Remember ice cream trucks?  Those rickety rustpots with expired tabs that toot around residential neighborhoods and kids' parks, playing their little song, stopping periodically to service the hordes of kids swarming up to the window to purchase frozen treats and just a little bit of joy?  The kids line up, buy their magical treat with the odd name (they often sound like something you'd name a racehorse).  Inevitably, the kids walk away delighted.   

Every few months at the gym where I work, a huge, mobile, Body Fat Testing truck pulls up to the storefront.  The Body-Fat Testing Truck is the anti-ice cream truck.  People sign up to get dunked in the tank, weighed and handed a printout with a magical number on it.  No matter what the number says, inevitably, they walk away feeling depressed and guilty.

Personally, I've never gotten dunked in the Body Fat Truck, and don't intend to.  I get it if you have a lot of fat to lose, are training for a contest, or are otherwise shooting for a hard number.  But as a matter of course?  I'm fairly happy with the way I look, and if I find out I'm fatter or leaner than I thought, it won't make me look better or worse than I do right now any more than losing or gaining a pound or two will.  To me, it seems like just another number to obsess over.

A fellow trainer--who's in great shape, of course--took the test.   I saw him right after; he looked ashen.  

"Why the long face?"

"I'm so depressed," he said.  "My body fat is so high."

"Well--what did they tell you it was?"

"Nine-point-six percent."

Now bear in mind, this guy isn't a pro bodybuilder or fitness model, nor does he aspire to be.  He's a personal trainer, like me, trying to set a good example for his clients.  His bodyfat hadn't skyrocketed or even changed much since his last test, and he hadn't really been doing anything different for his body composition.  He was simply obsessing.

Judging from his build, the guy obviously took great care of himself:  muscular arms, trim waist, sturdy legs.  He had the kind of physique most guys aspire to, which is, of course, a great selling point for a trainer.  But because he was 9.8% fat--actually quite low--he was depressed.

Reality check:  getting his body fat down another three or four percentage points would have meant losing about 6-8 pounds of pure fat.  Not that hard if you've got 75 pounds to lose, but if you only have 18 pounds of fat on your whole body, then those 6-8 pounds are going to be stubborn as hell.  You're getting close to the minimal amount of fat your body needs just to function properly.  

And if you're already exercising diligently and eating carefully, it's going to be even harder, because that means you've got to be that much more disciplined:  no sweets, no booze, no carbs to speak of, no late nights, no missed workouts, no missed meals, nada.  Oh yeah, and no stress, either--it spike cortisol, which can cause you to gain and hold onto fat.  You've got to be letter-perfect in everything you do.  Being that lean is a full-time job.  And because you're starving, exhausted, moody, and hazy-in-the-brain from lack of carbs all the time, you really don't have the energy for much else.  

Wanting to get into phenomenally good (or, perhaps more accurately, good-looking) shape for one event--a bodybuilding contest, a photo shoot, a movie role, a wedding--is great, and everyone should give that a try once in a while, just to see what you look like when you're in full-on Apollo/Venus shape.

But let's be honest:  no one can live like that.  It's simply not sustainable.  Even if you can endure the pervasive hunger and lack of energy, eventually the system will break down:  you'll get injured, develop chronic fatigue, screw up at work, neglect your family, forget your girlfriend's birthday, forget to pick the kids up at soccer camp.  It's why guys who are willing to get into that kind of shape are paid so well to be on magazine covers and pose for supplement ads:  getting cadaverously lean sucks.  When you see one of those guys smiling, you can be sure that a camera's in their face, because otherwise they'd never spend the precious calories.   

I believe most guys have the ability to get lean, and stay lean enough to see their abs--which is around 10% for most people--with a reasonable amount of exercise and a reasonably careful diet.  Some people might need to take more drastic steps then others to get there, or work at it for longer, or give up stuff they love more than the next guy, who might care less about beer or late nights or pastries in the morning, but I think that's a pretty achievable and sustainable goal for the average guy.  

It also means that, should an event come up that requires  you to show up in great shape, you can get there within a few weeks. 

I firmly believe that exercise and a solid diet should be in place to allow you to enjoy the REST of your life for as long as you can.   They should support and enhance everything else you do.  If exercise and diet BECOME your life, or start to detract from it because you're too tired, moody, hungry, sore, anal about your workouts, or unable to bring yourself to eat a piece of cake on your best friend's birthday, or drink a beer on New Year's, it's counterproductive.  It's like owning a Lamborgini but never driving it because it's in the shop all the time.  

I haven't seen this movie, but from what I can tell, this seems to be one of its main points.

********************************

Tony Gentilcore has some great tips in this terrific A-Z article on training and diet.