Who: Ling Lim, 27, architectInstagram: lingandclean,#fitspo, #fitfluential, #bodybuilding, #fitchick,#girlswithmusclesFollowers: Instagram – 3,900

A break-up five years ago forced Ms Ling Lim tore-evaluate her life. Wanting to do something for her-self, she decided to get fit. She read up on fitness anddieting, hit the gym and exercised up to five times aweek. She also cut down on her consumption of pro-cessed food and had more home-cooked meals.

Within months, the 1.62m-tall woman, who usedto weigh about 55kg, noticed that her clothes fitted bet-ter and her muscles were more toned. But she did notpost photos of her progress until she started using Insta-gram last year. At first, she just wanted to share the pic-tures with a few friends.

Within six months, however, the number of her fol-lowers hit 1,000. She started to post more frequently –

at least once a day instead of onceevery few days – as a way to moti-vate herself on her fitness jour-ney.

These days, the singleton alsoenjoys sharing tips with other fit-ness enthusiasts. “We motivateone another,” she says.

Some of her followers are fromAustralia, Britain, the UnitedStates and Europe. She also fol-lowed fitness models such asJamie Eason and Natalia Melofrom the US, and envied them for their flat abs.

In March, she was chosen to test drive a 12-weekonline programme by a fitness coach in the US and hertraining intensified. She followed a strict diet withapproved food lists, trained for about 11/2 hours five tosix days a week and avoided social events because shedid not want to be tempted by food. She recalls: “I losta significant amount of fat. I also gained more muscleand strength.”

When she posted a photo of herself before and afterthe programme, her number of followers surged. She

wanted to continue the regimen after the 12 weeks,but soon realised she could not sustain that lifestyle.

“I am not a fitness model. I have a life outside of thegym,” she says. “I re-evaluated my goals and realisedwhat was most important is a healthy relationship withfood and the strength to love and respect my body.”

She put up a series of posts on Instagram to let herfollowers know that she had decided to give up thestrict regimen. About 20 people “unfollowed” her afterthat but she was undeterred.

Instead of totally avoiding food that is processed,she indulges in her favourite food such as pizza occa-sionally. And instead of hitting the gym five to sixtimes a week, she cut back to four or five times a week.

She does not know how heavy she is now but saysshe was about 48kg when she last weighed herself lastyear. She still posts photos of her meals and workoutson Instagram. But instead of adding comments such as“be relentless”, as she used to do, her messages are nowabout finding the right balance.

“The messages are about gaining strength in thegym but they are also about respecting your bodyenough to take breaks and enjoy life,” she says.

“My thighs will always touch. So?”

Keeping fit is no longer a lonely journey, inthis age of social media.

More people are putting up photos ofthemselves sweating it out on Instagram,Tumblr and other microblogging websites,

and these before-and-after pictures let them chart theirprogress.

In the process, they attract “followers” and inspirethem to embark on a fitness programme.

The trend, called fitspiration or fitspo in short, wasfirst popularised in countries such as Australia and theUnited States about a year ago.

It is not known how big the community here is. Butthere are at least five Singaporeans, aged 20 to 30, whohave been posting pictorial diaries of their fitness jour-neys in recent months.

They also put up photos of their meals, which usual-ly adhere to a “clean diet”. This diet advocates the con-sumption of less processed food and more wholefoods, as well as lowering one’s intake of salt, sugar andoil.

The fitspo bloggers SundayLife! spoke to say theydid not set out to inspire others. But some of themshowed such remarkable progress that their posts havedrawn followers that number from a few hundred toalmost 4,000.

Fitspo comes in the wake of thinspo or thinspira-

tion, which was especially popular on Tumblr a fewyears ago. People who follow this trend post images ofskinny people, usually women, to inspire others to loseweight. The practice has since been widely condemnedfor promoting an unattainable ideal that is also bad forhealth.

Last year, Tumblr announced a new policy againstblogs that actively promote self-harm.

Then came fitspo, which supposedly sends ahealthier message by inspiring people to get fit.

Child-care teacher Gladys Png, 20, is one of them.Last December, she got on the fitspo trend by follow-

ing people from countries such as Australia and the USwho posted photos of their meals and workouts.

She says: “There was this girl with a very saggy bot-tom who went on a 30-day squat programme. She start-ed with 15 squats a day and ended with about 50. Bythe end of it, she had a model-like bum. It was veryinspiring.”

