The Power of a “Before & After” Photo

July 21st, 2010 | Posted in Fitness tips | No Comments » | Share this article

There’s nothing we recommend more than taking those famous before & after photos if you’re starting down the path to a lean, fit, sexy body. They are a huge motivation, both to keep you happy in the present and fit into the future, and they just look amazing, no matter how you look at it.

Here’s why they’re so great:

It’s the Ultimate Motivation to Not Slip Backwards

When you see how far you’ve come just by holding up two photos, there’s nothing else like that feeling to help you stay on track. It’s amazing how much you can extract from a few comparative photographs.

You know when you see photos of people 10, 15, 20 years ago, and you compare them to photos today? Sometimes it’s fascinating — seeing how people have aged, what features about them have remained the same, what ones have changed entirely, trying to spot those traits that were only nascent in the old photos but pronounced in the new ones.

That happens — dozens of times over — when you really make a huge body transformation. Your facial features change. Your love handles disappear. Your waist trims up. Your butt, your arms, your legs, your chin — all of it changes, and it is endlessly motivational and fascinating to compare the two.

Sometimes the changes are so drastic that it’s almost unbelievable — you can scarcely believe it’s the same person in the two photographs, and the idea of letting your newfound devotion to fitness just slip away, of slipping back into the person in the “before” photo just becomes a non-possibility.

It Makes Future Transformations Seem All the More Do-Able

When you’re in possession of your kick-ass after body, looking back on those photographs of the before body, sure you’ll remember all the sweat it took to get you this far, but you’ll also realize that hey — in the end, you did it. You worked, you lived, you ate better, and you accomplished your goal without the world ending!

This makes a huge difference in how you move forward. When you have a before/after set of photos to look back to, and you realize how do-able that previous transformation was, and how tangible the results are, continuing down on that path and towards an even better body doesn’t seem so crazy anymore.

It Looks Friggin’ Awesome

There are plenty advantages of going from a body you aren’t happy with to a kick-ass, fitness-model, lean and toned one you (and others!) love. You’ll look better on the beach and in the buff. You’ll feel tons more energetic. You’ll never get tired of the compliments people keep giving you, the demands for your secret.

But most of all, when you pull out that before/after photo, even just to look at it yourself, or to show a new friend exactly what you looked like before — it just looks friggin’ amazing. You won’t know it until you’ve got it in your hands, but there is absolutely nothing else as satisfying to some little, hard-to-please, crazy part of everyone’s ego as being able to see the tangible results of a set of before/after photos.

So What Are You Waiting For?

If you’re just starting out — don’t be shy. Take a whole bunch of photos from multiple angles, well-lit, of how you look now. Keep taking them throughout your push towards a lean, fit body, and when you finally get there — which will happen sooner than you think — you’ll have those amazing comparison shots, just like on TV, all for yourself!