Welcome to the Get Fit Guys' Quick and Dirty Tips to Slim Down and Shape Up.

My name is Ben Greenfield. I'm the Get Fit Guy, and today we have a joint special episode

with Quick and Dirty Tips fellow podcaster, The Savvy Psychologist. We're going to be talking about whether or not

you have a body image disorder. When I was 12 years old, my dad brought home a set of 10 pound

dumbbells from the local sporting goods store. I had no clue how to use them, but I remember grabbing them from his room one day,

taking them into my bedroom, lying face down on the edge of the bed, and attempting my teenage

boy's version of biceps curls until I couldn't lift those weights anymore. I had absolutely no

clue what I was doing, but one thing I did know for certain. The next day, my arms

were very, very sore, and perhaps a little bigger. Just like many boys, I flexed my muscles

in the mirror, and it certainly did seem like my arms grew just a little bit. Not only did that

mean these dumbbells might make me stronger or faster, but they might make me look better, too.

And at that time in my life, that meant two things.

Girls looking at me or guys being jealous of me.

Through high school, I continued to lift weights and actually got what I, and others, would

describe as a nice bod.

And yes, I kept on flexing in the mirror to check out my muscles

every now and again to make sure nothing seemed out of place. Abbs toned, check. Arms not looking

too small, check. Caves getting out of toothpick mode, check. In college, while studying exercise

science, no surprises there, right? I learned about body fat testing

and added that tracking parameter into the mix, every week hopping on a scale to make sure I never

saw any double digits, which somewhere in the back of my mind meant I could be risking not looking

good in my swim trucks or increasingly tight t-shirts. I also began to fret

...