It’s a new year, and everyone’s talking about the new diet they are now going to strut. Well, I’ve got a diet for you. It’s called The Facebook Diet.

If the human population spent half the time they spend on Facebook on their health, we would be an extremely fit nation. Let’s explore…

We always say we make time for things that are most important to us. Facebook seems to be a priority for the masses. I am clearly dependent on the remarkable social reach of Facebook in my businesses, yet the statistics show the average person spends an exorbitant amount of wasted time on this social media channel. So much so, it might just be taking away from other, more important things. It also offers people one more excuse as to why they “don’t have time” to reach their fitness goals since all of their time is clearly spent wanting to be “liked”.

Let’s take a look at some facts:

Americans aged 18-64 who use social networks say they spend an average of 3.2 hours per day doing so, according to new research released by Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange (OTX). Let’s break that down further:

• Worldwide, there are over 1.35 billion (yes, billion) monthly active Facebook users and 864 million people log onto Facebook daily.
  • If we were half as active physically as we are active on Facebook – think of the transformation of the population.
• Age 25 to 34, at 29.7% of users, is the most common age demographic.
  • So basically, the younger population – or what I like to call “our future”, is spending LOTS of time being sedentary, monitoring how “popular” they are by the number of likes to their posts vs. focusing on liking themselves.
• Facebook users are 53% female and 47% male.
  • This equals the playing field. Time-slacking on Facebook is not gender specific. I see this as potential for all single Facebook users to use their time more wisely at the gym, increasing their chances of meeting a hot date who’s a real live person, not a fantasy description.
• Highest traffic occurs mid-week between 1 to 3 pm.
  • Let’s just say you take ONE of these 2 hours of lunch time, hell…30 minutes… and go to the gym. That’s 5 workdays of sweating and moving your body. 30 minutes to one hour sacrificed off Facebook a day seems somewhat doable, don’t you think? You still have 2.7 hours left.
• There are 83 million fake profiles.
  • So we are spending time following a lot of fake people. There’s nothing fake about showing up to a gym or getting in a good workout. You can’t fake results.
• Photo uploads total 300 million per day.
  • Imagine the photos you could take of your transformation if you used some of that upload time to burn some calories.
• Total number of minutes spent on Facebook each month = 640 million.  Average time spent per Facebook visit is 20 minutes.
  • 20 minutes of a high intensity interval training (HIIT) workout will KICK YOUR ASS. Do the math. That’s a lot of friggin’ time to sweat. It might be better to use your time more wisely.
• 50% go on Facebook when they wake up.
  • Humm… AM workout vs. Facebook
  • Translation – fired up metabolism, efficient use of time, amazing body vs. bed sores checking your “status”.

 I say we start a revolution and begin The Facebook Diet today. Who’s in?