By Matt Stone
Never EVER exercise to lose weight. Seriously. Exercise is too good for you and too potent as a weight loss tool to do it for weight loss. Plus, if you exercise to lose weight, you’ll probably get really chubby.
Confused? Ready to yell at me and start dropping links to a bunch of studies that show exercise helps for weight loss? Send me some pics of Olympic athletes shirtless?
This is the?kind of comprehensive, “unscientific” thought that makes this website superior to others. The 80’s references are just icing on the cake.I understand that exercise can make a 
person quite lean. I’ve seen?many dozens of’studies that show that?exercise can contribute’to superior body composition with few exceptions. I watched American Ninja Warrior last night and saw a bunch of ripped people who spend most of their free time exercising like maniacs. Didn’t make them chubby. Exercise has even been found to be one of the primary common denominators in those who have registered as having lost a ton of weight and kept it off for years at the weight control registry. So how could I say’such a thing?
Because purely “scientific” findings ignore a person’s physiological and psychological reaction to various interventions. We are not mechanical cogs that operate by simple input and output. We’re not a bunch of Johnny 5’s. Who’s Johnny you ask? To answer this pressing question, I turn to El Debarge…
So here?are the’two simple reasons never to exercise to lose weight…
- Because You Will Enjoy Exercise Less.When you exercise specifically to lose?weight, it’s highly likely that you will start to resent exercise. When something is a means to an end, it becomes “work” more or less, and work is not fun.When?no one?is forcing you to do it, you are not likely to keep up with it,?which is unfortunate because exercise has many?health benefits.For most people, repeated bouts of exercise lead to increased sedentarism long-term, especially for those who don’t lose weight when they exercise. And that will likely lead to weight gain, not weight loss.
- Because It Won’t Work and Might Make You Fatter. For most people,?exercise won’t induce any noticeable weight loss unless it is done in enormous quantities or at grueling intensity. To use exercise as a weight loss tool, most will have to do an amount of it that is just not sustainable due to work or family obligations, overuse injury, or just plain burnout. The end result is becoming fatter, not thinner, than you were if you had never tried to use exercise as a weight loss tool in the first place.For me personally,?exercise excess has always led’to increased fatness when’taking the REACTION to excess exercise?into consideration. And’the reaction should be, but often isn’t, taken into consideration by those?performing exercise research, weight loss research, or advocating physical fitness.
Exercise is great. It’s probably the single best quality of life enhancer, especially for older people, of any health practice. Do it for fun. Do it because a day’that includes a hike, a swim, some hoops, some?Frisbee, or some weightlifting is always better than a day?of complete and’total couch surfing.Do it to master new skills. Do it so you can walk up a flight of stairs without gasping for air. Do it so you can play sports and have fun.Do it, ultimately, because it makes your life better and fuller. You will do a lot?more of it if it’s recreational. No motivation required.
Do it as a necessary evil to shed a few pounds and you will likely fail miserably, and have trouble getting up?from the crapper a decade or two earlier than you should.
If you really insist on doing it specifically for weight loss, that’s okay I guess. Just another reason to wear stretchy pants, and as far as I’m concerned, there can’t be enough reasons to wear stretchy pants.
Premier ?
First?
I was planning to leave exactly the same comment, Mali, but I refreshed the page first :).
Haha, I also refreshed the page and there were still no comments, so either Frederic’s comment came milliseconds before mine, or it was still in moderation!
Moderation- better luck next time!
If these comments go through moderation, can we stop allowing the “first!”s? Really. It’s juvenile and annoying.
Yeah. Because calling for censorship on people having harmless competition is not, by any way, juvenile and annoying.
Hey, I got married at 19 – this is my only means of expressing my repressed juvenility!
Yeah! Enough with the fun!
;-)
First world problems.
Stretchy Pants ALWAYS mean Nacho LIbre. Jeez.
Are you on vacation Matt? mentally? ha ha LOVE YOU xoxo the hag xoxoxo
2nd!
And, Number 5 is alive!!
The only time I’ve ever really seen it work long-term is when a person just starts naturally living a more active life (for whatever reason), rather than doing scheduled “workouts” with weight loss as the goal.
I used to be very active, never worried about weight, ate as much as I wanted and was lean. Since I became sedentary I got fat and got other new problems too, I guess if I got back to the more active lifestyle I’d feel better, so I think you’re right. My body doesn’t like working at a desk.
@@Oanna what was it that you used to do? i assume by reading the comment,you had an active job,so im curious what it was since im looking for jobinspiration…..
I think an active lifestyle is important too! My kids are back in school and right now, I’m enjoying hiking, walking and biking. It’s been lots of fun to be out and about and my body is getting more fit. My goal right now, is to be more fit and I eat enough to sustain my activities.
In the past, I have lost weight with training for (running) races, and it was fun. My focus was on running longer distances at faster speeds, not on weight loss…it came as a byproduct of all the training I was doing. In fact, when training for my first 1/2 marathon, I was surprised I was losing so much weight. I ate as much food as I could and still lost weight.
Sometimes, for some people, exercise sucks, but it’s something that should be done anyway. At least a little at a time, along with some experimentation.
I’ve been more active for some months, but before that, I was very sedentary. It DID take some effort to start walking and hiking again. It was hard and I didn’t want to do it at first…at first, exercise was so very unpleasant. I think some people aren’t going to want to exercise or move at all if they’ve been sedentary for awhile. It takes a lot of effort to get up and get going and sometimes that particular stress is no fun.
And for me, that little bit of very unpleasant exercise has turned into more enjoyable exercise. I crave getting outside now and look forward to it, whereas before I dreaded it and even a walk was a very obligatory, scheduled thing.
I’m at that point with my son, who is very sedentary and doesn’t want to exercise. I’m trying to convince him to do a little (amidst all the complaining) and to do it the way he wants to do it. It’s hard for him, but the movement and fresh air will be sooooo good for him!
I think as me and my son lose weight as a byproduct of exercise, eating optimal foods for us, and better sleep, it will help with some of the health problems we have. I’m still losing weight slowly, which is cool too!
This is so true, Beth. I HATE exercise. I always have, and I had no reason to do it because I was thin. I remember Amber from Go Kaleo talking about how hard exercise is at first, and how much it sucks. But over time, it gets better and you start to look forward to it. That sounds a lot like what you’re saying. I also love hiking and swimming as well, but I live in Indiana where the season for these things is extremely short and even in the summer there’s nowhere really to hike or bike. Midwest problems I guess, haha.
I saw the first image and thought- ‘Stretchy Pants’?
Then I saw the video, and I smiled. Keep the Jeep Riding, playa!
I actually thought you wrote it Rob, when I saw stretchy pants as the photo. lol
I am a stay at home mom so I can wear stretchy pants whenever I want! I love this article and believe exercise should be done for enjoyment, stress relief and health benefits.
Not sure about “losing weight,” but for body re-composition, which includes burning and losing fat, exercise is absolutely essential.
Even ‘only’ burning an extra 2-300 calories, a couple times a week, through even something as easy as LISS, can have significant direct and indirect positive effects on fat loss and overall body composition.
Sorry, but your typical “contrarian” schtick is really showing on this one. And that’s saying something.
The point is that exercise is worth doing for its own sake, with those body composition changes happening as a consequence, rather than as the goal.
Lots of people ‘hate’ exercise, just like they ‘hate’ learning. How does this happen? In part, because turning something inherently fun into something that you only do because you ‘have’ to makes it much less fun and much less sustainable, and cultivates that disdain.
Short and sweet article! Lifting weight is fun for ME because I look at the nuance and subtle changes I can make to a movement that make me feel more fluid or efficient. The challenge isn’t in how many minutes or reps I can complete. Its all about moving better and being comfortable in my own body. And as a result? I can lift more weight for longer and have more muscle after a year of “practice”. Oh and my scale broke and I decided not to get another one. FuQ it :)
I disagree. I HAVE to do physiotherapy and I have to concentrate to do it correctly. It is very difficult and real WORK (as opposed to the pleasure of walking to the shops, smelling the roses). I do not hate it, even if the results are barely noticable.
I had to do physiotherapy for a while too. While not technically mandatory, it sure is mandatory if you want to gain/maintain functional ability. I didn’t hate it, even though it was painful often. But it sure wasn’t my first choice of activity. Sometimes it was pleasurable, other times I just had to grit my teeth and persevere for better times. I agree, physiotherapy is real work.
Fair enough- I understand that some people have specific conditions that requre movement therapy, and it may not be fun.
I was talking more about folks I know who see exercise as a chore and would rather play video games. Folks who have functional bodies, but don’t see moving as fun because of whatever bad mental associations they’ve built up around it.
Totally, Rob. When I couldn’t go hiking or biking, let alone any real sports that would involve running or jumping, I absolutely craved those things. I wanted to shake everyone who was sound in body (whether in-shape or out-of-shape) and tell them to appreciate it!
Rob, that may be the point, but that’s not what Matt wrote. Anything he implied about body composition changes happening as a consequence of exercise was completely lost and contradicted by the end of the article. So people end up being either mystified or misled.
Even if it’s a precondition for body composition changes, exercise is no guarantee of it. They may happen, or may not. But you will become healthier. And using metrics of exercise’s value other than weight loss (like mastering a new skill, becoming more fit in your day to day life, or just having more fun) is a surer path to sustainability and pleasure from it.
By making exercise fun and inherently valuable, instead of dreading it as a necessary evil, it becomes more possible for body recomposition to happen incidentally, as a side effect of becoming healthier, rather than as the sole indicator of it.
Totally agree, Agregious. But then I have trouble imagining why anyone would hate being active in the outdoors. Why would anyone pick an exercise they didn’t enjoy?
Sure, you should choose an activity that you enjoy and not end up running on a treadmill like a rat. However, I can find nothing wrong with losing weight as a motive to exercise. Everything starts somewhere. Deep huh? Well, here’s an analogy that I hope will clarify what I mean. I see a pretty girl and am interested in pursuing her. Am I objectifying her? Am I a superficial asshole who is only interested in “looks”? Maybe. Maybe not. If over time I consider this person exclusively as a piece of meat or as a pretty jewel to have hanging on my arm rather than a total human being, then yes I am guilty of objectification and superficiality. On the other hand, I might START with my attraction to those qualities and use it as a springboard to deepen my appreciation of that person. That’s something completely different. BTW, the greatest expression of this idea is to be found in Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium. Diotima teaches us that our love of the absolute good can begin with the love of (carnal) beauty. I advise you to read it, if you’ve never had the pleasure. In the same way, we may begin with the goal of “losing weight” and discover all kinds of fun and pleasurable activity, as well as improve our health. The point is to start WHERE YOU ARE and expand and deepen.
This brings up another issue (that I have raised before). I am troubled by a trend I see on this website. It goes something like this, “do what you want and fuck what everybody else thinks”. Now in the CORRECT measure this is absolutely right. If you are a person who is constantly doing what “the They” (society, the others, Das Man) wants and never listen to your desires, your voice, then you definitely need a dose of “do what you want and fuck what everybody else thinks”. However, it needs to be done in the correct balance. You are not just an individual, you are a social being. Now, it is true that Madison Avenue has done its best to restrict the definition of beauty. Some people rightfully rebel against the confines of that definition. However, some people take the rebellion too far. Ignoring the very strict definition of “Madison Avenue” beauty turns into ignoring all aesthetics. I don’t know the people on this board and don’t know if it pertains to them, but I’ve run into. You hear them, “I want to be liked for who I am.” The type of person I am citing then decides their body weight doesn’t matter, their personal hygiene doesn’t matter and finally even their comportment towards other doesn’t matter. People are supposed to like them “for who they are.” If you want to go down that road, fine, but don’t be surprised if nobody wants to play with you. You can live out your life bitterly masturbating in your cloister, feeling superior to everybody else. My point is there needs to be a balance between yourself and your environment. Without becoming a slave to society or others’ opinions and habits, you need to at least take them into account.
I agree with this sentiment, Thomas.
I have a problem with the ‘I want to be liked for who I am’ idea. Of course, by all means, do what you want. And as you point out, some healthy dose of skepticism toward inherited ideals is warranted. But we’d do well to recognize the consequences of this, especially if we want other people to actually celebrate us. I’m in favor of pursuing excellence, and I also accept that what constitutes excellence may be more than is commonly acknowledged.
Thomas,
I agree with you on this one.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive and doing something with the sole purpose of looking better. I feel sorry for the women who think that there is something wrong with outer beauty and that they should have to do nothing to attract or hold a man’s attention. Some of the women who are allowing themselves to become overweight or obese because Matt has convinced them that as long as they feel good everything is okay, eat as much a you want, will be in for a rude awakening when they lose their spouses or companions to women who do care about their appearance.
If all it takes to maintain or lose weight is a 20 or 30 minutes weight lifting routine three times a week, what is so hard about that? How is that too much stress? How is that too much effort to expend to keep or attract your mate? No one has to exercise hours per week in order to get the benefits of exercise. You tell some women that they are overweight and their response is they don’t need to be a size two in order to be happy. True, But being a size 20 isn’t going to help you either.
Most women here are lying to themselves when they say that they are happy being overweight. They are trying to convince themselves that looks are not important and life will be even more wonderful as an obese, unattractive woman. Well, it may well be more peaceful since men won’t look at you in a desirous way. You won’t have to worry about men smiling at you, going out of their way to open a door for you, or asking you for a date.You will become invisible to men and finally experience the peace you have always wanted. Your husband won’t desire you so you won’t have to waste carbon dioxide having sex with him and breathing through your mouth. Let his mistress shorten her life and raise her stress hormones by wasting energy and time maintaining her weight and appearance.
Since the beginning of time, people have cared about their appearance and have gone to great lengths to attract members of the opposite sex. That has not changed, and nothing Matt says will make it change. Allow yourself to get and stay fat and all you will have are your romantic fantasies about Matt.
Ann- your comments about the ‘peace’ of not being sexually desired by men reminded me of Norah Vincent’s book ‘Self-Made Man.’ She’s a lesbian and fairly masculine woman, and went undercover as a man for a year and a half in various male spaces (men’s bowling league, monastery, men’s movement workshops, etc.).
She said one of the things she found surprising, despite having long maligned the male attention she received, was how jarring its absence was. She would go long stretches as a man, never being affirmed that she was a sexually desirable being. It was a shock and required adjustment.
