When I get asked about people wanting to look a certain way there are issues that we need to look at so you don’t cause unintended consequences. Send Dr. Matt Chalmers questions at [email protected] and we answer all questions.

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:05] Hey, I’m Dr. Chalmers and this is Wellness Insights with Dr. Chalmers. So it’s this time of year everybody starts asking me questions about how to lose weight, this and that and this is really the time that we really need to have this conversation about body dysmorphia. This happens a lot in men and women.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:21] So body dysmorphia is where we have a very unhealthy view of what we want our body to be. I’ll give you an example of how I rule it out test for it for reasons I won’t work with people. I think this I’ll give you an idea.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:34] So. And this happens again. Not to be totally sexist, but this happens more often with women than it does with men. So I’ll say, All right, let’s say that I have a magic wand and you’re going to go through the Internet. You’re going to pick out the best hair, the best face that’s cheekbones shoulders, arms, boobs butt legs the very best, in your opinion, from everyone on the internet.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:53] And I’m going to say my wand and you’re going to have all of those things. You’re going to look the exact way you always want it, and you’re going to be healthy, but you’re going to weigh £200 are you okay with that?

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:02] And the answer to that is yes, I’m totally cool with that. That’s fine. If you say no, I don’t want to be £200 that’s you know even though I just told you you’re healthy you look exactly the way you want to. If the £200 thing is bothersome to you, it tells me that we’re starting to have a little bit of body dysmorphia issues.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:19] And the reason I do that. Is because a lot of people have decided that they need a that they need to weigh a certain amount, that their self-worth is based upon a number on a scale, because either a magazine told them that they need to weigh that or some idiotic doctor told them, for your height, your sex, your age you should weigh this much, which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:40] The other reason that a doctor should be taking your weight is so they can figure out how much drugs to give you and even then, it’s mostly accurate.

