Tag: fitness influencer

I asked AI to summarize my book, Castle- Broken: When appearance are everything, here’s what I got:

The document “Castle: Broken” by L.A. Meier is a deeply personal and emotionally raw exploration of muscle dysmorphia (also known as bigorexia)—a lesser-discussed body image disorder primarily affecting men. The author weaves clinical insight with autobiographical storytelling to shed light on how societal ideals, masculinity, and personal trauma fuel obsessive body concerns and destructive behaviors.

🔍 Core Themes:

• Body Image and Masculinity: The narrative highlights how cultural ideals pressure men to embody physical strength and dominance, often at the cost of emotional health and balance.
• Muscle Dysmorphia Defined: Drawing on DSM-V criteria, it explains muscle dysmorphia as a subtype of body dysmorphic disorder marked by obsessive focus on muscularity, leading to impaired functioning and distress.
• Steroid and Supplement Use: The author describes his personal descent into anabolic steroid and supplement use, not as vanity, but as an effort to gain control and self-worth through physique.
• Mental Health and Masculine Identity: The story reflects on how unspoken emotional struggles, societal expectations, and the refusal to show vulnerability amplify the severity of disorders like bigorexia.
• Childhood and Early Influences: The author recounts formative years shaped by isolation, a desire for approval, and early experiences with emotional sensitivity, body shame, and perfectionism.

📚 Purpose of the Book:

This is not just a memoir—it’s an advocacy piece calling for recognition of muscle dysmorphia as a real, dangerous mental health issue. It critiques the lack of tailored treatment for men and emphasizes the need for gender-specific approaches in mental health care.

💬 Key Messages:

• “We are the castles”—a metaphor for traditional male roles of strength—yet these castles can be hollow, crumbling under unrealistic expectations.
• Emotional suppression in men is culturally reinforced, yet it’s this very suppression that leads to internal collapse.
• Obsession with physique often masks deeper emotional wounds and a lack of self-worth.

✨ Overall:

Castle: Broken is part confession, part analysis, and part call-to-action. It speaks to those suffering silently under the weight of appearance ideals and invites them—and society at large—to reconsider how we define strength, health, and masculinity.

Available on Amazon and 10th Street Press