Here's a tidbit from a gals journal on a different site...it's mostly gals who compete in figure and MOST of them have a very unhealthy way of doing it......

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Eight months of weight training with Frank were about to pay off, along with the last eight weeks of contest prep dieting. I started dieting on May 1st to get ready for July 9th. The first 4 weeks entailed 1160 cals, carbs 3 days a week and cardio for an hour a day. Spin class at 24 Hour Fitness became my new best friend.

The last 4 weeks weren’t so easy to follow calories-wise. The first 2 weeks I was dropped to 1,000 cals a day and cardio twice a day. The last 2 weeks dropped to 800 cals and still cardio twice a day.
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Now, tell me that THAT'S not a skewed vision of what fitness is all about.  Yes, I've competed but I never had to take my nutrition to such extreme measures nor did I ever do cardio for an hour!  Now I know this has nothing to do with "bulk" but it just shows how off course some people can get from health and fitness.  And the saddest part is that she will most likely continue this process b/c she likes the "leanness" she felt onstage (in her journal she says she was 106lbs and 13.8% bf on stage.  She had pictures, too, and to me she just looked skinny fat but who am I to judged).

I post this only b/c I was once there.  It's hard not to get SO ADDICTED to the unnatural leanness that you feel on comp day and then once it's over and you have your day/week of SPLURGES (which yes everyone who competes goes CRAZY afterwards--well most everyone) then you bloat up like a stuffed marshmallow and wallow in your tears that your abs are now gone and are only left with the belly bloat.  All of a sudden the jeans that literally HUNG off your thighs are now TIGHT AS EVER and all extremities are puffy.  GOD help you if you step on the scale b/c it ain't gonna be pretty.  Then you just get frustrated and mad as hell  

UNLESS, you come off your comp and prep in a realistic manner, which most competitors don't.  My first year competing I came off it wrong but not as wrong as some gals.  The second year was better but by that time I was over it...I didn't even want to compete anymore.  Moving on to bigger and better things

So, I think in the terms of getting girls to understand that they cannot get "bulky" by lifting heavy weights you also have to examine what makes her mind tick.  I know that lifting heavy won't make me "bulky" but eating like shit sure will make me FAT!  I think that's where the confusion comes in.  Some of these gals come off a prep and enter "off-season"  and lift heavy but also don't follow a good nutrition plan and that's where the "I'm getting bulky" mindset kicks in...no honey, what you're really doing is gaining fat b/c your nutrition SUCKS ASS!

Sorry for the rant but that's just my 2 cents.  Take it for what it's worth.

Because we've all been indoctrinated into a set of societal rules, which are some of the hardest things to change on the inside. Sure, I could probably go to China and eat a cat, but I'll always think "aww, it's a kitty. that's so sad". That's due to the society I was raised in - cats are cute pets, not food.

The same goes for everything else. These women are raised in a society where being physically desired is one of the best things they can have in life. You can't just point at an individual and say "change!". You have to change the social mores.

Think about when women used to wear corsets

a) Corsets are hot. Not the crush-you-into-a-popsicle kind, the other kind
b) Men used to wear corsets too. It was fashionable for both sexes to wear them back in the 18th century. I recall that some soldiers in the US Civil War actually wore corsets too.

Quote from: gb on July 22, 2010, 09:11:23 AM

Think about when women used to wear corsets

a) Corsets are hot. Not the crush-you-into-a-popsicle kind, the other kind
b) Men used to wear corsets too. It was fashionable for both sexes to wear them back in the 18th century. I recall that some soldiers in the US Civil War actually wore corsets too.

It got to the point with corsets that a woman didn't have a nice figure, unless a man could put his hands around her waist and his fingertips touched.

Il Capo, you are mostly correct but fail to recognize the pressures the modern media has added to Western women.  In America, in particular, the current ideal body for women is generally considered to be a very thin frame with moderate curves.  This ideal is reinforced by the fashion industries, media, and much of the health and fitness (dieting) industry.  It is an ideal that, obviously, not every woman can achieve (even women who fight to become thin often lack the curves) and is not necessarily healthy.  The main problem is that the general media teaches women to objectify their bodies, through all kinds of beauty product and fad diet advertisements, and to then compare them to the ideal.  Few women match up with the ideal, so they learn to hate their bodies.  This body dissatisfaction becomes chronic, even when/if one has objectively reached the ideal.  People think that anorexic women are the only ones who perceive themselves as fatter than they really are, but studies consistently show that women across the board, even objectively thin ones, perceive themselves to be fatter than they really are just as much as do anorexic women, the anorexics are just the ones who translate these misperceptions into action (starvation).