Speaker 3 [00:01:47] So when we start talking about this it’s one of those things where sometimes it’s never enough. So I’ll tell you the weight thing you know, we’ll see people who with surgery, we see this in plastic surgery a lot.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:57] You know someone will go and say, I hate my nose get my nose done. You know, I’ve. Always hated my nose. I thought that’s the only thing about me that’s bothersome. Everything else is everything else is fine. But my nose casts them. I know. So they grow and they get their nose done. Did a good job. They go out there. I like my nose. Now that my nose is done, my boobs are too small, my butt is too big. This my left, pinky towers, whatever it is. And so they have to they keep having to have things done because the real issue is, is that whatever’s inside them isn’t where it needs to be. Their personal self-worth the thing that’s inside their psychological health isn’t where it needs to be. That’s an issue.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:29] Now, there are definitely things that we all want to change. About ourselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that in fact, you know, if you go into something and you decide that you want a breast. Augmentation, you want your nose done, or any of the things like your left pinkie toe does have an issue, whatever it is. All right, fine. I’m not saying you shouldn’t get those things said about saying you’re bad person you get those things out.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:46] What I’m saying is that if you constantly find something terribly, terribly wrong with your body and you try to tell yourself the reason that people don’t like you, the reason you don’t, you didn’t get that raised, the reason why you haven’t gotten further in life than you are today is because of something with your body. We might want to think about what’s going on body dysmorphia wise.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:03] I know a lot of bodybuilders who are gigantic, much bigger than me, and they tell themselves they’re not big enough well, you know I’m failing because I don’t have 26 inch arms. I’m not where I need to be. If I can only be a little bit bigger, then then I would be a success. That’s that’s the mark. I have to be the biggest there is I have to. I have to. I’m not good enough the way I am I have to be bigger, actually stronger too. Whatever that’s problematic.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:28] Everybody’s been talking about for the longest time that the way that these women look on magazines is creating a lot of body dysmorphia in women. And it is. But I’m not arguing that point at all on 100% is is a terrible, terrible shame that we’re using so much Photoshop and we’re trying to tell women that this is what beauty is and then you actually meet the model. The picture was taken out and. You’re like, You look nothing like this.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:51] You’re four inches shorter you’ve got cellulite and you’re a totally different skin tone. You’re like, Yeah, but that’s what the computer does. Well, then the same thing happens to guys. You know, there’s a lot of these guys who are this Muscle Fitness magazines that are in movies and things like that, you know, that we’re totally photoshop, CGI, the whole thing.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:09] And we’re teaching our children that, you know this is possible, not just that this is what should be, that this is even possible. You know, it’s funny because if you read the stories that I wasn’t on set, so I don’t know if this is true with this definitely sounds plausible I 100% believe this could have happened,.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:26] That during some of the scenes for the Avengers movies where Chris hemsworth had to have his shirt off that he ended up in the hospital on multiple days because the things they had to do to make him look like that, you know, the severe dehydration. The the things that you have to do in. Order to get that lean and show that much striations are one art unbelievably unhealthy.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:47] So, you know, and some of those things are just out slap. And I’ve got him having a drink, a bunch of, you know electrolytes, so much water, they’ll be fine. And other times it’s not. We pushed 10 seconds longer than we should have filming and he’s he’s in the hospital. We gotta get him oxygen. We got to have all sorts of different nutrients we got to get. Multiple IVs, you know. Or he’ll have a heart attack and die. That’s and that’s that’s a thing that’s not I’m not exaggerating that is he 100% that if you lose too much electrolytes, you will have hyponatremia and you will have a heart attack and you will die. And this happens more often than not when you begin to become hyper nutrient, you die.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:21] So, you know, if you if you read some of the interviews and you watch the interviews with I always forget his name. He was Superman. He’s The witcher Henry Cavill, If you read some of his stuff.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:32] There were a couple of times making The Witcher where he had the shirt off and he talked about how much he hated it.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:37] And here’s the other thing I want to preface this statement with. Henry Cavill is the epitome of a Mesmer. They asked me another interview, what he had to do to stay so lean. And he just was like, nothing. I was like, I eat whatever I want, I drink whatever I want. I’m totally, you know, this is just who I am. Even that guy, even the guy who is genetically a marvel and can you know, looks really, really good. Normally in order to get the shots, they wanted to make him look the way they wanted him to look.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:02] He talks about how he had to dehydrate for days couldn’t have any water the day before. Had to eat something very specific. Was it a hot room to sweat everything out so that he would look the way you’re supposed to look at how miserable they were and how exhausted and how how the headaches and how all the terrible things.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:17] And that’s a problem, you know? Yeah, it makes for a. Really cool show and it makes for a really cool hero that you try to portray. What the problem is, is that life, everyone in life wants to imitate art. And so they’re going to take the drugs, they’re going to do the things, they’re going to try to move in that position and I think people understood hey, by the way, this isn’t how Henry Cavill actually looks on a regular basis. This is now Chris Hemsworth actually looks on a regular basis. Guys, this is a tremendous amount of work for literally an hour or a day. And then it’s back to the hospital to recover.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:47] You know, don’t expect you to just be able to like, look like this when you wake up every morning. Like, that’s not it. That’s not a possible thing, you know, So that that’s that I think is a problem. I know a lot of these guys who are on covers of books. I have friends who are professional male models, professional female models I work with these guys professionally, a lot of them. So they look really good in real life and their stuff is still touched up with Photoshop.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:09] And one of my one of my good buddies, Barton Hughes. If you if you see one of the sexiest natural human beings the world, look at Burton Hughes you know, his stuff is still, you know, touched up and edited in Photoshop afterwards. He you know, he’s an amazing, amazing specimen of the human being.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:23] But I know how hard he works at it, and it’s absurd, but it’s just become part of his life and still his stuff is touched up. So, you know, at the end of the day, I think, you know, especially as we start rolling into this new Year, stuff really starts looking at, you know all these all these pictures and posters and videos, all these things have all these different artists, all these different. Professional athletes and things like that. People who literally all they’re the only job they have is to work out eat, sleep and work out some more. And we think, yeah, that’s my goal. That’s, that’s, that’s the guy I want to look like. That’s, that’s really we should we should choose that our goals.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:56] But to be fair to everybody, we haven’t been showing people what healthy is we’ve been showing people what extreme is so we show the guy on stage. And by the way, I work, I have friends with tons of pro bodybuilders and tons of amateur bodybuilders. None of them look like that on a regular basis. None of them.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:15] The vast majority of the bigger guys don’t have abs outside of on stage. You can’t see it. Like they’re. Still lean, like they’re not small guys once they get off stage, but you don’t see their abs, you don’t see other vascular or any other veins. You don’t see all the cuts because once they get off stage and they start eating their their normal diet, which is still much better than the average person, but their normal diet, they gain about 3 to 7% more body fat. They had to work. Really, really, really hard for weeks to get down to or even months to get down to the point where they get up on stage.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:48] So when we show magazine covers, when we show bodybuilding stuff when we show, you know, all these, you know, some of the even some of this Instagram stuff. Now, I hate to tell you this, I don’t I don’t want to destroy your world. But not everything you see on social media is real. Some of these guys can Photoshop themselves. Some of these guys pay to be Photoshop. So you know. It is one of those things where we kind of have to watch out for that now.

