Useful is more important than beautiful, and useful leads to beautiful.

“Just eat this way, and you won’t get fat.”

The Canada Food Guide sermon coming from my overweight, middle-aged dietician did not land well in my teenage brain.

As if. She was just another conspirator in Operation Make Amanda Gain Weight.

Meeting with her felt like punishment, though it wasn’t. It was a loving intervention, and a fair one. I was literally fainting from under-eating at that point.

Still, whatever advice she offered, I was determined to do the opposite. Her large, frumpy appearance represented everything I feared becoming. 

Is that rude, naive, and unkind? Absolutely. I was a jerk back then. But that was my honest inner dialogue.

If I followed her counsel, would I end up looking like her? I could not, would not, allow myself to become anything other than thin and pretty.

There are a few common tribes in the fitness world. There are the image-obsessed bodybuilders. The functional-fitness purists who mock bodybuilding as vain and “useless.” And the body-positivity movement, whose extreme edges slide into an anything-goes mentality that’s anything but healthy.

Each camp carries a sliver of truth. But after three decades of watching fads rise and fall, here’s where I’ve landed: 

Train for usefulness, not just vanity. But yes…it’s still healthy to have some vanity goals too.

Having a competent, useful body is a noble aim. And the desire for beauty is also God-given.

I like how Socrates expressed it:

“No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training … what a disgrace it is for a man [or woman] to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his [or her] body is capable.” 

But even virtues can become vices. 

There’s a darker side of the “dedicated,” relentlessly driven by selfish ambition disguised as discipline.

Developing a strong, skilled body and developing your natural beauty doesn’t have to be self-indulgent. It can be motivated by fun and your competence serves the community around you.

If Dad hands you the keys to a sports car for your birthday, you can bet he doesn’t want you to drive it like an old lady in a Buick. You should put it through its paces.

If I could sit with that younger, underweight, and anxious version of myself, I’d tell her this:

Your body is already marvelous and beautiful. But you are capable of so much more. Stop aiming for thin. It’s ok to develop your natural beauty, but you’ll be happier when you aim for strong and useful. Let’s find out what you can do.

Ironically, it wasn’t until I stopped training for the appearance of “thin” and started training for performance – strength, skill, capacity – that my body finally began to look the way I’d always hoped. When I discovered CrossFit and threw myself into a sport that rewards capability across many domains, I found missing ingredients in my approach: muscle, strength, and mobility.

The workouts weren’t about looking good. They were about doing something: lifting heavier, moving faster, mastering new skills, keeping up with friends, qualifying for the next level. I became someone who could help a friend move a couch, carry my kid up a mountain, sprint to catch a flight, shovel my neighbor’s driveway, or jump into a weekend adventure without hesitation.

These days, I no longer compete in CrossFit, it started to interfere with other goals. Now I train to be strong, energetic, and graceful. And yes, there’s also some intentional booty work for my beauty goals. 😉

Useful, and beautiful. 

Homework:

Refer back to your homework from Mandate 7: Body, Mind, and Spirit, and revisit your “why:” Why do you need to be healthy and fit? 

Identify one training goal for “usefulness,” and one for “beauty.” Schedule that into your programming.

Not sure how to do that? I’d love to help. Send me a note and let’s figure out how we can work together.

With you in it,
Amanda

P.S. Bonus quote:

“In a young man, beauty is the possession of a body fit to endure the exertion of running and contests of strength; which means that he is pleasant to look at; therefore, all-around athletes are the most beautiful, being naturally adapted both for contests of strength and for speed also. For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare, together with a pleasant but, at the same time, formidable appearance. For an old man, it is to be strong enough for such exertion as necessary and to be free from pain through escaping the ravages of old age.” –Aristotle