 45 people are obese, and
- about 7 (15%) are morbid obese.
Now, if only 20% of people of that 45 people get results, that’s only 9 people that were actually impacted and actually influenced to change. And, of the 7 morbid obese people, less than 1 actually are impacted and change. We have to change that amount of people to 70 to get a better number we can understand. So, out of 70 morbid obese people, 4 (rounded) would change.
That’s just in a small local gym ecosystem. Nationwide, if the population of America is 375,000,000 that means there are 168,750,000 overweight persons (including obese and morbid obese person). Of that 168,750,000, there would be an estimated (statistically) 55,687,500 obese persons and 25,312,500 morbid obese persons.
Only 33,750,000 of the total overweight people would be influenced change, while only 1,265,625 morbid obese people would change, long term; out of 168,750,000 total people!
Needless to say, the thousands upon thousands of new TikTok YouTube Reels fitness influencers aren’t really doing much influencing, because, also, the rate of obesity is on the rise, despite all their videos going viral…
Then why are they doing it?
3 primary reasons:
- Money
- Free products
- Ego/narcissism
They monetize their social media and provide subscription or fee based online services THAT YOU CAN LOOK UP AND GOOGLE FOR FREE. Need a workout routine? Google it. Need a diet regiment? Google one. Or you can pay these guys money to google it for you. On top of the “services” they offer, they also make money from advertising and through their views and followers. The more views and followers, the more money. It’s a good method of making easy money if you are on social media all the time anyway. BUT NONE OF THAT is FOR the betterment of others. All these unhealthy, out of shape, overweight and obese people searching for help get dooked into paying for these services from someone who just sees them as a number, just another subscriber, just another view and follower. The failure of results has zero impact on them because they still get paid from their views and follows.
A lot of fitness influencers who do it full time for their livelihood will promote products of other companies to get free products from those companies and even sponsorships from them to make more money. Some random hole-in-the-wall fitness clothing company, they will push their product. Some generic workout tool, they will push the product. They will get promotional links and codes and get a cut of the sales. I get it, you have to make money to feed your self, got it, but at the expense of leading people on who desperately need to be positively influenced.
And, you can tell, some of these “influencers” are really just full of themselves. They think they are god’s answer to obese people. They think they have all the answers just because they are at 2% body fat. They like to show off their hard work, thinking that it will inspire others to be like them and get ripped too. That they, their body, their routine, is the gold standard and by which all things should be judged by. All the while, behind the scenes, they are injecting all kinds of things in their body; HGH, TRT, prescription drugs like reduced dosage of Ozempic or various peptides. They do things that YOU and the common person does not, will not, and or can not. But, they still hold themselves up as the standard of evolving human perfection.
Yet, their actually data, actual influence, and changed lives, is miniscule, non-existent, or they really don’t have any idea how well they are actually influencing anyone. And if they DON’T KNOW when they say they are, its a flat out lie, because they don’t even know for sure. They just see their view count, their follower count, their bank account, and a few “testimonials” here and there and think, man, ‘I am influencing the world…‘
What’s the difference between them and LifeGym?
We already know this sort of idea, comment, and question will come up. What makes us different?
Well, first of all, we don’t make a damn thing doing this. Well, we do, just not enough to make a single dent in anyone of our lives. So, it is impossible for money to influence our opinions, goals, and message. There’s just not enough being sought to matter. We make a few bucks here and there and just give that money away (LG events, fundraisers, donations, gifts to charities) or use it to buy more supplements to test.
We don’t get sent free products from companies or accept sponsorships. They can’t “gift” us enough to subtly influence our opinions. They don’t even know where to send us anything, and that’s the point. They don’t need to send us anything. We buy their crap at the stores, just like you, and we test it, just like you. If it sucks, we will tell you, just like you would for your friends or family. Completely uninfluenced by the corporate lobby industry.
We, as in THIS SITE, doesn’t claim to know anything EXCEPT what studies, research, and directly tested LG affiliates say the effects actually are (of course we aren’t talking about our opinions on Gym Etiquette for example). We DEPEND on reliable bodies of information and reliable groups and organizations to produce reliable studies. It is these tests and studies that we depend on to tell you what does and does not work. Our premises are based on the results of a study. But not just any study, the summation of known scientific evidence; thus to help weed out company sponsored skewed studies and government propaganda.
Much like how we try to keep truth and facts in the health and fitness discussion, we hold companies to these and thus, we would also hold “fitness influencers” to the same standard; most don’t and can’t live up to the high standard.
We HOPE to help you in your health and fitness journey simply by providing as much relevant and useful real-life information as possible, but the truth is, are we possibly influencing the world? We don’t know, lol. What we do know is the freedom of information and the freedom to access information is fundamental to forming an educated opinion in your own life. And we do that. We put it out, hoping it helps whoever needed it when they came across it. Even if no one was impacted by it, it is still out there, in the open, for future people to discover and hopefully benefit from. Providing truth, facts, with logical and rational analysis can never be a waste.
We can only lead you studs to water, but we can’t force you to drink it.
The Life Gym 