“She would go long stretches as a man, never being affirmed that she was a sexually desirable being. It was a shock and required adjustment.”
Now if a lesbian woman feels that way, imagine a heterosexual woman. We are hard wired to want the attention of the opposite sex, even when we don’t actually desire them for sex. There is no point in pretending that most women of all ages don’t like the attention of men. And this attention does not have to be sexual, like men undressing you with their eyes kind of thing; I hate that kind of attention. But my experience is that men are just more friendly and helpful to attractive women of any age. I have found that even much younger men, who have no sexual interest in me, are friendlier when I dress nicely and wear jewelry than when I dress like a frump in over-sized sweat pants and a head scarf.
But the thing is there are so many other ways to be attractive than just appearance. You could have a great voice, a good personality, a raucous sense of humor. You could be intelligent and mysterious and charming. You could be witty. You could have a way of making people you’re with feel like they’re special, or in on a secret with you just by the way you regard them. You could be warm. Kind. Energetic. Interesting. There are a million and ten ways to be attractive to people and get them to be helpful to you, if that’s what you want, without having to make your life revolve around your appearance. A lot of these qualities only come out when you’re confident and happy with yourself in the first place. So many women I know who obsess over their appearance are never quite secure with themselves because they are deeply aware of all the “flaws” they need to be working on. Their weight, their frizzy hair, their acne, their oddly placed moles, their tree trunk legs, their eczema, their teeth…I think all that concern really works against you if you take it too far. And it’s easy to take it too far.
This says volumes about you. I feel quite sorry for you. I’m a heavy girl (though not sedentary by any means, just eating a lot more and exercising a lot less than when I was trying to keep up with appearances). When I was the type of woman you describe as being the ones men want I hardly had any man approachme. I was thin, I wore make up and fashionable clothes, but I was bitter, angry, hungry, and sore and aching all the time (you know, because I cared so much about my appearance). I was “beautiful” but never smiled and never laughed, and I hated everything and life itself. Then I “let myselg go” gained 30 lbs, bought a whole knew wardrobe of stretchy pants and went to the gym less (and I still move around more in a day than most people I know. I walk almost everywhere, and have a physically demanding job). It’s weird and I know you’ll find this hard to believe, honey, but now men ask me out more at this weight than before. Weird, right? It might have something to do with me laughing more and enjoying life more and relaxing about how “attractive” I am. All I cared about was keeping up with apperances back then and I was so miserable nobody wanted to be around me. Then I “gave up” stuffed my face for months and gained a lot of weight in the process. I focused on OTHER THINGS and didn’t give one shit about a man or my weight. Believe it or not, I no longer cared about that either. I “gave up” the mental obsession of weight and appearances and focused on my mental health first. After years of starving myself Iet go and became a “fat pig” but eventually the appetite and weight subsided. I’m definitely a heavy girl, but by no means am I lazy or unattractive–far, far from it. I look better now than when I was “taking care” of myself.
Lots of women who “eat what they want, when they want” do so for a short period of time. They stop exercising just enough to heal their damaged bodies, but you wouldn’t know about this process since you’ve never done this before. You sound like the kind of person I used to be: angry and hateful, and scared. So scared that you’ll never keep a man so you pay so much attention on your appearance and put others down (to make you feel better about yourself? I did that too). You’ve got a lot to learn, but first, here–have a cookie. Or two. It’s okay, it’s good for you. I promise. ;)
” I was thin, I wore make up and fashionable clothes, but I was bitter, angry, hungry, and sore and aching all the time (you know, because I cared so much about my appearance). I was ?beautiful? but never smiled and never laughed, and I hated everything and life itself. ”
The problem was your bitter, angry persona, not you slender body.
Men were attracted to you but, they did not show it because you were unapproachable. I think lions and tigers are beautiful animals but I would never want to climb into their cages at the zoo.
For every obese woman that claims lots of men pursue her, there are hundreds of obese women who are struggling to get a man’s attention.
I never said that being slender was the only thing required to attract men. Nor did I say that an overweight woman could not possibly attract a man. But if you want to delude yourself into believing that a slender attractive woman does not attract more male attention than an obese woman, then enjoy your delusion. I understand that the truth hurts.
If I said that men are more likely to want a younger woman than an older one would you argue with that? Like it or not, that is a true generalization. Yet we know that there are many men dating and married to older women. Exceptions do not negate a rule.
Men seem to be hardwired to prefer younger women. Most women realize this and that is why we don’t like aging and buy anti wrinkle creams and color our gray hair. Most men don’t expect their 50 year old wives to look like 20, but I think they want them to look good and a sensible woman will do what she can, within reason, to hold on to her man by taking care of her appearance. That is not the ONLY thing that is required to keep a relationship, but it is very important. Any woman who thinks it is too much trouble to exercise an hour a week, wear nice clothes and perfume, take care of her hair etc to keep her mate deserves to be dumped. Your companion is not your brother, father, uncle, cousin or son; he has a right to physically desire you and expect you to look good.
By the way, the woman has a right to expect a man to care about his appearance as well.
I feel you’re kinda missing the point here Ann. You blamed her lack of attractiveness on her persona, not the body, but don’t you see that the persona was a consequence of the body, and vice versa.
She was uptight BECAUSE she looked like that, most people who have ‘perfect’ bodies are scared of losing them, letting it slip, and that requires at least some obsessive/uptight aspect of their personality to allow them to retain control over food and not eat to appetite. Caring so much about your appearance that you are willing to ignore natural urges and underfeed yourself is not a natural state – you’re starving and it’s not a healthy physiological or psychological state to be in. Read matt’s post on the river diet if you want to know what starving yourself will do to your mentality.
My personal experience with this phenomenon:
A few years ago, after a particularly tight-trousers period (probably due to an excess of partying and the drink/junk food excess/sleep deficit it involved), I started working on a farm for a month that summer. It was swelteringly hot and I got horrendously sunburnt one day at the beach – so I rummaged in an old chest at the farm and found a ghastly long turquoise skirt and a frumpy old cotton shirt to protect my poor sunburnt body. I looked like a beetroot gypsy girl. Later that day, a handful of new helpers turned up. One of them was (I am not exaggerating here) the most handsome man I have ever met in my life, so after a quick “oh god, what do i look like? how embarrassing!!” i realised that i was in such a state that i immediately relaxed because I knew there was absolutely no point in pursuing the hunk. In fact, this state of relaxation was so severe I even decided to stop shaving, to stop wearing deodorant and that a bun on the top of my head would be a good look (it wasn’t). So despite this hideous physical appearance (I’m not being modest either) guess what happened next? well firstly, one of the other helpers took a secret (unrequited) fancy to me, but after a week of him finding reasons to hang out with me more and more each day, I ended up having a love affair with the hunk! and we’re still in contact now (sadly from other sides of the globe).
Now compare that to the time i weighed the least i have ever weighed in my life, the period when, if i look back at pictures i think “damn, why can’t i still look like that” – I didn’t go on one single date or even have many guys grab my ass in clubs etc. I looked ‘good’ but was so pre-occupied with food as well as being grouchy, forgetful and uptight and overall, very insecure that the appearance was irrelevant. and it wasn’t that i wasn’t looking for attention either – although i had little sexual desire i also had so little confidence that i was really desperate for attention.
My doctor finally told me to put some weight on and when i did, one thing i did notice increasingly was that i was getting more and more compliments about my ass and boobs! as a stick i would sometimes get a “you’re so teeny” thrown at me in a complimentary way, but never an animalistic “phwoar, that ass” like i do now!
So I guess, in summary, ‘letting it go’ isn’t just a physical thing, it’s a mental quality too and while the physical result may not be as desirable to most men, the mental result is much more so – and if you’re interested in forming a fulfilling relationship with someone then the latter factor is much more important anyway…
Ann, your comment made me think about some of the things I’ve been noticing here and especially at youreatopia, for those of you familiar with the site. There’s some (mostly) women there that didn’t have eating disorders and are continuing to force feed themselves and continue to gain weight. I can’t comment negatively about this on youreatopia because its against guidelines, but to me this just seems miserable. I only attempted to overeat for a couple weeks in January and it was miserable- I will never do it again. Continuing to force yourself to eat a minimum and remain sedentary for a long period of time just doesn’t seem healthy to me. I do believe its necessary for shorter periods of time for those that have eating disorders, but it seems that some have taken it to the extreme. When I recovered from bulimia as a teenager I didn’t attempt to eat to a ‘minimum’ and I recovered fully, and I think The Real Amy has said the same thing (I also think lack of access to the internet played a role, but that’s another story).
As far as being desirable to the opposite sex, I think there is a happy medium. I definitely agree that looking and feeling attractive is important, I know I feel better in general when I’m happy with how I look. But wanting to be model-thin was also what got me into the ED mess. So I think there’s probably a good reason to care about your appearance, but not so much that it consumes your life.
Yes, I did heal without any minimum. Just appetite.
Also, I forgot to say before that stretchy pants video is AMAZING, Matt. I was dying!
Rob turned me on to that one. I give full credit to him.
I agree! When I first started “eating” again, I went full tilt and overate like crazy. But at that time, I was really missing food and I needed to eat. It helped to heal a lot of health problems. I was also sedentary, but not sleeping enough.
I should have only overeaten for a short time however. (And I should have gotten better sleep and walked at least a little bit!) I continued to force myself to eat on many occasions when I shouldn’t have. It would have been just fine for me to eat to appetite. I’m eating to appetite now and it’s been awesome! It’s been a lot better for my digestion as well.
And, another thing. I am phat. :) I have never been this big in my whole life. But I have never been happier or accepting of myself. My husband and I have a wonderful relationship…which has gotten even better because I’m not as obsessed about food, I have finally have a libido and I am so much happier and cheerful.
“Continuing to force yourself to eat a minimum and remain sedentary for a long period of time just doesn’t seem healthy to me. I do believe its necessary for shorter periods of time for those that have eating disorders, but it seems that some have taken it to the extreme.”
Stephanie,
I am not familiar with that site.
I agree with you.
I myself think force feeding is also an eating disorder. Eating extra calories can be therapeutic for a short while, as you know. But it should not become a way of eating. It is extremely difficult for most women to eat excess calories, not exercise and stay slender. Most women simply do not have that type of metabolism so overeating coupled with under activity is guaranteed to cause weight gain.
Also, there is a difference between being 10 or 20 pounds overweight vs more. Some women actually look better with a little extra weight, depending on their height and bone structure. I don’t think women should aspire to be model thin. A woman of average height (which I think is 5 feet 4 inches in the US) who is a size 8, 10, or 12 is definitely not model thin. I am taller than average and I am not model thin at a size 8 or 10. And notice I mention sizes, not weight, because weight does not account for body composition or height.
Women should definitely not go to extremes and endanger their health in order to get male attention. But I am not convinced that most men like extremely thin women. I think the pressure on women to be super thin comes from other women, not from men. A woman who looks good and feels good about herself at let’s say a size 10 or 12 should not diet to a size 2, 4 or 6; she should find men who like average sized women, and there are plenty of them.
We need to stop pretending that obesity is normal and attractive. But attractiveness aside, what about the negative effects of obesity on health? Extra fat means extra estrogen (body fat produces estrogen) and more inflammation. I thank Ray Peat for making me aware of the harmful effect of endogenous estrogen. Until Peat, I thought only HRT estrogen was harmful. People here are gaining massive amounts of weight assuming that they will lose it later. But estrogen inhibits weight loss so the more fat the harder it is for a woman to lose weight. Men have it a little easier because they have more testosterone and muscle tissue, but estrogen can be a problem for them too.
These comments are making me sad.
Ann, what is paradoxical, I’ve noticed, is that a lot of people who completely let themselves go physically and who “want to be liked for who they are” turn around and want hot-looking partners! Their clothes can be unclean, their hair unkempt, their mouth and body unwashed, their ass unwiped, but, boy, the person they’re interested in had better be smoking hot! This goes for both men and women.
Look, I don’t want to be insensitive here. I am not aiming this at people whose dire health issues make attention to aesthetics of tertiary importance. I am talking about “relatively” healthy people making a decision to ignore their own hygiene, etc.
Whoa man. You know people who don’t wipe their asses and yet expect to score hot dates? I think it’s safe to say that none of the posts on this site are encouraging that kind of behavior or expectation. Dingleberries, huh? Hmmm.
-You know people who don’t wipe their asses and yet expect to score hot dates?-
Julia, it was a literary device, a hyperbole, not to be taken literally. My point being that there are people who don’t care about their own appearance, and personal hygiene, yet think they should be found attractive.
Ah. I see. I wanna meet these people you know.
Yea seriously. Who the hell are these people? Actually, it doesn’t matter one bit, because they have nothing to do with this article.
Matt is sticking with his main message: Don’t do things to try and FORCE fat off of your body, because the long-term result will almost always be MORE fat on your body than before. That’s it. End of story.
Nothing about fat slobs who don’t shower and want hot partners.
“Ann, what is paradoxical, I’ve noticed, is that a lot of people who completely let themselves go physically and who ?want to be liked for who they are? turn around and want hot-looking partners! ”
Yes!
That is what I find truly remarkable. I know so many overweight and out of shape people who would be absolutely offended if you suggested that they go after someone who looks like them. Almost every overweight woman I know wants a slender fit guy and they are always complaining that those fit guys are “shallow” because they don’t give them the time of day. Talk about hypocrisy! Why isn’t the obese person shallow for wanting a fit person? If the man that a woman wants puts the time and effort into maintaining his appearance, why should he want a woman who is not willing to do the same? Same goes for men. If a man want a slender fit woman, then he’d better get to work, unless he’s a millionaire. We need to become what we want to attract instead of demanding that people accept from us what we clearly will not accept from them.
Ann — you sound like a real Stepford wife. If I had to live in the mental prison you describe I would probably kill myself.
I am sorry to hear that.
If you think putting a little effort into maintaining your appearance is a mental prison, then don’t do it.
Absurd. What a straw man response, and quite in the vein of your first comment. Obviously, I’m not referring to “putting a little effort” into appearance as being a mental prison, good grief. I’m referring to the a completely warped worldview embodied in your comment, a fearfully neurotic and disturbingly cynical one.
