“Instafit” Is Now A Thing

A friend of mine is a really good personal trainer. So good, in fact, that his sporty sponsors recently asked to lead a session for other trainers and #fitfam influencers – the people you see regularly posting details of their workouts, their sports gear, their protein pancakes and the contents of their mealprep Tupperware.

So, my mate turned up and started to put the dry-fit crew through their paces, Some didn’t start, others failed quite quickly. When he asked a couple of stragglers why they weren’t participating, the answer came back with an unashamed, dismissive ?oh, I’m just Instafit.?

Instafit. It’s a thing. It means you may talk the talk, but when it comes to working out, sweating, hurting, hobbling and going around with continuous sweaty hair and a tomato face well, no thanks, that’s too much like hard work. Instead, instafitters will take the free stuff, post it to their various channels, and then slob on the sofa watching reruns of the Kardashians.

Maybe they have the right idea. I mean, who really wants to feel as though their heart is about to combust, or that their thighs are going to chafe through their leggings? But all the same, I hate that I’m the eejit who’ll actually follow through on whatever #fitfam I might post about, near killing myself in the process.

However, maybe there’s some comfort to be got from being one who tries to walk the walk (badly, and wobbly after leg day). If the fitspos we’re looking up to are taking the easy way out, maybe we mortal gym-vermin are doing better than we think.

I know that we should all take what we see on social with a grain of salt, and that nobody’s lives are truly as they appear, in their filtered, flat-layed, beautifully cropped glory. But this is one further reason why all is certainly not as it seems. And there’s nothing like a few fast rounds of burpees to uncover the truth.