Quote from: ARod on July 22, 2010, 01:21:41 PM

Il Capo, you are mostly correct but fail to recognize the pressures the modern media has added to Western women.

I thought that was what Il Capo was talking about:  it's modern media that cause women to be "competing" against a peer group of millions rather than of merely dozens.

well, i think Il Capo was saying that it is the existence of a large society that causes women to compete against millions, not the media, but theres more to it than that either way.  Every society has their own stereotypical ideal for a woman's body, and in America's case, this ideal is currently in the hands of the media, which likes to portray terribly thin frames with moderate curves as the ideal.  It is not necessarily healthy for women to be that thin, but regardless, the ideal is one that is difficult, if even possible, for the average woman to achieve.  The media further teaches women to objectify each aspect of their bodies and to compare them to the ideal, fostering body dissatisfaction.  This satisfaction becomes chronic after years of these thoughts being reinforced in one's mind by the media.  Eventually, even if a woman does objectively reach the ideal, she has been taught to hate her body for so long that typically she will still perceive her body to be deficient in some capacity and short of the ideal.

Other nations and other societies have different ideals, and typically believe the ideal body type for a women to be more plump than the American ideal.  Since the average woman in these societies is closer to their ideal than the average American is to the American ideal, and since other nations' media do not as thoroughly pressure women into comparing their bodies to the ideal anyway, widespread body dissatisfaction is much less of an issue.

Quote from: phrakture on July 22, 2010, 08:43:23 AM

You can't just point at an individual and say "change!". You have to change the social mores.

Just another reason in a long list of reasons to want to burn modern civilization to the ground.

sounds like you might appreciate the writings of Finnish philosopher Pentti Linkola.

Quote from: Warren Dew on July 22, 2010, 01:43:00 PM

Quote from: ARod on July 22, 2010, 01:21:41 PM

Il Capo, you are mostly correct but fail to recognize the pressures the modern media has added to Western women.

I thought that was what Il Capo was talking about:  it's modern media that cause women to be "competing" against a peer group of millions rather than of merely dozens.

  Every society has their own stereotypical ideal for a woman's body, and in America's case, this ideal is currently in the hands of the media, which likes to portray terribly thin frames with moderate curves as the ideal.  It is not necessarily healthy for women to be that thin, but regardless, the ideal is one that is difficult, if even possible, for the average woman to achieve.  The media further teaches women to objectify each aspect of their bodies and to compare them to the ideal, fostering body dissatisfaction.  This satisfaction becomes chronic after years of these thoughts being reinforced in one's mind by the media.  Eventually, even if a woman does objectively reach the ideal, she has been taught to hate her body for so long that typically she will still perceive her body to be deficient in some capacity and short of the ideal.

I would agree with that.  Unless you are a female then you really don't know HOW MUCH these media hypes play with the mind.  I can tell you that I once had someone call me "thick"---I'm 5'2" ~120 lbs at the time (now I'm 125-130).  They called me this, I assume, b/c I didn't look like Barbie Bean Poll standing next to me weighing in at 115 w/ no muscle.  I have muscle.  She has skinny fat legs.  I have capped shoulders.  She has twigs.

People out there who think even the most confident of women haven't had their fair share of body dissatisfaction/body image issues are naive.  Every woman goes through it at some point.  Whether it be at their TOM or whatever but it happens and the media doesn't help.  No woman likes it when her jeans fit a little tighter than they should.  And when you have ANY kind of muscle you may as well forget about trying on any of the now stylish "skinny" jeans...I think I can get them on up to my knees and that's it....and I wear a size 2-4!

That's the point here.  I have a good friend who's 50 and she has ingrained in her head this "ideal" image.  She has bought every diet book known to man and has tried every possible supplement out there.  She would rather starve herself to TRY to fit what the media deems as the "IDEAL FEMALE BODY" than enjoy herself as she is and be comfortable in her own skin.  She struggles to maintain her 135-140lb scale weight....

Like I said, you don't really know how it is unless you're a female.  Any of you who have daughters might want to prepare yourself b/c there will come  a time that she will get slammed with this and she, too, will think she's "FAT" b/c she can't fit into her bf's "skinny jeans".