But just to reply to your straw-man argument for anyone else who cares: If a person doesn’t have the energy and desire to “put a little effort in” to appearances — grooming, wardrobe, reasonable activity — they are probably ill, depressed or overwhelmed with life circumstances. Those are real problems, and must be addressed. Harping on staying slim to attract men adds absolutely nothing of value to people in that situation.
Actually, your comment could’ve been written by the mom of that Korean-American young woman whose mother was forcing her to diet, pay a large sum of money, or move out.
Mighty_M, you are right that if you are really ill, your priority has to be toward your own healing. I also understand that there are people who have been struggling with weight problems and have a problem resolving them. My comments are not pointed at them. I am also certainly not talking about someone who is ten or twenty pounds overweight by “Hollywood” standards.
My issue is with an attitude that can be found among some relatively healthy people. That attitude can be summed up with the phrase, “I don’t care what other people think.”
Now what is wrong with that idea? Well, from one point of view, nothing is wrong with it. Within legal limits, you can do whatever you want. I am not saying that these people SHOULD care what other people think.
The problem is that often these people DO care about what other people think. The “let themselves go” (and I am not talking necessarily about “weight”, I am talking about they just give up caring about their appearance, their social personality, etc) and then when other people no longer find them attractive, they blame the other people.
Now there are a lot of nuances to consider and that I left out (because after all, I wasn’t writing an essay). For example, I am well aware that our ideas about beauty are at least partially (some will say “totally) socially constructed and that there are economic forces that bend those ideas a certain way.
So, I want to be clear that what I am criticizing is a certain attitude. I think that there needs to be some kind of balance between the individual and his social environment. Sometimes a complete rebellion against a given more of society is in order. The Gay movement is an instance of this. However, the attitude of generally “I don’t care what people think of me” strikes me as adolescent and selfish. It’s like saying the world has to bow before me. I am not going to contribute beauty, or anything else to it. That statement might not be clear, definitely would need clarification and will probably be misconstrued, but it’s the best I can do in such a short space.
The point at which I can meet you, Thomas, is when people insist that behavioral norms shouldn’t apply. I got into a facebook debate with someone who thinks she ought to be allowed to visit restaurants barefoot. I don’t care about leanness vs fatness, but I have several complaints about other people not meeting my standards:
– Uptalking. I hate it. Everybody stop talking that way.
– Flipflops. Stop wearing them. Only at the beach or pool.
– Texting while walking. Look where you’re going! By the way, in a crowded environment, keep right when walking.
“Uptalking. I hate it. Everybody stop talking that way.”
I hate it when people try to tell other people how to dress or talk–as though their opinion should dictate others’ behaviors, and their bizarre conviction that everyone should look and sound similar ought to be indulged rather than publicly mocked and shamed. So, yeah.
“Flipflops. Stop wearing them. Only at the beach or pool.”
You can pry my flip flops off my cold, dead feet. They’re dirt cheap, comfy as hell, they let my feet breathe, and I can take them off or put them on in one second flat. I wear “real shoes” for athletic activities, weather, or when formal dress is expected–rarely else. What the F difference does it make to you what people are wearing on their feet? Seriously, why do you care?
“- Texting while walking. Look where you’re going! By the way, in a crowded environment, keep right when walking.”
This one I’ll grant you. It’s not cool to cluelessly crash into people or pose a safety hazard in a crowd. But if you can’t internalize the difference between “don’t hurt or redklessly endanger people” and “durn whippersnappers get your flippy flaps off my lawn”, you’re in for a long lifetime of being pissed off for no good reason at all.
By the way, there is no good epidemiological or safety reason I have ever heard to prohibit people from frequenting public establishments barefoot (for the record I don’t care if a business owner makes this their private policy; I just think it’s ridiculous this cultural bias is enshrined in health code law). Anyone who isn’t willing to take the laughably minuscule risk inherent in putting your foot where (gasp shock horror!) other people have also put their feet can JUST WEAR SHOES. Like, it wouldn’t need to affect your behavior or safety in. any. way. And if your reason is “ew gross yucky”, then you maybe oughta rethink that one for the same reasons outlined above. I’m not going to try and restrict your right to wear shoes; you could do us weirdos the reciprocal courtesy.
I was joking! That was self-parodying kvetching. Sure, these are “pet peeves” of mine, and I could list a few more, but not things that really, truly matter to me, in the big picture. Kind of like all the little things that the characters on Seinfeld are like to kvetch about.
I was satirically trying to suggest that, while some people, have irrational fixations on others’ body size, a person can become irrationally fixated on controlling other things about other people. The fact that I don’t like flip-flops is just my personal opinion, just like Ann’s apparent belief that not neurotically micromanaging one’s weight will lead to marital dissolution as well as the contempt of all who look upon you, is her opinion. Not a “truth.”
The thing I don’t like about flip-flops, incidentally, is the noise they make. I don’t think people who wear them have a character flaw, or anything like that.
Sincerely, I appreciate non-conformists much more than conformists. I have my own little internal rants, but I would never want to hurt anyone’s feelings over them. I really meant that to be taken in the spirit of humor, a la George Carlin or Louis Black, and sorry that didn’t come through.
Well, that’s on me for not catching the sarcasm. I was in a self-righteous mood earlier. That Ann lady was making’ me mad. Sorry to jump on you.
Although in my defense there are a million and a half people on the Internet who say crap like that every day and mean it. Hard to tell sometimes. :-)
Ann, no, that’s not what you’re doing here, encouraging women to invest a ‘little’ effort into maintaining their appearance.
Judging from your voluminous efforts to convey your message, it’s definitely beyond that.
What with the nonsense about needing to maintain a certain figure in order to hold your husband’s sexual attention?! For many women, exercise or a specific diet does not guarantee weight loss/whatever level of fitness. Then what are they to do? Accept the probability that their husbands will cheat on them with someone of the right size/shape? You really think all the obese women out there are force feeding themselves? I can only imagine that those who are doing so are doing it because of poor health. I’d rather live a healthy life condemned to being undesirable to shallow men, then have a hottie and feel like shit (not saying I’m force feeding, but if I ever was).
Since you know more than experts know about what exactly causes obesity, why don’t you spread that message instead? Is it the exercise for 20 minutes three times a week that’s gonna keep them all fit?
Good points- while I agree that remaining attractive and taking effort to keep your partner’s sexual needs met is important, that doesn’t change the fact that healthy, sustainable bodyfat reduction is not something we have solved yet in a generally applicable way. Why do some people remain in energy balance at a lean 160lbs and others at a not lean 250lbs? It’s not clear, though their physiologies react the same way to forcing themselves outside of their set point, up or down.
Yes, everyone likes to talk about ‘compliance’ and say that fat people just don’t have the willpower to stick with it, but that is itself a problem. If the solution is one that only a handful of obsessive types can achieve, it’s not a good enough solution.
Doing some regular enjoyable exercise is awesome for being healthier on several fronts, but may or may not shed fat. And that was the point of this post.
For sure, there are loads of people who have willpower to maintain an exercising program, yet see no results in weight loss. But as Ann states, a man won’t consider the reason for it. What kind of man?
In regards to maintaining our attractiveness and taking effort to meet our partner’s sexual needs, I can’t relate. Maybe my husband and I are simple people:). We met when we were 18 and now nearly 20 years later, life just doesn’t give enough space for that kind of stuff. We enjoy each other the way we are. He gained weight for some time, then I gained weight and it’s never once crossed my mind that he should loose his gut for my benefit or for me to find him more attractive. I honestly feel that people who believe this sort of thing have never experienced real love. Sure, I’ll appreciate it when my husband has found enough time in his busy work schedule to get a shave in, cause it does make him look so much more handsome, but might I consider leaving him for it to go find another guy who has the decency to shave every morning?!
Maybe it has a lot to do with what social class you belong to? I’m guessing if you are more of a refined personality, you’d probably have higher expectations of your mate.
You know what’s fascinating? How many men love heavy chicks. I’m serious. I love looking at my local Craigslist’s personal ads because it is amazing. I’d say a good half of the men on the “casual encounters” page are specifically looking for BBW’s. That’s “big beautiful women” for all you non-sicko’s out there who don’t participate in or read this smut. But then when you look at the ads for men seeking actual relationships, things get decidedly less BBW friendly. Here’s my theory: Men actually dig heavier women. They’re attracted to them, want to have sex with them. But they understand that a bigger lady is not a prize. Socially speaking, you will not increase in status with a heavy set woman on your arm in this day and age. So they’ll take the trophy girls for their relationships and they’ll indulge their “casual”, primordial, raw, unfiltered fantasies with the gals who give ’em more to squeeze. Or maybe it’s just my area that’s like this….all you heavier ladies, if you need a place to scout out a man, I’ve got just the zip code for ya.:)
Anyway. I disagree with you that Matt is convincing women to become obese and therefore unattractive. I see this site as promoting health. And health can happen over size 6. This post didn’t read like a persuasion to not be active, not at all. 20 minutes of weight lifting three times a week sounds like a lot less activity than he is suggesting here. But the key is to make it about something more than losing weight. If I read my Matt’s right, that is.
“But the key is to make it about something more than losing weight. If I read my Matt’s right, that is.”
And I disagree with that. My point is that there is nothing wrong with physical activity solely to lose weight. It is very immature to think that we should do only things that we want to do. Don’t many people work just to earn money? They may not love their jobs, but it does not mean they are miserable. We all have to do things in life that we wish we did not have to. How many mothers do you know who enjoy changing dirty diapers?
I love changing dirty nappies, because it means my son gets a clean arse.
Go ahead and disagree with it. That’s fine. I personally wouldn’t be able to live a life where I worked 40 hours per week just to make money for any length of time, and I wouldn’t want to change a dirty diaper every day for the rest of my life either. No woman would, I’m pretty sure. If you enjoy being bound by duty for narrowly set goals only, play on player. But I don’t think it’s anymore mature or immature than the desire to live with exuberance. To move your body for recreation and utility. To not be sedentary for more reasons than worrying over whether you’ll be considered attractive or not. What a bore. But if that’s what you’re into and you can keep at it, that’s wonderful. For you. But for most people, they get off their “exercise” routine habitually because they resent it.
Living exuberantly and making sacrifices for a bigger goal are not mutually exclusive.
There is a balance here. I long maintained that we should only do what brought us pleasure, especially in a world so seemingly bent on denying us pleasure.
But I think meaning often comes from struggle. Sometime effort and applying oneself to unpleasant things generates more long term pleasure, more satisfaction and purpose and meaning and pride in accomplishment. Like I imagine raising kids. Or learning something new. It’s not always fun. But the end result may be worth the effort.
Discretion is advised of course, and a big dose of fukitol is valuable when starting out. But I would be reluctant to throw out the baby (sometimes uncomfortable but ultimately meaningful effort) with the bathwater (self-abnegation for its own sake or motivated by self-loathing).
That said, I find that weight loss as a sole motivator for exuberant movement is usually not sustainable, and that cultivating a healthy love for moving one’s body is awesome.
You are right, sir. I’d never try to argue that sacrifice for a larger goal is not part of a healthy, happy, well-rounded life. We are not just hunter gatherers nosing around from moment to moment anymore. The very core of our society requires sacrifice now for gain later, i.e agriculture. I’m all about it. But I do believe that people get so caught up in their goals that they forget to smell the roses every once in awhile. Some of us like to sniff the roses more than others. I’m one of those people.
And I agree with your statement on exercise. Personally, I feel that exercise being compartmentalized as something we do separate from the rest of our (mainly sedentary) lives is not a good deal. I know it isn’t easy for a lot of folks to be more active in their regular goings about, but for me, an active lifestyle is far superior to specific time set apart for “exercise.” Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes you need to get started on a workout plan in order to motivate yourself to move. I’ve been there. But once I get back in a good condition and have momentum, I much prefer my “exercise” as a by-product of other ambitions. Like running up a trail to check out an eagle’s nest or something. That’s what I did today. But sitting around logging calories burned and keeping tabs and feeling guilty if I miss my workout, no thank you. But we’re all different. I’m no pusher. Do what works for you.
It’s not immature. Being active is something that sustains us just like food does, and in order for that to be effective, it has to stimulate our reward center (just how we’re biologically wired). Sure, part of being all grown up and responsible is to be able to do things we don’t necessarily love. But when it comes to the basics; loving, eating, moving–it has to be tied to pleasure or the effort won’t be full enough and will be wasted in no time.
Julia, I don’t disagree that there are men who find corpulent women attractive. However, I don’t think most men in our culture are attracted to extremely obese women (I know that you didn’t say that, but I am pointing it out).
That said, I honestly don’t think ads on Craig’s List don’t reflect the type of women most men prefer. Let’s face it. They don’t go there expecting to find Scarlet Johansson, so a lot of ads looking for BBW are just meant to flatter these type of women in order to get some quick nooky.
Don’t forget: men are trained to lie to women in these matters. A lot of times they will tell you want you want to hear, if they think it will get them laid. I suspect that in many cases that is what is going on with these Craig’s List ads. Just being honest. I might be wrong about the Craig’s List ads, but I don’t think so
Agreed- it may be the case for some, but I don’t think casual encounter ads for BBWs reflect a secret yearning in men as a whole for that body type, if only their friends wouldn’t snicker.
I think it’s like Thomas says- dudes make a calculation that they can hook up more easily with those women; if they could place an ad and sleep with a Shakira or Emma Watson, most would.
Interest in sex with a woman does not equal relationship interest. There are plenty of women who I’d sleep with who I would not want to date/marry. I reckon that’s true for almost every guy.
Well of course I am not suggesting that all men are attracted to bigger women. What I am saying though, is that there are more men out there who are specifically seeking bigger women (for sex) than one would glean from the types of women most men appear to be attracted to. As you alluded to Rob, there are women that many men would sleep with that they wouldn’t date or marry based entirely on appearance. The question of course, is why that is. I am sure that much of it has to do with social standing and status gained or lost by the kind of partner you acquire. Because really, what changes? If you can become aroused by a body type for a one night stand, why can’t you be aroused by it for any length of time?
Also, this is a discussion about what people find attractive. Ann suggested that men do not find overweight women attractive and according to what we see in the culture, that’s true. But I believe it’s actually a lot different behind the scenes. Not for everyone. But for a lot.