That same month, she started her own fitness pro-gramme and began posting photos of her meals andgym workouts on Instagram. She now has more than300 followers, and her weight has gone down from54kg to 47kg. Given her height of 1.56m, her weight isconsidered healthy.

But fitspo has also been criticised by some fitnessexperts for its potential risks to one’s health.

Ms Charlotte Hilton Anderson, an American whoruns The Great Fitness Experiment, a health and fit-ness site, described the trend as “thinspo in a sportsbra” on the website last year. The main worry is thatthe quest for fitness can turn obsessive and unhealthy.

Ms Ling Lim, 27, who has been putting up picturesof her workouts on Instagram since last year and hasmore than 3,900 followers, is a cautionary tale.

The architect says she became so obsessed with stick-ing to a stringent diet at one point that she shunned allsocial events for fear of straying from her meal plan.

Dr Cornelia Chee, 40, director of Women’s Emotion-al Health Service at the National University Hospital,says there is nothing wrong with wanting to be fit andtoned.

“It’s better than trying to lose as much weight as pos-sible,” she says.

But she warns: “If the quest for fitness takes up somuch time that the person neglects other parts of hislife, such as work and family, then it could beunhealthy and narcissistic.

“All of us need some doses of self-love... but exces-sive self-absorption is a form of unhealthy narcissism.”

Fitness trainer and gym owner Keith Tan says a fit-ness plan that works for one person may not work foranother. The 28-year-old adds: “In trying to follow thefitness regimen of another person, you may end upinjuring yourself.”

Whatever you do, he says, start slow and enjoy theprocess. “The key to success is consistency and sustaina-bility. If you hit a plateau, you may want to train witha fitness professional.”

A fitness regimen has to be tailored to each personbased on factors such as age, occupation and activitylevel, he says.

Health professionals also advise against adoptingthe weight loss diet of another person.

Ms Lynette Goh, a senior dietitian from NationalHealthcare Group Polyclinics, says: “Weight loss dietsmay not be balanced or are very low in calories, so theymay lack important nutrients that our body needs.

“There are also risks of vitamin and mineral deficien-cies if the diet is not prescribed by a health profession-al.”

While Ms Daphne Maia Loo sees nothing wrongwith exchanging tips with her more than 1,000 follow-ers on Instagram, the social media consultant, who hasdocumented how she dropped 14kg in six months,notes: “I always start by telling them that I am not anexpert.”

The 30-year-old has a personal trainer and used toconsult a nutritionist. “What I share is what I haveexperienced, learnt, experimented with and what hasworked for me,” she adds.

leawee@sph.com.sg

Who: Daphne Maia Loo, 30, social media consultantInstagram: @daphnemaia, #fitness,#eatcleantrainmean, #fitspo, #fitfamFollowers: Facebook – 2,000; Twitter – 3,000;Instagram – 1,000

Ms Loo had always wanted to loseweight, but it was embarrassmentthat finally moved her to actionlast December. “There were atleast four occasions over a fewmonths when people gave uptheir seats on the MRT for mebecause they thought I was preg-nant,” she recounts.

At 1.55m tall, she weighed65kg then. She signed up for agroup class led by a fitness trainerand started doing exercises such aslunges and squats three times aweek for at least an hour eachtime. She also sought help from anutritionist and began cutting outprocessed food from her diet andreducing her salt and oil intake.Her efforts paid off and she lost9kg in three months.

Initially, she posted updatesand photos on her blog, Facebook and Instagram sim-ply to track her weight loss and to update friends andfamily members on her progress. Then in February,she posted a current photo of herself next to one thatwas taken three months earlier.

The stark contrast gained her 300 likes and morethan 150 comments on Facebook within two days.Her followers on Instagram also surged from about100 to more than 400.

She began to receive well wishes as well as ques-tions on how she achieved the weight loss.

“That motivated me to press on in my weight lossand fitness journey, and I have since lost a total of14kg.”

She admits, however, that she became obsessed atone stage with wanting to look like the fitness modelsshe was following on Instagram, who boasted tonedbodies and flat stomachs.

“I started to train at a higher intensity. Forinstance, I would choose jogging or cycling overyoga. I also refused to eat food that was not preparedat home.”

But she snapped out of that phase after comingacross the Instagram sharing of Singaporean Ling Lim(see other story), who had a similar experience.

