Don't Be Jealy

(From archived lianprice.com blog, circa 2015.)

“Moral Indignation is Jealousy With a Halo.”

“Remember: People Only Rain On Your Parade Because Their Jealous of Your Sun and Tired of Their Shade.”

Hey Fit Fam!

Jealousy gets you nowhere.

We all know this to be true, but what about the more subtle forms of jealousy we see in every day life?

Like when people gossip because they see a guy in great shape and whisper: 

“There’s no way he’s natural. What stack is he running? Look, he has veins sticking out of his lower abs for goodness sake. I work out twice as hard as him, and I can’t even get a 2-pack. He has to be taking something illegal to look thaaat good.“

Or when a woman loses weight and gets into the best shape of her life, yet all her family members seem to beable to say to her is:

“You are way too skinny girlfriend. You’ve lost all of your curves. Do men even find you attractive anymore? I feel like I should stuff an entire pizza in your mouth right now.”

With both sets of commentary, the gossipers might vehemently disagree if someone were to call them out on their underlying jealousy. 

But the truth is, there is no proof behind the hurtful rumors they are trying to spread. Maybe, just MAYBE, this guy could be doing the small but crucial things day in, and day out, that the jealous, out-of-shape guys at the gym are too lazy to do. What would these things be you ask? Hmmm…

How about eating a healthy, nutrient-dense diet. Every day. Not just on Mondays, but every day. Not just for breakfast but for the ENTIRE day. (Because breakfast seems to be the one meal everyone can lock down, and then throw the concept of nutrition out the window till the next morning.) 

Another concept: the lower ab guy is most likely feeding himself ENOUGH too, so that his body can out-perform everyone else and grow to Adonis proportions. 

He is probably sleeping enough too, instead of heading out to the bar every other night. He quite possibly is keeping his stress at a reasonable level, by getting said sleep, as well as spending some time outside, getting some sunshine and also taking the time to laugh and relax with friends and family.

It’s so sad because I hear this stuff all the time at the different gyms I go to. So I finally decided to address it. And it’s really no better with the female gym-goers. You know the scenario, the 3 heavier women hanging out on the recumbent bikes all swiveling their necks to stare at the lean, fit girl who is on her way to the squat rack. She has her earbuds in so she’s actually completely unaware of the trash talking she’s caused just by walking by those bikes, but man oh man does her athletic bod get those other ladies fired up. 

“I would never want to look like that. Ewww, she’s too wirey-looking, like a toothpick! She MUST be starving herself to look like that.”

But humor me here: if the male OR female naysayers woke up tomorrow to find that their bodies had morphed into exact replicas of the physiques they were hating on, I would bet money they wouldn’t be thaaat upset. 

But you and I both know this will not happen! As long as they continue to waste time trash-talking and making non-factually based assumptions about other people’s methods, they will only continue to get further and further out-of-shape. 

Meanwhile those who are being gossiped about will be spending their time refining their approaches and executing their game plans, and will continue to outperform everyone else in the gym and in life. 

So which category do you want to be in? I hope you don’t want to be one of the jealy, lazy naysayers. 

There’s no point to living your life like that! What a waste of precious time. When you only speak highly of others and compliment them, you feel better about yourself by default. When you feel better about yourself, you tend to hold yourself and your time at a higher value, which in turn drives you to spend time ONLY going after what’s best for you and your long-term health, not just what will make you feel better for 5 minutes. 

Conclusion: if you see someone at the gym and you are tempted to gossip about them, first ask yourself where this urge is stemming from. Could YOU secretly be jealy? Don’t lie to yourself. 

If you find that you are, go up to that person and compliment them and ask them how they got their admirable results. Chances are they will be happy to share with you. You may learn what you need to get your body in the best shape ever AND you might make a new friend. I can’t think of a better return than that :)

Until next time! Make it a great week :)