So much of this is cultural and not innate. Men in Uganda only want to marry fat women. In some old Native American tribes, you weren’t a real man until you had a homosexual experience. How many red blooded Hetero American males do you think would see either of those things as in line with their own desires? But we’ve all got the same chemicals swirling in our brains.
Here’s my take on sexual dynamics: we all try to mate with the most attractive person we can realistically attain.
Whoever is perceived in the relationship to be more attractive, to have more options, has the upper hand. The partner with fewer options considers themselves lucky and is more eager and enthusiastic to meet the other’s needs, lest they lose their ‘catch.’
Sleeping with someone you know you’re hotter than means they’re more enthusiastic to keep you satisfied. This may explain the casual encounters ads. Those BBWs may be more eager to please.
Guys dance a fine line here; they want to date someone as attractive as they can who also poses a minimal flight risk. Infidelity is a serious enough fear that most guys will marry a woman slightly less hot but who is more loyal if they have to choose between the two.
The latter is what I meant by ‘women I’d sleep with but not date/marry.’ Long term partner qualities don’t come automatic with attractiveness, and may even be inversely proportional.
There is a line, though, where a threshold attractiveness has to be met to sleep with someone. It’s somewhat higher if I’m going to commit to them.
Why? Because guys can often overlook unattractive features if their partners are eager in bed, but only for so long. Not wifing up your BBW casual encounter may be due to social stigma and embarrassment around your buddies, but may just as likely be due to losing interest after you’ve gotten your rocks off a time or two.
I’d say that’s a fair assessment of the most basic, instinctual mating behavior displayed by our species. Sure. But you seem to be proceeding from the notion that everyone basically agrees on what is or is not attractive, which I think is bologna.
I have to think it’s bologna because I’ve lived it. Don’t you think that there are things about human beings that are attractive besides outward appearances? Haven’t you ever been tied up in knots over how someone laughs? Twirls their spaghetti? Haven’t you ever been turned on by someone who can tell a great joke? Make a great pot roast? Plays the guitar beautifully? We aren’t so two dimensional that all we react to is physical appearance. And even if we were, you must concede that there are differences among people as to what is or is not sexy. If we can have preferences over hair color or ethnicity or be butt men or boob men, why can’t we be into bigger chicks? Skinny guys?
I may have told this story before, but there was this really fuckin’ hot guy that managed a local franchise restaurant that me and all my pals loitered at back in the day. And we all had crushes on him. And he didn’t care. We weren’t big enough. Guy liked ’em big. My mom was big. My dad thought she was hot. Said she had an hour and a half glass figure. I mentioned this one recently, but I was butt crazy in love with a pimply faced, pasty skinned, awkward guy with a head so huge and wide you could paint a billboard on it. So what. He was smart, challenging, confident and sensitive. I fucking loved him. I am not typically attractive. I have bad teeth. I have thin hair. I have a loud, bordering on obnoxious personality. I don’t do my nails. I don’t do any of that stuff. I’ve attracted plenty of guys. Even had me one of those blonde haired, blue eyed, cut jaw, J Crew model looking law student boyfriend’s. He thought I was earthy, smart, sexy and fun. He could’ve gotten way “hotter” than me. He subsequently has. But he thought I was attractive. I thought he was attractive too. But it was only skin deep. I find that happens a lot. Really really good looking people tend to be kinda boring. Maybe they think their looks will carry them. I’ve found that men appreciate a woman who enjoys living and has a freedom of self and something interesting to say more so than a perfect body. Or at least the guys that go for me. And they do. Some don’t. We’re all different it seems.
Or here, check out good old Hilda. I love this broad. So does my boyfriend. The pictures of girls on covers of Playboy and Maxim leave him cold. But when I showed him Hilda, well. That was a whole ‘nother story. He’s not alone I see, note the men commenting on this. http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/08/02/americas-forgotten-pin-up-girl/
And that’s the other reason why I don’t think people should beat themselves into a figure that doesn’t come relatively natural to them. There are people out there who will go ga-ga for you just the way you are. Well of course, don’t be like Thomas’s friends. Wipe your ass. Run a comb through your hair for chrissakes. But if you go out of your way to make yourself into an illusion of someone else, you’re gonna miss out on being seen for what you really are and the satisfaction that would come from being loved for it.
I’ll add that I am not typically UN-attractive, either. I think I’m thoroughly average in every way. But it’d be really really easy for me to get pretty hot, I’ll bet. Really. Like if I wore some make up to even out my complexion and worked out more and if I had given in to the pressure of my family and gotten braces when I was a kid, if I went and got a real hair cut- like the kind with a style to it- I betcha I could be “hot.” I’ve got halfway decent raw material, I just don’t put in the extra effort. But frankly, I wouldn’t want to do that. I like it better this way. I prefer the kinds of people I attract this way. Who needs a bunch of idiots bowling over themselves over you because of what you look like? Jesus! I’d rather hang around people who are drawn to me because of what I have to say and how I make them feel. Honest.
Of course it varies from person to person, and absolutely we can be attracted to folks for lots of reasons. Sometimes it’s just chemical; pheromones or whatever. Someone just drives us crazy. One woman I knew through friends was young, not too bright and kind of self-destructive. Red flags. But I totally got that twitterpated knot in my stomach even at the hint of being around her. Awesome stuff those chemicals.
And I’m all about not trying to beat yourself into a mold that doesn’t fit. There are very few Brad Pitts or Beyonces of the world- no use feeling like a failure if you don’t reach the goal of looking like them. But do become a strapping version of yourself. Cultivate talents and passions and charm and wit and storytelling. Be kick-ass at a thing or two. Your higher energy level will attract more people. You don’t have to be a model, but don’t be mediocre.
Yes, and maybe one of the reasons someone is attracted to another is that they’re on the thick side. Maybe the guys writing those ads authentically get turned on by heavy women. And yes, be you on all cylinders. No doubt.
Another thing I’d like to argue, if a man is posting on craiglist about how he wants to orally pleasure specifically a BBW for hours or how he loves curvy women and wants to grab a hold, etc, I don’t think that means he thinks he’s going to catch a girl who’s going to be really worried about pleasing him because she knows she’s less attractive than him. He’s the one who’s seeking, he’s the one putting it out there and he’s the one suggesting that BBW’s are hot. The onus is on him to do a good job and prove he’s worth her while since she is the commodity he’s after, I’d say. So that makes me doubt your suggestion that these men are seeking BBW’s because they are likely to be eager to please. Maybe like in a bar scene when it’s rolling up on last call and a guy suddenly saddles up to a chubby girl, maybe that’s like that. All out of options and hoping she’ll realize his upper hand and go out of her way to do a good job. But these ads, man. These guys are aching for big chicks. And old chicks. Now explain that one to me. Why, using any measure of science, would a young, attractive male seek to have sex with a woman in her 40’s or 50’s? Because they are out there. I can think of a few reasons for it, but none of them make any kind of scientific sense.
One thing that’s true: most of the guys looking for BBW’s are black. And most of the young guys going for older women are white and very very in shape. I don’t really know what that means. Do with that information what you will.
Julia, I love Hilda! Gotta check those comments out:).
Whether a man loves himself a thicker girl or a petite one I believe has a lot to do with his own personality and mental expectations of a partner. Some like to have a tiny girl to protect, others like to be matched with a more able-bodied partner. Able-bodied tend to come with a larger frame, though not always. Some fat on that frame also signals stronger reproductive abilities.
To be skinny/slender like a model is only possible when one doesn’t have to do much physical work to get along in life. I believe that image, as do most images today of what is socially desirable, has trickled down from the upper class (who obviously didn’t have to do much physical work) to the lower classes, who nowadays are just as sedentary.
Well I’m not so sure. There are plenty of guys on there looking for thin women. Usually stated politely as “not into BBW’s, sorry.” But there are dudes on there that specifically are looking for BBW’s. Not just saying they’re ok, saying that’s what they’re going for. There are also a lot of young guys looking for older women. I do think that the “casual encounters” section is where people go to try their luck fulfilling desires that aren’t easy to be forthright about in normal interactions. I also think it’s where people try to get satisfaction for desires that don’t fall into the norms.
Some are just fun. One guy in his late 20’s has a great ad up. He is a fully insured handyman, see. He wants to come over to an older woman’s house and fix her pipes and then uh, lay some pipe. It was very clever and creative. I hope someone takes him up on it!
I doubt it though, because I don’t think too many women are scanning the “casual encounters” page for more than laughs.
OK, Ann, I apologize for calling you a Stepford wife upthread. Your post was so mean-spirited, contemptuous, and full of lies that I felt you deserved it. But name-calling is wrong.
I don’t take back the part about “mental prison.” Your view of the world is very dark, and your view of people who have given up dieting to gain health is very distorted. Most of your arguments are non sequiturs and straw-man arguments … a real cheapening of the discourse when the original post referenced Plato, I’d say. Your comment was only tangentially related to Thomas’ point, in my opinion.
But then I got to thinking about all the fear implicit what you wrote — fear of abandonment, fear of loss of social status. I feel compassion for those fears in you, because I fear these things too, often.
I would like to offer an alternative perspective on those fears. From the tone of your comment, Ann, I’m not optimistic that you’re interested. But maybe someone else is. And maybe even you are, secretly … why else would you be reading here, when your comment’s POV is already so well represented on the Real Housewives series?
For me, restrictive eating made those fears closer to reality, rather than protecting me from them. Regarding fear of abandonment: Preoccupation with restrictive eating limited my social life and made me alternatingly emotionally unavailable and overly needy to my friends and partner; being in a state of semi-starvation strained my relationships. Regarding fear of loss of social status: It’s true that thin people get a certain amount of status from thinness alone, so long as they aren’t “too thin.” However, restrictive eating suppressed my energy and my drive. I can see now that it was a root, yet indirect, cause of some recent career setbacks; I simply didn’t have the energy to perform at a high level. Professional success in a field where you can excel is a much surer route to social status than mere thinness.
“OK, Ann, I apologize for calling you a Stepford wife upthread. Your post was so mean-spirited, contemptuous, and full of lies that I felt you deserved it. But name-calling is wrong.”
No problem. The truth can hurt, I know. I am not mean spirited or contemptuous but you are free to believe that. My posts were full of truths that you cannot accept.
But rejecting the truth does not change it. Men want attractive women. People have to put effort into attracting and keeping mates. It has been this way since the beginning of time and it has not changed.
But you do have the right to opt out of everything and be what you want to be. You have a right to eat yourself into obesity. I don’t hate obese people. They have a right to exist like everyone else. My point is that no one is obligated to want a personal relationship with you if they don’t like your physical appearance. We humans are visual creatures and we do react strongly to appearances that we like or dislike. Don’t get angry at me, get angry at mother nature for making us this way.
It really does not matter why you personally have chosen to overeat and become overweight. Your emotional issues are yours to deal with but no one should accept you as you are simply because you have compelling reasons for being overweight.
I have no fears of abandonment. I don’t need your advice, but maybe it will help someone else. I read Matt’s blog because I like it and there is a lot of useful and interesting information here from Matt and everyone who comments. I am not here because I need to heal myself by overeating. And I don’t advocate or practice “restrictive” eating. If you think that the only two choices in life are starvation and overeating then I feel sorry for you.
“My point is that no one is obligated to want a personal relationship with you if they don’t like your physical appearance.”
No one is obligated to want a personal relationship with ANYONE regardless of reason. That is beyond obvious to everyone. I’m not sure why you think that’s such a provocative thesis. I’m disgusted by your miserable tone. Maybe in real life you’re not mean-spirited and contemptuous. Maybe this is just your online persona. Maybe Bill O’Reilly is actually a pleasant humanitarian in real life.
Also, by making such liberal use of the 2nd person in your comment to me, you are making many unfounded and incorrect assumptions, so that you can argue against an imaginary caricature. That is the straw-man fallacy, classically displayed, a very lazy style of debate.
I admit Matt started it with his overly provocative headline, though. But, that’s the blogging biz for you.
Wow.
“But you do have the right to opt out of everything and be what you want to be. You have a right to eat yourself into obesity. I don’t hate obese people. They have a right to exist like everyone else. ” Obese people around the world celebrate Ann’s proclamation that they do indeed, have the right to exist like non-fat people. Three cheers everyone!
“It really does not matter why you personally have chosen to overeat and become overweight. Your emotional issues are yours to deal with but no one should accept you as you are simply because you have compelling reasons for being overweight”. That’s right fatso, I refuse to accept you as you are, cos you are like, fat. Urgh, gross. Icky. Yuk. I just won’t do it. You are fat! Are you not seeing this!!!!
Ann, you sound really sad. I hope you don’t judge yourself like you judge others, cos that would hurt. Big hugs xo
“No problem. The truth can hurt, I know. I am not mean spirited or contemptuous but you are free to believe that. My posts were full of truths that you cannot accept.”
If it quacks like a duck…
You don’t have to think you are mean to be mean. You don’t have to realize you are afraid to behave fearfully. You dont have to intend harm to inflict suffering. The people here are telling you that you come across as mean and fearful. I have to agree.
Your “truths” are not; they are opinions, and rather nasty ones at that. Your points are mainly straw men; nobody but you has suggested that people should give up making any effort to appear attractive to potential partners. Nobody but you has suggested they are intending to become obese on purpose. Nobody but you has implied that by giving up on dieting or forced weight management they are also giving up on their lives, ambitions, goals or partners. Your continuing to argue as though these points were at issue reveals either a lack of reading comprehension (which I doubt, given your own fluency) or intellectual dishonesty.
That you cannot understand how a person might, in ceasing neurotic behavior and living more joyfully, become instantly more sexually attractive regardless of their weight status and improve their own well-being in the process betrays a fearfully inadequate understanding of what causes attraction and happiness in human beings.
Ann, we had a slight clash on that sujet a while ago, i might even look in the archives
to find it.. I believe i half ironicaly complained about gaining some weight
on Matt’s recomendations and your answer was quite fast, with a simulary voiced meprise on us women who get obese for “no reason” except their tendency toward gluttony
.
Now, you are far from being right which is because you have never asked me any question. I am afraid that that your judgment was more satisfaction yelding to you then understanding.