Dr Matt Chalmers[00:09:10] Now that was kind of gone through this whole deal. I’ve knocked down this whole deal about, you know, what it really looks like. You know, that’s not possible. Don’t be that. The problem is that what is possible for everybody is a little bit different.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:19] And so, you know, that’s how we talk about Mormonism morph into more bodies, body structures, body frames, those type of things you know, if you can see your abs, awesome. That’s fantastic. You know, if you can’t, that’s also fine. You might be much, much, much healthier not being able to see your abs than if you could.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:36] There’s a lot almost into morphs if you can see your abs. Unless you’re a high end athlete you’re in problems, You’re you’re it’s you’re doing stuff with your diet. You’re pushing your body way harder than into a position it’s not used to being. So just because cars have red zones, they have those red lines. Just because they can operate there doesn’t mean they’re designed to operate there all the time.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:57] So that’s one of the big things we have to understand is that, you know, if you’re naturally a big person big woman, big, big, bad. Getting that six pack on a regular basis is not really in your. I would tell you that it’s not the healthiest weight, the healthiest approach, not the healthiest thing to look for and want to be.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:10:13] You know if you have trouble gaining weight, whether it’s fat or muscle, and you can see your six pack all the time, okay, Yeah, that’s totally fine. That’s normal. Now, the other side of that, you might not be ever be able to be a giant person. You’re not might not be able to put on, you know 80 more pounds of muscle without tremendous medical drugs and strain on your body and on your heart and just who you are.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:10:36] So I think the first thing we should probably do is figure out what’s healthy, what’s possible for me. So figure out your body type, your somatic type if you’re an actor, more from as a more friend amorth and then start looking at healthy people within your actual body frame.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:10:49] The worst. Thing you can ever do is take an into more and compare them to and mazzucato you know the guys on stage you Yeah that is that is by far the worst thing you can ever do or go the other out. You know good take an extreme actor more and look at a maso endo you know big. Big round muscles. Everything looks great, you know, that type of thing. And you know, super lots of lots of strength, lots of power. You know, that’s just not that’s just not really where. You’re going to be.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:11:17] You can get. There. It’s just very difficult to sustain it. So that’s going to be the big thing. As a hard endo morph. I will. You can see my abs now, and that’s just from diet. I’m never going to be the guy who has the big reps six pack all the time. Because I prefer to be healthy than prefer to be stage ready.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:11:36] That’s that’s the big piece is where do you what are your goals? I mean, if you want to be on stage, then let’s have that conversation. Let’s let’s go that route. Just understand that the guys on stage are never healthy. There isn’t a single guy or woman who’s ever been on stage competing who’s at their healthy body weight. So think about that.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:11:52] So if your goal is to look like somebody and you got a pair of them on stage, or if you got to, you’ve got to pin up of them from a professional like a movie poster that is not healthy. They did that they worked really, really, really hard. And sacrificed a lot, including their health, to get to a position where they could take that picture. And then they went back. Once pictures were taken, once they got off stage, they were back to eating a different way and a week later they didn’t look like that at all.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:12:19] They probably still look really good but they didn’t look like that. So I think we should establish some realistic goals we should understand what body dysmorphia is and we should try to figure out what is the best I can be and work towards that, because that’s going to keep us all healthier. That’s the human soul more say, and that’s going to keep us more emotionally and psychologically where we want to be.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:12:38] One of the worst things in the world you could ever do is put your goals somewhere where you can’t physically attain that, ever strive to that point, constantly fail and then feel like a failure. Even if you’ve done tremendous let’s say you got 99% of what you could you could. Personally possibly ever get to. But you set your goals 20% higher than that because you’re looking at something that you can’t be and you can’t do well, that’s going to crush you. So big goals are good but they have to be they have to be achievable.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:13:08] So as you’re starting, as is already starting to kind of put together their ideas, put together what they want and kind of develop where they want to go. Make sure that you sit down with somebody who knows what they’re doing and has the ability to tell you, I’m sorry this is possible, or say this is possible. Here’s what you would have to do to get there. Do you want to do this? Do you want to take the drugs? Do you want to do this crazy diet? Do you want to sleep this? Like.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:13:29] Here’s all the ingredients that would require you to get here and by the way, you wouldn’t be healthy if you got there. Now, if you say, I don’t care, my goal is to get on stage and just compete. I’ll be get there. I’ll have you walk backwards. I a lot of people who come in and say, I want to run a marathon, I want to do a triathlon, I’m like, all right, you understand that’s very unhealthy. And yep, I want to buck. It’s a box. I got a check. Cool. I’ll get there.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:13:51] And yeah, while it’s not going to be healthy we’ll do it the healthiest way and when you get done and you’ve checked that box, you say, okay, cool, we’re good. I’ll help repair all the damage that you did to your body, or at least as much as we can repair all the damage after you’ve done it. But just understand that not all of us have the same body. We not all of us have the same abilities that all of us have the same things and that’s a good thing. That’s a very good thing. So let’s try to figure out the best we can be and strive to the best that we can be. And then. We’ll. Use the things that we’re naturally better. At to help. Other people in areas where they’re weaker.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:14:23] And that’s how that’s how society becomes. That’s why we all have these ups and downs, is that places that where I’m weak, I find somebody. Who’s strong in those areas. And we work together. Because I’m going to be strong in areas over here where they’re weak. And so I can help them. They can help me that’s how we’re supposed to work together that’s why we’re all not supposed to be equal.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:14:41] If we were all equal, we would all die out. Because if we were all truly equal if I couldn’t do something, no one else on earth could do it either. So that that’s why it’s. Important that we also understand that there’s there’s benefit in our differences.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:14:54] So that’s kind of the big thrust is that I just want to make sure everybody understood the body dysmorphia piece, that there are things that are impossible, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. There are things that are very possible. That you just know the right advice to get to. And so those things are very, very important. So keep. Those in mind as you’re making your your resolutions and keep those in mind as you start banging your head against. The wall and you’re you start getting depressed why you can’t achieve the goals that you’ve set because. This is very possible you set a goal that’s possible.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:15:21] So if you guys have any other questions hit us up at, [email protected]. Thanks.

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