“Ling was on this really strict diet and fitness regi-men. Her realisation that these were not sustainablein the long run also made me realise that I was beingtoo harsh on myself.”

Ms Loo now trains three times a week with her per-sonal trainer and jogs, cycles or swims on two or threeother days. But she has learnt to listen to her bodyand not over-exert herself.

Her aim these days, she says, is to maintain herweight, lose some body fat and gain some musclemass, without injuring herself.

Besides using social media to chart her fitness jour-ney, she now also posts updates to inspire others,including her photographer husband, 29, to get fit. “Ipost inspirational quotes, nuggets about nutritionand fitness I’ve learnt and images of myself leadingan active lifestyle, such as working out in the gym.”

Business analyst Alan Lam, 30, who has been fol-lowing Ms Loo on social media since they met at ablogger event two years ago, says he was inspired tofollow her even more closely after she posted photosof her weight loss.

“I was undergoing my own weight-loss pro-gramme at that time and it was useful to have some-one to exchange diet and exercise tips with,” says the1.7m-tall business analyst, who now weighs 72kgafter losing 16kg.

“Most importantly, the moral support and encour-agement I got from her was priceless.”

Who: Shawn Lim, 22, socialmedia executiveInstagram and twitter:@mediumshawn, #CrossfitFollowers: Twitter – 1,694;Instagram – 1,147

Mr Lim, who describes hisformer self (right) as scrawnyand geeky, began hitting thegym after reading up on fitnesslast September.

His national service stint hadjust ended, and the 1.62m-tallyoung man, who weighed 64kgthen, felt unfit.

As a way to motivate himself,he began posting pictures on Instagram and Twitterthat showed him working out.

“When my friends saw that I was losing steam orfeeling discouraged, they would cheer me up. It wasalso a way for me to track my progress, such as how bigI had become, which was what I was working towardsthen.”

He trained three times a week for about an houreach time and started eating more healthily. He also

prepared his meals inadvance every Sundayto make sure he had atleast one healthy meala day.

He lost 4kg withinthree to four months.He also started to bulkup and gain muscle.

He posted photos ofhis workouts almostevery day and hisnumber of followersgrew.

The singleton says:“Some friends com-mented that they feltinspired by what I wasdoing.

“The most commoncomment from peoplewas, ‘I admire your ded-ication’. I have yet toreceive any nasty com-ments.”

He would meetsome of his followersoccas iona l ly toexchange fitness tipsover a meal and sharewhat works or does notwork for them.

“Even though Ididn’t set out to inspireothers, I’m always will-ing to answer any ques-tions.

“There’s no suchthing as a stupid or sil-ly question to me.Everybody has to startsomewhere.”

But his idea of fit-ness changed in May,when he was offered afree CrossFit trial inexchange for bloggingabout it. CrossFit is a

combination of gymnastics, weightlifting, strengthand conditioning training.

After the month-long trial, he joined a CrossFit classand trained five times a week.

He also started following other “CrossFitters” onInstagram to pick up tips from them.

Instead of photos that show his muscle gain, henow shows pictures of his CrossFit workouts, as he sayshe has become less obsessed with his body image andmore concerned with health and fitness.

“To me, progress is no longer about my size but howfit I am, such as how long I take to complete a work-out,” he says.

“I realised that being big and buff does not meanyou are fit.”

Spurred by break-up

Fitness buffs who post photos oftheir bodies, workouts and healthymeals on social media inspire theirfollowers to do the same

People thoughtshe was pregnant

Fromscrawnyto buff

Get fit on Instagram

Ms Daphne MaiaLoo lost 14kg off her65kg frame (below)with a combinationof exercise and asensible diet.

ST PHOTO: LIM SIN THAI

“To me, progress isno longer about mysize but how fit Iam, such as howlong I take tocomplete aworkoutMR SHAWN LIM (above), onhow he has shifted his focusfrom how he looks to how fithe is

PHOTOS: RUEVEN TAN, COURTESY OF LING LIM

Ling Lim in a photo taken last month (above) and whenshe was 18 (left).

ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG

Social media executive Shawn Lim posts photos of himself executing CrossFit moves on Instagram and Twitter.

Lea Wee

PHOTO: NICHOLAS LEE

PHOTO: COURTESY OF SHAWN LIM

4 livethesundaytimes July 7, 2013

5liveJuly 7, 2013 thesundaytimes