I am not fat. I am in fact 1,80 m tall and currently weight 63 kg. i got a teribly sexy partner, great job, and i am 38 years old. I do not go to the gym, neither run or do any serious ( or not exercises). I dont think my husband will take an mistress( how miserable insecure as thinking) because i did gain 7 kg. The 7 kg are gone with the summer, no effort,
what stays is my (welcome back!) capacity to eat whatever i feel like.
I dont believe there are that many seriously strugling with their weight men and women here and if there are some i got admiration for their fight.
Obesity is a sickness and it must be bloody hard. I think most of us
or at list me are driven by
Intelectual curiosity, pleasure to read something nonchalant like Matt’s writing ,
and eventually implicate the useful stuff in their life..
Please, for the statistics.. Is there someone who got seriously fat on Mtt’s recomendations?
“am not fat. I am in fact 1,80 m tall and currently weight 63 kg. i got a teribly sexy partner, great job, and i am 38 years old. I do not go to the gym, neither run or do any serious ( or not exercises). I dont think my husband will take an mistress( how miserable insecure as thinking) because i did gain 7 kg. The 7 kg are gone with the summer, no effort,’
I am happy for you.
But that does not change the fact that men like slender (I never said skinny) women.
What makes you so sure that your husband won’t take a mistress? How do you know that he does not already have one? The wife is always the last to know.
Ann, you are definitely some sort of troll, or a gnome. You’re completely out of order to elina! What are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to make problems in her marriage? where are you coming from with these personal attacks? I’m reading this comment thread in order so I cannot imagine what you have said in response to me.
I am curious to know how did you decide that
136 pounds to 5f 11 is not slender..
That is rather surprising to me..
As for the mistress.. Ann, such a senseless attack can come
from deranged mind, mistrust and paranoia are
the Demos and Phobos to ones suffering from pathological
mental diseases.
Ann, did your husband cheat on you? I’m sorry if he did, but it won’t ease the pain to shame other women for what you believe was your shortcomings.
Ann obviously hit a nerve with some of you. Why are you so threatened by her perspective? What happened to live and let live? Many of your all’s comments to her were way nastier than anything she said. If she wants to put time and energy into maintaining a slim figure……SO WHAT!!!!!!! Let it go ladies.
Of course people like Ann and the entire beauty industry hits a nerve with women who have had to make a choice between their health and having a perfect slim body. Duh.
Ann certainly doesn’t go by the motto ‘live and let live’, that’s why some of us ladies are bothered.
Yes starting with shallow goals of objectification and then deepen your relationship to a “pretty girl” by getting to know here by all means. That’s a nice utopian view that may work for the shallow goal of weight loss by means of exercise if it becomes an active positive habit as you get to know it.
So…
What happens if the pretty girl so objectified ends up being a rather dim individual who only cares for money. (stereotype but useful in this analogy) Would you continue to get to know her and deepen the relationship? Exercise for weight loss only
could be like that. Start an exercise program and find yourself disenchanted for various reasons like not losing weight and you may not continue that relationship either. Just popped into my head while enjoying and reading your comment Thomas:)
Or maybe in Thomas’ defense and to continue that analogy:
You say ‘onto the next one,’ and shake off any co-dependence or oneitis, and find a better match that you don’t despise and who actually likes you back. :-D
I like your continuance with the analogy. I was attempting to use Thomas’s analogy to explain how using exercise for weight loss alone is a shallow goal that may not serve a person well. I don’t know if an exercise program to lose weight is something you would “shake off” if it didn’t work for you. Also not sure if co-dependency is something that applies to ones relationship with exercise. With people tho it makes sense to move on for sure:)
Welp, as someone who is partially responsible for the direction you’re troubled with, Thomas, let me just tell you what I think:
People who go out of their way to defy social norms are just as silly as people who go out of their way to comply with them. And the goal of being yourself should not be to make people like you. The goal of being yourself should be to grow into something that you feel good about when you hit the pillow at night. It’s about becoming someone that fills you with a self-confidence that no changing trends or passing opinions of others has the power to touch. If that means shaving every pesky strand of body hair, do it up. If that means letting it all hang out, more power to you.
When you have this kind of self-confidence, you do tend to attract people. Yes you do. Even if you’re totally weird and freaky and not normal, you attract people. You can even start trends. Someone had to be the first to grow their hair long and loose and burn their bra in the 60’s, right? That would have been totally gross to your average woman at the time. Until it wasn’t. But if you’re eschewing all sense of aesthetics and indignantly expecting others to like you because of it, you do not have self-confidence. You are doing the exact same thing the conforming crowd is doing, you’re just taking it in a different direction. You are adopting a behavior, a presentation of self that is based on the hope that others will react to it favorably, thus validating you. And if you want to get down to who you really are and live it, you’re gonna have to forget about all that.
That said, I think this piece is simply stating that exercise is best when it is done spontaneously and in the spirit of things other than “oh fuck I have to exercise again.” And I think it’s right on. Tomorrow I’m going to spend the day at a lake. I’m gonna have the place almost all to myself because all the suckers are back in school. I’m gonna exercise. I’m gonna work on my core strength because that’s gonna help my back pain and overall balance and such. I’m gonna flip around like a seal. I’m gonna paddle like a doggie. Then I’m gonna eat mozzarella sticks at the grand old dive on the outskirts of town because what the hell, life is meant to be lived. It’s gonna be great.
Well said. Beautifully said. Smartly said, Julia.
I hate you for luring me into watching that Who’s Johnny video. I couldn’t make it stop. Joke’s on me, I know, just tell me how to get it out of my head. PLEASE!!!!
If you are not healthy and happy, Thomas, what difference does it make what others think? I have made more progress not worrying about what others say and think and do. I will challenge every dogma and idea and assumption they take for granted, down to the need to exercise at all to be in good shape. See Aajonus and others who were anti-exercise. Doing anything as a flower is stupid and pathetic. Go your own way and stop being a dumb slave. Getting more sun and drinking sofas and avoiding pufas has made me leaner and fitter than I was before without exercise. Listen to the mainstream like Jillian and you will end up miserable with a lot of health problems lite her and the other body builders. They only talk about success stories and a limited definition of success, not long-term holistic at all
I don’t agree that Matt is saying don’t exercise. He’s saying do exercise because you want to not because you feel you have to. Find something you enjoy and you will carry on doing it, be healthier, look better and might just weigh less as a pleasant side effect. For years I tried to stick to cardio based exercise routines that I hated. I finally discovered I liked weight lifting. Now I lift weights for 30 mins 3 x a week and feel more comfortable in my own skin. Whether I lose a few pounds or not is a secondary matter.
I think sometimes people need a little extra motivation to start exercising because it’s hard when you’re out of shape, and as Thomas pointed out whatever gets you out there is good. Exercise may not feel good at first, it’s tough. It would probably be good to start with some walking and easy stretches to start getting used to it rather than torturing yourself, but once you start getting going, it usually becomes enjoyable because you feel good, and the steam picks up from there.
The other thing is, you really don’t need a lot of dedicated exercise to look and feel good. 30-60 minutes 3x/week can do wonders, plus maybe some walking in your normal day. That is really different than someone killing themselves to pound out hours on the treadmill.
I think just walking at a brisk but comfortable pace is more than enough exercise to be starting with when you have been sedentary for a while. Nearly everyone can walk. It’s enjoyable and generally not hard or painful for most. If you are really out of shape you can start small with 5 minutes or something and add a minute every day until in a few months you’re either walking a couple hours a day or you’ve moved on to a more challenging regimen on your own momentum. The important thing is to move your body in a way that you will look forward to, because it’s inherently enjoyable, and in some way that fits into your regular routine so you will start doing it out of habit, IMO.
What… no mention of Disc Golf!!! Pathetic.
I agree with Half N.
Find enjoyable ways to keep active. Keeping active is key. Wrote repetitive exercises reach a point of diminishing returns fairly quickly. How many hours a week are you willing to trade exercising on that off chance that the hot girl at the office will overlook your lousy personality in favor of your six pack abs.
I believe this is the philosophy of the French, non?
I think Ann is talking bollocks here. Listen to mercury. Matt isn’t telling anyone to eat as much as they want, he’s advising people to get to a state where they can act on true feelings of hunger or thirst- or sloth for that matter- cues which most food restrictive types or gym-botherers have probably messed up completely, especially those on funny diets demonising one food or another.
For Ann’s information I have put on a stone in weight since following this advice, however I have a massive list of benefits, the first of which is a nice fat libido which my boyfriend is not complaining about at all. My temperature is up (my goal), I have sprouted thick new hair all around my hairline, I got my periods back after having none since getting pregnant, I’m far less stressed so I’m nice to be around, my skin is great and so on and so on. What am I supposed to think, that these qualities are worth trading in so I can weigh a bit less? Is a low weight the only marker of beauty, nay, social acceptability in Ann’s view? It sounds so trivial.
Extra weight has given me more energy and made me look, function and feel better. And I still care about my appearance- a few extra pounds will not chain me to the sofa in a track suit. Now, I eat drink and move when I feel the urge to and I am not hung up on the weight issue.
I’m not when Ann’s “beginning of time” was, but perhaps you should check out these Venus figurines before you claim your views as universal truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines
These are the paleolithic ideal of a woman (paleo dieters take heed),
Oh brother, the old Rubens argument. I was waiting for that one to be pulled out. It’s true that the ideas of beauty are not timeless or universal. Nobody has made that argument. At least I haven’t. However, completely ignoring any standard of beauty (whatever they might be) will reward you with loneliness. If you’re cool with that, fine.
Some people are attracted to larger-size people. Some people are attracted to darker-skin people. Some people are attracted to muscular people, some to really thin people. Some people are attracted to blue-eyed people. There are lots of different types of beauty. However, if you think that you’re going to forgo any attention to beauty and be attractive to the sex of your preference, good luck. If being attractive and attracting a mate or mates is not of interest to you, then you are an anomaly in the animal kingdom.
Who said anything about forgoing every attention to beauty?? Just because I am “obese” doesn’t mean that I don’t do my hair and choose my outfits with thought. Just coz someone follows Matt’s advice and gains a lot of weight doesn’t mean they totally don’t give a shit about appearances anymore. Just means they’re willing to be outside the box on what is beautiful.
I think the best thing I ever heard was, “whatever you’ve got, someone’s going to be into it.” If you are happy with more curves, you will attract men who are more into that. Whatever body type you are, you can be assured someone will like it (assuming you are putting effort in, of course, as Thomas points out). As long as you are confident about it.
And as long as you are willing to accept the men who are attracted to you as you are. I know obese women who want slender men and constantly complain about those men not wanting them.
I am very aware that heavy women can and do attract men. The point is that slender women attract more men and in general the more men you attract, the more likely you are to find one that you like.
Who here is ignoring any standard of beauty? I honestly have never met anyone who entirely ignores any standard of beauty. I’ve known lots of people, myself included, who sport a different kind of beauty than that which is popular. But never have I met a person who didn’t care at all.
Bad day for Thomas Seay.
Who exactly did you had in mind when talking:
“I am talking about ?relatively? healthy people making a decision to ignore their own hygiene, etc.”
Do not know anyone like that..
As for the Rubens argument..
Come in my business Thomas, where young girls of 16 are weighting
45 kg on 1,80, their arms and legs are thin beyond the ones you see on
WW2 CC picture and when they have lunch with the team they mess up with their dishes so it looks like they’ve been eating while not a single mouthul has made it to their bellies. A girl designed for a top model was fainting on my shooting half a year ago, her “companion” made her drink Diet Coke.. she was starving.
This is the ultimate beauties of the moment. They go out with the richest, the
most famous, the most powerful guys there it, except for the ones that goes
out with actresses.. Half of the girls that are gracing covers, campaigns
are sick. And they are the measure of beauty today. They are the convention.
So yeah Julia, you are right. Fuck convention, feeling entirely well is the most important thing, the rest is secondary.
I’m going to sort of piggy back on Julia’s comments about the goal of being yourself isn’t to make people like you– because I like the retort that you had to the post. I think that we do need to keep in mind that flipping convention on its head does, in fact, become rather conventional.
But I do think that the article isn’t really about not taking care of yourself- because when you actually DO feel good about yourself, you WANT to care for all aspects of your being, and that does make you more of a people magnet. Although for anyone who does become happier and healthier by not making themselves treadmill rats, these relationships are likely to be healthier, happier relationships. I think this post, like most of them on here, are geared towards people with the mindset “I have to work out, if I don’t work out I won’t be thin and if I’m not thin I won’t be attractive and happy.”
I guess the point here is that you get what you put in. So in that respect, you are right. If you don’t take care of yourself, constantly give society the finger, and lack compassion, you’re gonna get niente. But there is a big difference between genuinely liking yourself for all of your quirks, flaws, and strengths, and deciding that “society doesn’t like me and neither do I, so I’m not showering FOR THE NEXT YEAR.” So I think that both extremes- constantly looking to get the thumbs up and lacking any and all caring- miss the point that real self love comes from a place of compassion and opens you up to love other people and ultimately care for yourself and others in ways that are sustainable.
Ann made that argument, in invoking “the beginning of time” (whenever that is) as the beginning of thin obsession. My point was that under Ann’s regime there is no alternative, she is wrong to see that as “truth” and condemn others for being little (or big) fatties.
Why is weight gain a slippery slope to rejecting human society?
I feel like the modern thin obsession started with twiggy in the sixties
In the US, there were roots of it in the 1920s, but the Depression and WW2 focused people’s minds on necessities for a while. The Twiggy era was a time of unprecedented prosperity, and people’s minds returned to optional, decorative trivialities. Also, the Boomers were in the flower of youth and were heavily influencing pop culture. Note that “relaxed fit jeans” came about in the 80s and 90s when the Boomers hit middle age! :)
So basically wanting to be like a stick figure is a first world problem. As long as we can afford to feed ourselves well we can afford the luxury of starving ourselves on purpose.
yep.
Uhm, I don’t know if ‘feeding ourselves well’ is applicable to the millions of poor people living in the first world.
The obsession with thin is an illusion. We’re simply being fed images of prosperous, beautiful looking people who also ‘happen’ to be thin. Being fed a certain diet of imagery has the infallible consequence of setting our preferences. Switch to a diet of Rubens, and people follow suit. It’s propaganda and nothing else. It has absolutely nothing to do with our increased affluence. Having access to an abundant food supply in other times and places has not produced an obsession with slenderness.
