You're Too Old to Believe This Bullshit

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Colynary Media on Unsplash

Are we really stupid enough to believe the hype? Apparently so.

Warning: Rant ahead, but a reasonable one. Okay, sort of.

First, this morning I read a terrific article from The Guardian. I was going to do one very similar, this guy did all the work for which I am deeply grateful. That way all I need to do is quote him, which makes me look smart, but I am going to add plenty of my own takes, because I have been part of the bodybuilding world my entire adult life.

Not a professional. Just a serious gym rat.

Fifty-two years. And several things to keep in mind: First, not a single steroid or any kind of hormone, testosterone, EVER, not only because they are damned dangerous but also because some of the damage is permanent.

Second, because it’s STUPID. Oh, and it’s FAKE.

For the sake of full disclosure, I am a fan of the light nip and tuck. I am NOT a fan of extreme stuff like this woman. I have had lipo to remove generous saddlebags, a face lift at fifty and I regularly make fun of my fake boobs. Frankly, that’s the only part of me that’s going to be perky at 95.

All that stuff, minus the face lift, was done in the Eighties. I mention it here because it’s part of my journey. To hide it is fundamentally dishonest.

As I’ve written elsewhere, if someone wants to do some improvement and it puts a lift in their step, have at it. I can speak for how it feels to do it, and while it does not solve all your life problems, it can indeed put a smile on your face about your appearance.

Which of course, will again deteriorate because, time.

Where I have severe disagreement is when social media influencers outright lie about their results, and do so while raising the hopes of so many who want beauty and fitness as promised.

Here’s the article from The Guardian.

Fake fitness influencers: the secrets and lies behind the world’s most envied physiques

Writer Joel Snape nails it right here:

In 2025, influencers post their morning ice baths and deep breathing exercises, but don’t mention what they’re injecting at the same time, whether that’s steroids intended to encourage muscle growth in the same way that testosterone does, or testosterone itself, or human growth hormone (HGH). As a result, a generation of young men and women – and, to be fair, plenty of middle-aged ones – are developing a completely skewed version of what’s possible with hard work and a chicken-heavy diet. And things might be getting worse, not better. (author bolded)

Nor do all the women whose bodies transform overnight mention that they’re on any of the weightloss drugs. The lying makes me sick and it irritates me that so many people continue to buy into the bullshit.

Oprah, who finally canned her gig with Weight Watchers (which also often doesn’t work) admitted to using weight loss drugs. Know what? I don’t blame her. What I care about is whether such influential public figures are honest. A lot rides on their bullshit. When they tell the truth, it frees all their fans.

I love how Snape calls out Fake Fitness Influencers, something I’ve been saying for years. Among the worst offenders was The Liver King, who was spending $11,000 a MONTH on crap to enhance his body, a body he lied effortlessly about to insecure young men who shelled out thousands for HIS fake supplements.

I would invite anyone to read this scientific review of how Brian Johnson, aka The Liver King (for my fitness dollar, the slither king, the snaky lying bastard), was able to deceive so many.

People have accused me of taking steroids. Look, no matter who you are or what you do or how much work you put in, some online asshole is going to make that claim. Nothing you can do about it.

That said, had I been taking steroids all those years, my jawline, the hair on my chest, a much deeper voice and a great many other very obvious changes would have taken place.

I’d look and sound like a guy.

You can get great results with work. You can’t get extreme results-especially fast-without help.

Now, women often do get an enlarged clitoris, which has its own advantages. But hell, half the fun for your partner is locating the damned thing. But I digress.

Again, while I respect the work ethic, there is no way I would do this to my body, including risking permanent damage. At least the women in this video are straight up honest- if you compete professionally, you juice.

So do millions of so-called fitness “pros” who juice or who use weightloss drugs while claiming that all it takes is lots of chicken, rice and broccoli.

That of course is the claim that action stars like The Rock and Mark Wahlberg were told to say to the media after they showed up jacked to the gills for their movies. Puh-leeze boys.

Now I wish I had different and better photos of myself at my prime but this is my reference point. I was 64, and this is the result of decades upon decades of hard work, careful dieting, and absolutely ZERO drug enhancements.

Muscular, not musclebound, and it’s all natural

These days it’s called “natty.” The problem in the industry is that lots of folks who are influencers can claim to be natty and get tested to prove it…all they have to do is hold off on their drugs long enough for them to be undetectable to current testing. It’s still fundamentally dishonest.

But the damage is often permanent, including shrunken testicles, a deeper voice for women and serious organ damage. That of course is one reason why so many extreme professional bodybuilders die so young.

While I can and do acknowledge the hard work that anyone- like the grunter in the opening photo- puts in to get those guns, bottom line is that if you’re juiced, it ain’t all you. And besides, WHAT IS THE POINT?

For years overblown adolescents like Stallone and Schwarzenegger used to argue over who had the bigger biceps, along with all the childish posturing as though having bigger bis actually meant something.

It doesn’t. At the end of the day and at the end of your life, if your body is shredded but so severely damaged from enhancement drugs that it no longer works, WHAT IS THE POINT?

If you can’t use the bulging muscles to do much more than win contests, WHAT IS THE POINT?

Because at some point, life becomes all about functional fitness, being able to play, do the sports we love, roll around with our grandkids on the floor and not require the neighbors and a crane to get us back up on our feet.

Freakish muscles, unsustainable “perfect” bodies, all the obsession with how we look ends up skewering us in the end. I’ve been there.

The better I looked the fewer friends I had. The more obsessive I was about my body, face, hair, whatever, the less people wanted to be around me.

Don’t blame them one bit, either.

You spend any time with a woman who obsesses about three leaves of lettuce as being too much, or a guy whose entire conversation revolves around how he has the biggest quads in his gym, you know what I mean.

I lift because it helps me live the life I want.

Five decades of lifting supported me through fourteen surgeries. Five decades of lifting gave me a body I can count on, strength I can use and options as I age. I hardly need the ego-fix of being able to pose prettily in front of a mirror. The pretty train left the station years ago.

I want to do adventure sports and survive spectacular accidents. I want to move easily and mostly pain-free until I kick the bucket. That takes work.

That’s functional fitness. You have options. At 72 now, I have options. I push weight lifting because I works. It’s not about the perfect body. It IS about strength and endurance and body confidence as we age.

My social media expert JC did an AI search for me and created a curriculum for an enterprise. I am going out on a limb and doing TikTok (ohfercryinoutloud), and he wanted to see what ChatGPT had to say about what I had to offer.

Here’s what struck me: AI stated that “Audiences crave real, unfiltered content. Influencers who are genuine about their lives and perspectives build the most trust and loyalty….In a 2023 report 85% of influencers and 67% of marketers identified trust and authenticity as the most important strengths in influencer marketing.”

That stands in start contrast to The Guardian’s story about fake fitness influencers.

Tell the fucking truth, why dontcha? What a change of pace that would be. No you CAN’T lose 100 lbs in a month and keep it off by chewing frog testicles and bat turds. Besides, the frogs would be pissed.

Authenticity and trust do matter. People are tired of being fooled.

Snape ends it this way:

What isn’t quite so easy is looking past the abs and the arms, and finding people who value health and wellbeing over aesthetics and false promises. But as anyone who’s put in the work knows, sometimes the hard path is the one that pays off. (author bolded)

Exactly.

Let’s play, and let’s keep the playing field honest.

Photo by Jenny Hill on Unsplash

This article is dedicated to all my fellow fitness and health writers of all ages, who eschew the bullshit, speak the truth, do the work and don’t peddle shortcuts. Thank you.