Obsession with one’s physical appearance (well past the age of courtship) is self-infatuation and limits our understanding of our place in the family and larger society; we work less as a unit as a result when attention is hyper focused inward.
Being thin/underdeveloped/undernourished often means infertility. We know that population growth must be checked.
Yes, the modern media bombardment is a large contributing factor in the realitively recent obsession with thin.
And also usually poor first world people tend to be more on the obese side. At least from my experience. That doesn’t mean they are feeding themselves well but they are managing to feed themselves a lot.
I thought obesity among the poor had more to do with the quality of the food they can afford to eat, as well as factors like thyroid dysfunction, being sedentary, depression etc.
Could be, she was certainly striking for her thinness, what a difference to the 1950s style models
Here’s a theory: that Twiggy also visually suggested the “downtown” (referring to downtown Manhattan) culture of the mid-60s, which was alternative at the time, represented in part by Andy Warhol’s silver factory scene. Edie Sedgwick’s look, in particular, was a visual “mascot” or avatar of that scene. The drug of choice was amphetimines — which had become mainstream as “diet pills” by the late 60s/70s.
Twiggy, the marketed “product” and look, didn’t directly represent the downtown nyc scene, but maybe her popularity was in part because she was a sanitized version of the downtown, arty, druggy look.
A more common explanation is that her shape recalled coltish adolescence, and the Boomers were just becoming teenagers, so her look might have been a way to reach that new market. Just Googled her: “I hated what I looked like,” she said once, “so I thought everyone had gone stark raving mad.” In later years, she also criticized the trend toward super-thin models, Wikipedia says: “I was very skinny, but that was just my natural build. I always ate sensibly ? being thin was in my genes.” At the time, her androgynous figure was explicitly described as such; rather than representing the physically ideal womanhood. As above, the skinny androgynous look is how some teenagers appear, and it may have been seen as a good way to market stuff to the teen Boomers.
Reading your comments, Thomas, I keep getting these visuals of some looser buddies of yours who torture you with their persistent moaning about not getting laid by the hot girls, despite their pot bellies, stinky armpits and uncombed hair cause ‘I’m really beautiful on the inside!’.
I’m not getting similar visuals of people on this blog, but then they’re all strangers to me.
You do know that the standards of beauty today is vastly different from ‘other time periods’/cultures’ standards of beauty’? I don’t think there’s ever been a time when beauty standards have been used to actively discourage reproduction. The super skinny girl is simply not going to have as much reproductive luck as the Rubens girl. Nor is she going to be very successful at pregnancy if she even manages to get to that point, she’ll be way more likely to suffer birth complications, and she’ll really suck at being a good mom. We may not be out in the field all day breaking our backs nowadays, but child rearing demands endurance and a healthy metabolism.
I’m just guessing that if a woman wants a shallow man who couldn’t care less about her stamina, good mothering qualities etc, she’s a shallow person herself, and she’s probably already investing a great deal of time in keeping her appearances top-notch.
Crinkly,
That very article you link to states that the various interpretations of what those figurines mean is not based on anything, so you cannot claim that these are the paleolithic ideal of a woman.
True Pink, we can never know the exact meaning and maybe there wer multiple meanings at the time (by the way, these were around for a long time, 35k- 11k years BP) but these things are the only paleolithic material culture that survives that was not related to subsistence. That is significant. What are they, then? Dolls, icons, ornaments?
We can tell that they are women, so is it too far fetched to presume that people carving these would carve something they thought looked good? Something they wanted. Why waste your time carving something you don’t want to see?
Maybe ideal is too strong, what about “approved”?
I don’t think we can impute much about their motivations for carving the figurines. They could be purely symbolic or religious symbols not meant to represent real women; they could have been carved pornography; they could have been for lots of things. Even if they were symbols of fecundity or whatever, AND even if obese women were in fact revered or worshipped in some way, that STILL doesn’t necessarily imply they were sex symbols or considered more or less sexually attractive because of their size. People like to assume a lot of things. We can’t ask the carvers what they meant, so we’ll never know for sure.
This is not to say I don’t think the “fat women were sexually ideal in the Paleolithic” idea has some merit, just that it’s far from established by anything but conjecture as far as I know.
Keep deluding yourself.
Even if men did like obese women in the Paleolithic era, we are now in the 21st century.
you’re not
Lol nice one.
Ann, your comments are ridiculous. I have put on weight in order to get my temps back up. My husband still loves me, actually he has always loved my body more when it’s “curvy”. Whenever I’ve lost weight or become skinny he has complained. So yes, now I am probably classed as “obese”. I don’t claim to be over-joyed about that but on the other hand it is so very liberating. The thing you have missed Ann is that I am doing this to heal. It is a transition. Once my temps and weight is stable I will then embark on a more active lifestyle (I actually can’t wait to be more active). If you have a better way of healing the metabolism Ann then please share.
Elocin, I gained a ton of weight last year. It happened after I was really really sick for a long time and then tried Paleo to remedy it. I felt so horrible it was unreal. Then I gave up the Paleo and got better and put on a whole lotta pounds. But now I have more energy than I’ve had in years and I’m super psyched about living my life (for the first time) without constantly concerning myself with my weight. It’s like a whole new existence. I’m excited about carving out a new body in a slow, healthy way that never punishes or deprives. I feel like I have an totally different body fleshing out than the one I had before. Much more womanly and curvy, less stocky and pot bellied. It’s great. I’m guessing I’m running on less cortisol than I was when I was constantly dieting and over-exercising. Now, I’m bigger than I was. I probably won’t ever be as small as I was before. But this body looks better, feels better and performs better. In many ways…
Julia, that describes my experience almost exactly, including the part about trying Paleo to remedy illness only to have it backfire and make everything worse. Thanks for writing it so I don’t have to!
Yay Julia, great to hear. I’m really enjoying the comments on this post, so glad to see people thinking outside the box. I think some guys here are paranoid that Matt is gonna turn every female into a beached whale or something. It’s also really close to body-shaming those of us who are over-weight.
“The thing you have missed Ann is that I am doing this to heal. It is a transition.”
Reasons are not relevant to the person who may find you unattractive.
If a man is unattractive to me, I don’t try to figure out why.
My point is about the potential consequences of being overweight, not the reasons for being overweight.
If your husband is happy with you fatter, then good. But don’t pretend that all men are pleased when their mates become overweight.
All of you women claiming that your companions love you overweight are angry at me because deep inside, you know that I am right. You are not as secure as you pretend.
I still haven’t lost most of my pregnancy weight but my husband loves me as a new mom. Relationships and people change and grow. Even if I do a lose a little bit of weight I don’t think I’m going to go back to the tiny 19 year old I was before I got pregnant. So I feel better lifting some weights getting strong and feeling good. My husband and I are best friends and companions. He might reminisce about that tiny, tight, thong-bikini clad body (not kidding about the thong bikini-viva la Argentina), but he also isn’t the same person he was when I met him. In fact we are REALLY different people than we were when we met, but that’s the beauty of it. Our cores love each other and we accepted being a part of this adventure called life with all it’s changes, ups and downs, everything. So even if my boobs sag, and my belly goes soft and mushy. That’s not what it’s really about. It’s about being companions.
Right. Marriage is assurance of companionship through all the changing winds of life and it’s a lovely thing. If I were married and my husband laid a weight loss ultimatum on me, I would think he must not have read the handbook before saying “I do.” I’d also wonder who he thinks he’s going to get to stoke his fire when he starts balding and growing a pot belly. We all change with age and love carries with it enough maturity to respect that our partner isn’t going to be 19 forever.
My mom was always a bit obsessed with staying thin. I remember her once telling me that when my dad commented that she was “soft” (in a good way; he liked it!), she would immediately know that she had gained a few pounds and needed to diet. That made me a bit sad then, and even more sad now. It took 10 years for me to get over the negative body image I got from my mom. She would always tell me that I looked fine, but I weighed more than her (and my twin sister)! So what was I supposed to think?
But I think it’s definitely true that men prefer women who aren’t very thin or skinny if they really admit it to themselves.
And yeah, as much as I hated my hips and thighs, I totally rocked childbearing, twice.
Killing yourself with cardio is NEVER something to do for weight loss or improved health. More often than not its a surefire route to a bottomed-out metabolism (especially when combined with dieting), extreme body stress, and weight GAIN in the long run.
You might try illustrating the concept of a “good body” with a woman that has natural breasts, not a skinny women with obviously silicone implants.
ha! I thought that was supposed to be an example of a bad body- now I’m confused. Is that Ann?
Matt —
Third paragraph from the bottom — “coach surfing” sounds like awesome exercise to me. I’d drop and give 20 to Lane Kiffin.
Haha- good find. Fixed!
Ann, we had a slight clash on that sujet a while ago, i might even look in the archives
to find it.. I believe i half ironicaly complained about gaining some weight
on Matt’s recomendations and your answer was quite fast, with a simulary voiced meprise on us women who get obese for ?no reason? except their tendency toward gluttony
.
Now, you are far from being right which is because you have never asked me any question. I am afraid that that your judgment was more satisfaction yelding to you then understanding.
I am not fat. I am in fact 1,80 m tall and currently weight 63 kg. i got a teribly sexy partner, great job, and i am 38 years old. I do not go to the gym, neither run or do any serious ( or not exercises). I dont think my husband will take an mistress( how miserable insecure as thinking) because i did gain 7 kg. The 7 kg are gone with the summer, no effort,
what stays is my (welcome back!) capacity to eat whatever i feel like.
I dont believe there are that many seriously strugling with their weight men and women here and if there are some i got admiration for their fight.
Obesity is a sickness and it must be bloody hard. I think most of us
or at list me are driven by
Intelectual curiosity, pleasure to read something nonchalant like Matt’s writing ,
and eventually implicate the useful stuff in their life..
Please, for the statistics.. Is there someone who got seriously fat on Mtt’s recomendations?
I don’t agree. I think that proper sleep and avoiding negative stress are more important factors to get long-lived. Exercise for me includes walking which is probably the best kind of exercise. I guess I’m a little Ray Peat-ish when it comes to that
I enjoy seeing Matt stir up healthy debate. It really is quite entertaining. Matt throws out a half completed thought as a headline, a bunch of people mis- read the meaning and then the sparks fly. I understand Thomas’s point about the desire for a mate being a driving factor in motivation to be fit and even succeed financially. The problem is when my system crashed I had no ability to even deal with people on a social level or even have the energy to work. Last summer at my lightest I was 165 at six feet tall. Now I am 215, . I have let my hair grow, I have let my beard grow, I have a belly etc. basically I gave up giving a fuck. That was my only way to survival. As I have progressed in this my energy has come back, I have become more active, the belly has gone down a bit and I have become much more energetic about being social. I also have such a vastly better attitude and philosophy towards life that is that paradoxical balance of not giving a crap about shallow stuff but caring about what is truly important. I have been getting complements on how good I look. When I say something like ” well, I have put on a bunch of weight” people usually say it looks good on me compared to how I looked last summer. As for the ladies on this site, I like curvy women. If someone is truly obese I feel bad for them but I think our definition of obese may be a little skewed. I think this girl is hot. Is she obese? http://25.media.tumblr.com/5a185f99af0d2f8916f566f262deef88/tumblr_msic0dn96a1qcl5svo1_1280.png
I think she is obese. But I also think she is attractive and I can understand many men liking her. There are different degrees of obesity. Some women carry extra weight very well. It depends on their height, body type and bone structure. I am sure there are heavy women who you would not want to see in a bikini.
But let’s say a man does not like heavy women and he marries a woman like the one in the photo, only she was about 20 or 30 pounds lighter at the time of marriage. If she gets big as she is in the photo, is that man obligated to go through life with her even though he is no longer attracted to her? Should he feel guilty because she has more curves than he finds appealing? And what if she refuses to lose weight to look more like she did when he married her? Should he just settle for an asexual relationship and not leave her? Would he be wrong to get a mistress whom he does find attractive?
So by your own logic, should he leave her when she is not as young anymore, maybe she’s skinny but looses her looks. When people get married they agree for better or for worse. Everybody changes in many ways throughout life, both physically and mentally. If you have to spend your life in abject fear and stress of your significant other rejecting you for whatever reason than your relationship is pretty pathetic. If your husband lost his job would you leave him because he doesn’t earn as much as when you married him?
You did not really answer the question. Do people have a right to leave a relationship when it changes for whatever reason in a way that affects their happiness?
Actually, if I had a husband who lost a high paying job and refused to try to find another good paying job and decided that he was happy working a minimum wage job forever, I would leave him. I have a right to care about my own life and standard of living. However, if he was unable to find a good paying job and had to take the minimum wage job, I would not leave him. But I would expect him to keep trying to find a better job or start a business or do something other than settle for a low paying job and expect me to just accept the changes that come with that.
It is not the same logic. Aging is outside of our control. Also, being older does not automatically make a person unattractive. There are lots of older men that I find very handsome and they don’t look like 20 or even 40. But our weight is largely within our control, no matter what people here want to claim.
The point is not to live in fear about your mate leaving any more than one should live in fear of losing a job or getting hit by a car. Living in fear of anything is ridiculous. Staying together is great in theory. In practice, people should not be required to give up happiness to honor a marital vow. I believe this is the only life we have and I don’t think we should live it in unhappiness, if at all possible.
What if you had a wife who decided that she never wanted to have sex again, that the two of you should have a platonic marriage and the only reason she did not want to have sex with you is because she no longer enjoys sex and does not want to be bothered (assuming that the two of you are in your thirties, forties or fifties). Would you stay in that relationship without cheating? Would you give up sex forever in order to honor your vows? If you would, you are not a typical man.
Also, after a certain point people do accept aging and not looking like their younger self. I don’t expect an eighty year old to be concerned about physical appearance, although I am sure some people in that age group are. But just because people are going to change as they age does not mean that we should not care about physical appearance when we are younger. One day, I am going to be old–if I live long enough–but I am not interested in being with a seventy or eighty year old man right now. No way do I want to have a physical relationship with a man that age. But when I am seventy or eighty, I am sure I will have no problem being with a man that age.
“If I had a husband”. Says it all.
Poor Ann.
All these hypothetic situations are rather ridiculous.. What if.. This
Is so childish by the simplification of a such complex matter..
“If i get fat , my mate is entitled to betray me..”
What the fuck your world look like i wonder..
I think that situations in which you will lose control of your self
such as gaining weight, loving someone, being old,
are representing danger for you.
Gaining weight seem to be deeply connected with your capacity
of believing that you are liked, accepted, loved.
Not for me.
And by the way i do not live in the Amazonian forest. Far from it..
Wow. Yes, of course people have the right to leave their partners. In case you haven’t noticed about half of marriages end this way, lack of sex or lack of attraction to your spouse obviously sometimes being a motivating factor. Duh. What planet do you live on? It’s still a dick move to leave your partner just because he/she gained some weight, despite it being anyone’s right to do so.
Regarding aging vs. weight status: weight and health are not under our direct control any more than aging is. We can set up conditions in our lives that will encourage our bodies to change in various ways, including losing or gaining weight. What we absolutely cannot do is tell our bodies “OK, we’re going to starve ourselves thin. Don’t ratchet down our metabolism or rob from vital tissues to supply energy and protein, and make sure and leave that lean mass alone. Actually, make some more of that. We’re burning fat here!” and expect it to obey. Body composition, appetite, metabolic rate, and, yes, weight are all regulated unconsciously. That you CAN sometimes override one or more of these regulatory systems by conscious effort (typically temporarily, until you run out of willpower or you run your body into the ground because you are overhwelming it with demands while not giving it enough respurces to run optimally and earn yourself a chronic disease) is not an argument for doing so as a lifelong habit.
Also, the fact that you would leave a man because he changed his priorities away from making lots of money speaks volumes about your character. Money is not standard of living is not happiness. Some of the happiest people in the world are surfer bums living on beaches in shacks.
Anyway, why don’t YOU go find a high paying job if the money is so important to you? Apparently your only job in life is to look pretty and thin and attract a high-income Alphaman who will buy you everything you desire and thereby make you happy? And if he decides he no longer wishes to play his Designated Provider role, you’d dump him like a rotten potato. Sounds like a really great imaginary marriage.
Interesting about the surfer bums in the shacks. Didn’t know that. Where did you learn about that?
Ann,
I think what you are missing is love. Love is a powerful emotion.
You haven’t faith in love.
I think anyone who would marry another person, knowing it’s a life long commitment, and then wants to divorce because their spouse gained weight should do both parties a favor and do so. That person had no business making a lifetime commitment to another human being in the first place. I’m not on a moral high horse, I don’t necessarily think marriage is a good idea at all. But if you’re gonna do it, do it. Better or for worse includes a 20-30 pound weight gain.
I think that’s deliberately misunderstanding the point. I won’t speak for Ann, but the point I’m hearing is that sex and attraction are deeply important parts of a relationship, and it behooves both partners to make sure they take care of themselves to a reasonable extent to remain attractive to each other. It’s a sign of respect.
Queenbee and I got into a disagreement about this some posts ago. My argument is that marriage is at base a sexual relationship. If it’s not, it’s a needlessly complicated friendship/business partnership/co-daycare facility/roommate situation. Sex isn’t an ‘add-on’ but a core feature.
I’ve read plenty of stories of spouses whose partners simply shut them out because they lost interest in the other sexually. Certainly the partner getting shut out has to make efforts to be a quality version of themselves. If you lose your job, become a grouch, stop your hobbies and forego basic hygiene, and then start complaining about the wild sex you’re not getting, well- get your house in order first before making demands.
But ultimately, if you become a quality version of yourself and are still not getting your reasonable needs met, the needs you reasonably expect an exclusive sexual partner to be invested in meeting, then maybe it isn’t the right relationship.
Harping on the weight gain as the deciding factor, when the issue is that your partner stopped being invested in meeting your needs, is a bit beside the point.
This is true and I do understand the point that Ann is trying to make. She is not wrong in the fact that this is a shallow world and like or not the best of us have our own degrees of shallowness. I think what rubs the 180 degree people wrong is that a lot of us became trapped in dire situations where we really did have to make a life and death decision to give up overly obsessive eating and exercise habits in order to gain our lives and health back. If you would have told me three years ago when I started a candida diet that I was going to reach a point of total mental and physical collapse due to years of hardcore carb restriction I would have never believed it. It has taken me months and about 35 pounds of weight gain to get back to the point where I am feeling more energy and my mental anxiety is gone. I literally feel fit and fortified at the moment. I have always been about 15 or so pounds over weight. While on paleo at 185 pounds I thought I was at my ideal weight. Unfortunately it took constant struggle with food and exercise to maintain that weight. Now that I am at about 215. I have stabalized. I can eat pretty much anything and don’t have to obsess anymore. This is still 10 pounds more than where I started out years ago but it seems like that is one of the pitfalls of dieting, your set point gets higher. I would rather live my life comfortably at 215 than work like a dog to maintain 185. I might feel different if I was in my twenties and still playing the game but I have gotten much wiser through my life changing experience and my priorities are in a much different place now. I agree total morbid obesity must be a drag. I assume that some people that get there have less control over it than us ” normal” people would like to think. Some people have about as much control over it as I do my psoriasis. At that point all you can do is learn to love yourself and be the best ” you” that you can be for yourself and your loved ones. Life is too short to do otherwise.
I’m not misunderstanding the point at all. I get it. You think you’re signing up for one thing and then down the line, she pops out a few kids, the natural trend towards weight gain with age kicks in, boom. Not the woman you vowed before god and country to engage in marital relations with till death do you part.
Marriage is completely unnatural. There is nothing about us that suggests we will be excited by the same sexual partner for the entirety of our lives, even if they somehow manage to look just like they did on their wedding day well into menopause. But that’s ok because marriage is not at it’s heart about sex. Marriage is about love and love can make for good sex. Love is patient, kind, it bears all things. Love sees beauty where others see imperfection, love loves a few extra pounds on a person as they age because the kind of love you should marry a person for is at it’s heart based on compassion, not self serving passion. To marry another is to sacrifice for them. Love watched that person age and loved them for it and doesn’t expect the object of their love to retain the figure of a 25 year old. Love’s light wings o’er-perch all kinds of walls that would normally stop us dead. It is not at its core about sex. To navigate our lives by our instinctual sex drives would be to never marry.
Now. Ann was talking about weight gain of 20-30 pounds in a woman. That is far different than losing your job, being a grouch, forgoing basic hygiene, stopping your hobbies and then complaining about a lack of wild sex. That person just sounds really gross and boring and like they need therapy, perhaps. If you married that person, you should tell them they’re grossing you out and that they seem to have lost their drive to be a vital human being. If they keep going down that path and refuse help, you should probably leave them. Gaining some weight and completely giving up on yourself and your life are two very different things. I suspect the person you described is very depressed and unmotivated.
But you’ll never see me get married. I won’t do it. But if I did do it, I’d do it because I loved a person down to their soul and wished to put their needs before my own, not because I was hoping to make a contract to have sex with them for the rest of their lives so long as they don’t gain weight.
But forgetting the marriage piece, if you’re in a relationship with a person who doesn’t turn you on anymore for whatever reason and it’s not worth it to you to get past it, get on out. But when you talk marriage, that’s a whole ‘nother ball game. Right there in the vows it says for better or for worse. If you know you can’t hack a 30 pound weight gain on a woman as she ages, you really best not marry. Really. Because it’s most likely going to happen unless you like your girl to be obsessed with exercise or to have a really great plastic surgeon. What if a woman dislikes balding in men? Does her husband have an obligation to wear a toupee? What if she gets cancer that drags out five years and they isn’t in the mood? If it’s perfectly reasonable to end marriages over these things, then I think people are forgetting what marriage is.
I am of course referring to marriages that happen in a religious or spiritual setting. If you don’t believe in the richer or poorer hooey and are just going down to the courthouse to get the last name thing settled and change your tax status, then I think you can divorce that person for whatever the hell you want. Nothing sacred there.
We may just disagree about marriage and what it means, then. Fair enough.
I guess my question for you is: what obligations do you see spouses as having to one another? Does fidelity factor in? Most married people would be devastated if their spouse was unfaithful and most expect monogamy. If that’s the case, then working against what may well be ‘unnatural,’ and finding hacks to stay satisfied while fitting into an box that doesn’t quite fit makes sense.
Trade offs and all that.
If you have an open marriage, and really don’t care about fidelity, well then worry not about whether you’re meeting your partner’s needs sexually, since they can go elsewhere to meet them.
“if you’re in a relationship with a person who doesn’t turn you on anymore for whatever reason and it’s not worth it to you to get past it”
Meaning what? Get past it how? Will yourself to be attracted to someone? Or pretend to be? Or just suck it and deal with it?
I’m not sure I want to enter this fray but I do think it’s an interesting conversation. I think there is a real phenomenon, which Ann is probably thinking about, in which people get married, have kids and give up or just somehow lose their drive and sexuality. I don’t really know why it happens but it does. In the case of women, they cut their hair off, put on 25+ pounds, wear frumpy clothes and put their focus on their kids, not their husband, and lose the essence of sexiness and femininity. This happens all the time, I see it. In the case of men, they often get lazy, quit going to the gym, drink too much beer, stop putting in efforts in terms of romance, etc. Both parties end up much more like friends than lovers, and both are vaguely unhappy and resentful.
I cannot stand watching this sort of thing, and I will make all efforts to avoid it at all costs when I am married one day. Part of that will involve choosing a partner about whom I feel passionate, and also one who I think will continue to make small efforts as we grow old.
I think it’s a wider problem of unhappiness within marriage, focusing on kids not spouse, cultural issues, laziness and whatnot. I don’t think this sort of phenomenon is what happens when people put on some weight in healing. Most people here talk about having more sex with their husband, not less. I do think the weight concerns are real, but people here are generally trying to find healthy ways to lose the weight (not dieting), so I don’t think it’s that their husband should think efforts aren’t being made. I think the “giving up” concept is more important to a spouse than the actual current weight.
Keeping it hot should always be a priority, but when people are sick there can be some temporary lapses, which should be communicated about openly and honestly.
Agreed- and this is more what I’m responding to.
Not some weight gain in the process of making life better and becoming healthier. But giving up.
I suspect that most men would far prefer a fun, happy, easy-going high-libido wife carrying around a few extra pounds than a miserable, duty sex once a month harpy who’s thin.
Even better if, after they’ve rehabilitated and have energy and a favorable hormonal landscape again, they become shapelier and more feminine, regardless of scale weight, while retaining that libido and disposition.
Rob says: I suspect that most men would far prefer a fun, happy, easy-going high-libido wife carrying around a few extra pounds than a miserable, duty sex once a month harpy who’s thin.
I agree
You’ve made some interesting points. I get a lot of crap when I tell people that my significant other will always come first. I know I will love my children, but kids leave home eventually. Your partner is the person you choose to go through life with. I’m going to try very hard to make sure he is happy and doesn’t ever feel second to kids, and I know he will do the same for me.
I firmly believe that is a good basis for a happy marriage. Good for you!
Very sound philosophy.
Lol in my experience it’s the men who gain more weight after the wedding. I’ve known way more men who put on 20-50 pounds after the wedding than their wives.
Jdubs, I don’t find the woman in this picture obese, and I do find her attractive.
So, basically, it all boils down to- appreciate and respect yourself, enjoy life, enjoy sex, feel sexy, keep an active, well fed, healthy body in good repair (including good personal hygiene- not that I have met many people who didn’t), and dont spend your life neurotically worrying about what everyone thinks of you. Saying ‘fuck you’ to the world, you better take me minus showers (as it were) or not at all, is just as much of a narcissism as someone who spends all their time preening- both assume a central importance and an unwillingness to live in the real world that is pretty unattractive (even if, physically, the preeners may seem attractive in the short term- this is obviously a trap that a great many people fall into, and should not be too harshly criticised, everyone likes some eye-candy).
Word up.
Not all women her size or even dimensions would be as attractive as she. She has a gorgeous face – much prettier than average and her skin is great – not saggy and no cellulite I can see, and she is very shapely. She is also smooth in her curves, nothing pouches out like a muffin top, etc.. All of that said, I think most men might find her more attractive if she lost a dress size (though I’m sure most men would be extremely happy to be with her, based on looks alone, just as she is.) She is lucky – she can have her cake and eat it too.
I think Rob and Thomas are correct in saying that most men don’t actually prefer women who are described as BBW, I am sure most men prefer body like Beyonce, a meatier Scarlet, a Jaylo, or a body like those of the women in that strechy pants video, but they might say they prefer the BBWs because that describes the women they meet and they are trying to be complimentary as a means to get sex, i.e, they would rather have sex with someone who has a body like Beyonce but that’s not going to happen so they settle. I am not trying to voice an opinion, just post some observations I’ve made from personal experience.
I probably shouldn’t have thrown in Beyonce or Jaylo into what men would prefer to BBWs. So how now I’ll just hazard a guess that men probably would prefer what an average woman looked like fifty years ago to a BBW.
“- Today, the average American woman is 5?4?, has a waist size of 34-35 inches and weighs between 140-150 lbs, with a dress size of 12-14. Fifty years ago, the average woman was 5?3-4? with a waist size of approximately 24-25?, she weighed about 120 lbs”.
Fifty years ago, women didn’t exercise like some do today, but they were probably a lot more active and didn’t eat as much as people eating the SAD.
Yeah, and most of those ‘BBW’s’ would probably prefer to have sex with Brad Pitt, but it ain’t gonna happen. The shallow and fleeting aspirations created by the media flaunting of physical ideals don’t mean that people are ‘settling’- people have relationships with other PEOPLE, not sex with bodies, in the long term, and it is generally the relationship that determines the attraction. I have a good-looking boyfriend. Is he as good looking as Chris Hemsworth, NO. Would I, were this hypothetical fairy land and it ever came down to it, ENJOY having sex with Chris Hemsworth more than my boyfriend….no. I might like the idea, bit it would be effing’ weird. I don’t know him, only how he looks, and I would have none of the chemistry and history that I share in my relationship. Some people do ‘settle’ in relationships, but only in the sense that some people stay with someone who does not suit them. For most healthy minded people, they love the person they are with, and subjectively feel that they are the most attractive person for them.
Yes, there is a big difference between the fantasy world in our heads and the reality we live in. No problem having fantasies as long as we don’t let it ruin the real world for us by creating unrealistic expectations.
Not all skinny women are attractive either. Plenty of ” butter” faces out there and chicks with stretch marks and uneven breasts and missing teeth and so on.
I think all other things being equal, men would probably find a woman with a 25 inch waist more sexually attractive than a woman with a 35 inch waist. Of course not every one skinny is more attractive than anyone bigger than he or she – never said or implied otherwise. Didn’t I comment that the somewhat largish woman in the link was gorgeous, etc….. I was just agreeing with some other’s comments that when men say the prefer a BBW to a more slender woman, they are probably not being totally truthful. Also, it seems to me that on this site that if one does have a 25 inch waist that is seen as extreme – I don’t think it is and it certainly wasn’t 50 years ago.
Also, I was speaking to sexual attraction, which is important to many people whether you want to sleep with someone or not – i.e., many people want to look attractive even to others that they know they’ll never talk to – that isn’t social pressure, just human nature.
And one last thing – most stretch marks on women come from having been pregnant – they can’t help it, unless of course they chose to not have kids.
She’s damn hot! She may be technically obese but BMI is pretty useless as an individual assessment tool, having been devised as a standard measure for epidemiology, not medicine.
She carries that weight VERY well. Would. If I weren’t a married man :-)
Thomas, I think this is the Korean girl who was on here a while ago. According to her mom she’s an overweight pig. I don’t think I would kick her out for eating cookies in bed ;)http://omgltsme.tumblr.com/
That link didn’t work right. But she is over at curve appeal if you want to check her out.
That link goes straight to her blog but like I said there is a good pic of her at curve appeal on the third page or so. If she’s fat then I’m Santa Claus
You don’t seem to have read my post. Please re-read it. My post was not intended to bring people inline with a Madison Avenue ideal of beauty. It was intended to criticize those who decide to say “fuck it” and pay no attention to their “looks”, personal hygiene, etc,
In any case, do what you like. Let yourself go.. Go ahead ,but don’t be surprised or angry when people no longer find you attractive. If you’re willing to live with those consequences, go for it.
By the way, I was one of the most vocal supporters of the “Korean girl”. So please pay attention to what I’m really saying.
I enjoyed your post because it gave me something to think about, the classic tension in Western thought between “beauty” and “goodness.” A little reminder of college seminar days! I’ll reply to that: If I read you right, you were saying that love of beauty can be a means to an end; applied here, that vanity can be a lure to genuinely healthful fitness, which will, with patience, likely end up bearing aesthetic rewards, as well as functional ones. The need for the “gateway drug” doesn’t apply to me, personally, as I’ve always enjoyed exercise, especially outdoor exercise … I’ve generally found exercise to be a way to clear my mind of worries and to feel alive and vibrant in my body. The exception was when I inadvertently overtrained in my impatience to come back from an injury. Appearance preoccupations are but one of the worries relieved by the pleasure of exercise, for me. In my interpretation, the article was addressing the problem that can occur when some people mistake the sizzle (the vanity) for the steak (the intrinsic benefits of exercise), or when they believe weight loss to be an inherently healthy thing, by any means necessary; some people who are unfortunately prone to obsession won’t realize their mistake in time to prevent physical harm. Anyway, I think your post was overshadowed by Ann’s inflammatory comments, and became associated with them.
Well, yes, you’ve understood me. Look I suspect that Ann and I aren’t in total agreement on this subject. However, I think we agree on one point that is this. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive. Obviously it can go too far. When you imperil your health, when you divorce yourself from your own center, then you’ve gone too far. Making yourself attractive for another person or persons does not mean selling yourself out.
Now, if you participated in some of those discussions around one of Julia Gumm’s articles, you will know that I am a staunch feminist. That’s how I am in real life. It’s not just sucking up or trying to appear “politically correct”. So I don’t expect women to fashion their lives around men.
However, rejecting the dance of attraction seems like a rejection of life, a rejection of something essential. I see no conflict between feminism and the acceptance of our sexuality and attractiveness. Some people do. So some people will throw out feminism, while another set of people will ignore the dance and make themselves ugly.
Yeah, reading everything over I think what you were saying was actually so reasonable that people sort of assumed it must be something else- I don’t think that anyone would agree that a total ‘I am going to turn feral like I live in the woods as a hermit’ approach is a good one- it just got conflated with Anne’s rather oddly anti-anyweightgainatallatanycost comments.
I know you supported her. That’s why I gave you the heads up to that pic. I thought you would be interested.
Thanks. I find the woman in that pic to be very hot.
I thought you’d like that. I concur wholeheartedly :)
Ok listen up all you Het men. I would like you to please follow my instructions. Now if you are a woman, you can read this, but please do not follow my instructions. Gay men, you can disregard them as well.
Het men, here’s the instruction: I want you to be liked for who you are. Fuck what others think and just be yourself.
Stop washing, stop cleaning your clothes, stop working out, stop worrying about how you look. Don’t be a sell out, and make no mistake, if you pay any attention to how you look, you are selling out to the crass opinion of others.
But why stop at your physical appearance? You should do nothing to make yourself intellectually, or socially attractive. Be the man. People need to accept you as you are. Don’t read, don’t go to the theater, don’t think, don’t even smile. You don’t got to. Pay it no mind, my brother. There’s a “Real Show” Marathon on TV and two dozen Tall House Cookies in the oven.
Wait a minute. You say that you really want to learn carpentry, or be a Dostoevsky scholar, or a mathematician, or a gardener, or a mechanic? There you go. Selling out again. Don’t you know that those things take effort. Even if you are interested in those topics, you will inevitably encounter boring aspects in their study. Frustrating moments when you run up against problems. So, why even start? You shouldn’t put yourself under that kind of stress. You have better things to do, like sit on your ass and play video games. Let the poor slob in Mumbai take care of actually learning how to program the apps on your iPhone. You’ve got better things to do. It would be too stressful to learn computer programming. After all, you’re an END-USER. You’re an END-USER of EVERY FUCKING THING.
Now several months into your project of “being who you are”, here’s what’s going to go down. One day you’re going to be taking your temperature. At first you’re going to be congratulating yourself, happy that you’ve hit your new PR of 100.8 degress Fahrenheit, then the truth is going to strike you. Here’s the truth: I am going to be BANGING YOUR WOMAN. You see, by that time, she will have grown weary of your sloven appearance, your boorish conversation, your inattention, your lassitude. Go ahead and take joy as you pull the rectal thermometer out of your ass, because that’s the only sex you’re getting today. Well, not exactly. You can ride the Left-Hand Express. That train is always leaving the station. Meanwhile, I’m banging your woman.
It’s not fair. And guess what. While you’re railing against the unfairness of life, she’s going to be doing the Twerk naked for my eyes only. Go ahead, shake your fist at the gods. I’m banging your girlfriend. Scream, cry and shout. By that time, I will be engaging her in cozy, post-coital pillow talk. She’ll tell me that she feels a little guilty; that you used to be an interesting and attractive guy. I will stroke her hair to assuage the pain. Then after about five minutes of that, guess what. I am going to bang your girlfriend AGAIN :)
It’s not that I’m ALL THAT. I’m not. I’m a middle-aged man. I will turn 54 in November. I shave my head. Go ahead and look at my picture here: http://www.radiofreemoe.com/about-moe/ . Let’s face it. If Anton Lavey and Uncle Fester could breed, I would be their offspring. So, I’m definitely not ALL THAT. But I figure after you have been “being who you are” for a few months, I still am going to beat your time, my brother. It’s all relative :)
Now please, I want all you het guys to go ahead and be who you are. Inscribe “Authenticity” on your banner. All of you. Then, I can have all of your womanz. Six months after all of you are being who you really are, all the womanz are going to be so desperate that they will seek me out. The Real Amy will not only give me her name, email address and telephone number, she’ll fly out here to San Francisco and be knocking on my door. Hannah Ransom is going to give me personal lessons in “Fertility Awareness”. All this loving is going to take a lot of energy, so the cherubic Allison will bring me some Ozark herbs from her mother’s store in Arkansas.
Anyway, it’s a nice fantasy, but you see my point.
that’s quite a funny rant, but I just have to disagree with your basic assumption- “being yourself” does not equate to doing nothing to make yourself intellectually or socially attractive”- why would you think that?
“being yourself” is not the same as “letting yourself go”
Your arguments seems really focused on this- is there someone in particular that you are aiming this at, or is it general? If it’s general then I really think this would apply to only a minority of people.
I agree that “being yourself” is not the same as “letting yourself go”. However, I also notice that it kind of gets used in that way. I am not aiming it at any person directly. I only know one other person on here IRL and she is definitely not that way, so I can’t say how people live out their lives.. However, I do detect a certain advocacy of this point of view sometimes on here.
I think it’s all perspective Thomas. I know for myself, I really care about myself and I do care what some people think, but generally I don’t really care for what some random thinks of me. Take my ‘fashion’ sense – I’m totes jeans, t-shirt, cons. I really, really don’t like dressing up. I don’t wear make up. My hair rocks though ha ha. But others have commented negatively on it (clothes), whilst others just say it’s just part of the package of who I am and love it. So to some I don’t try hard enough and should put more effort in, and to others I’m just sort of cool in my own way. So to those who think I don’t try enough – it’s just to their own standards and it has nothing to do with me and if they don’t find me attractive, or worthy of their attention, there is literally nothing I want to do to change that.
Yeah! That! You said it so succinctly!
Indeed. Well said Tanya. At last, a bit of temperance and wisdom in this thread.
Also, ThomasSeay,I am loving your use of “authenticity” here, I’ve been discussing this elsewhere today. One way to look at being authentic is to think that the actions you perform on a daily basis are part of the person that you are being, they are constituent-ends actions not means-to-an-end actions, so you don’t exercise to lose weight (means-to-an-end- once you lose the weight the action has no point- it is superficial) but taking exercise constitutes being an active person and you see yourself as an active person thus you exercise (constituent-ends- ongoing, progressive), in that way it is authentic. The actions are the same, the quality of life is different.
In your analogy, I haven’t stopped wiping my arse because I want a dirty arse, I have stopped wiping my arse because it constitutes part of being myself. Does that make sense to you? That I would visualise my ideal life, and as part of that vision I would have a dirty arse? “In the pursuit of being authentic I have stopped wiping my arse, it’s who I am”.
that said, a little bit of rough round the edges never goes amiss in a good-looking chap ;)
Not that I have anything to contribute to the conversation, but I luuuurve Matt. Like |____________________________this____________________________| much.
My wee little comment after all these great ones. For any women interested in gaining strength and feeling good, you should read Nia Shanks weightlifting program Beautiful Badass. She really focuses on progress and likes to keep things really simple! It is great for me because my life is full of family obligations and school. She goes along with a lot the stuff you read here on 180degree health.
Meh. At the end of the day, most people do what they want anyway–and nobody is truly in control of what they want.
Yes – the longer I live, the less I believe in free will. We are a product of our genes and how we were (or weren’t) nurtured as children.
Way to spice it up Di. Thanks for the change of direction. Things were getting pretty neurotic on here. I dig your advaita-esque perspective.
This might be the first time I’ve never seen Matt pipe back up in the comments. Not that it’s necessary. Just interesting, considering some of the back-and-forth is gladiator-level. Whew.
I’m glad to see lots of stretchy pants supporters. Takes me back.
Who needs exercise when you can read the comments here and end up just as exhausted?
Let me clear this up for everyone. The purpose of Matt’s post was to explain why doing exercise halfhearted with poor ulterior motives can lead to weight loss failure just a sure as any hardcore diet can and eventually does. He never said don’t exercise. He said don’t exercise specifically for weight loss. 180 degree health is the last stop for me on my multi year health journey into the pits of hell and back. I first broke my low carb madness by reading Ray Peat. Ray and his followers are a little to nutty for me but at least it got me drinking some orange juice and having some jello again. Then I found Matt and felt like what the hell I’ve tried everything else at least I can start eating food again. His contrarian style rubbed me a little at first but I began to understand what he was driving at as well as starting to make progress back to a normal life. Soon I will be back to full time work and I probably won’t be on the net as much anymore. I have appreciated all of the warm people and support here and on the forum. I have appreciated all of the lively debate. It’s hard at times to glean people’s personalities and dispositions over text media but I think most of the people here are debating in the spirit of fun and moving the conversation forward.
The game of life is full of competition. The game of life is full of sexual overtones and undertones. Competition can be healthy. Not everyone should get a trophy for showing up to little league. On the same note not everyone is going to win the perfect trophy spouse by being a fat broke slob. The vast majority of us are going to exist somewhere in the middle. Competition can make us run on a treadmill for hours, it can make us work on our golf swing, or practice guitar for countless hours. Most healthy individuals want to be and look there best. It’s part of the competition of life that keeps us all moving forward and giving us a reason to live. When you get sick most of this gets pushed into the background and life becomes purely about survival. Yes somewhere deep inside that sex drive or desire to be liked by people still exists but it becomes less important. I think part of what may have rubbed some people the wrong way is the insistence over the last month or so by myself as well as a few others that we are giving up caring about what others think. There have been some posts about more of the psychological landscape of health recovery and a lot of the bottom line has been about giving up fears and pre programmed societal pressure in order to get to a better health recovery. This in no way equates to totally giving up but it does consist of a healthy dose of I just don’t give a crap. I think Thomas’s statements were maybe taken as an attack on this mentality and maybe possibly Thomas has been picking up on the I don’t give a crap sentiments some of us have been putting out over the last month or so and responded to it with his comments. I also can understand Ann’s comments and where she is coming from. Unfortunately it seems like her comments are coming from a place of fear. This is the place of fear I am trying to eliminate from my life in order to get healthy. At the end of the day the gym industry is built off of people who never show up just like the music store industry is built on kids who get bored with the guitar and leave it in the corner. I can’t tell you how many rich homes I have worked in that are choked full of expensive gym equipment that never gets used. Don’t get me wrong. In this modern world of sedentary jobs and lifestyles the need for ” artificial” forms of exercise are important if not sometimes absolutely necessary. Sometimes it’s just easier and more convenient to hop on a treadmill then to drive to the park and walk the trails. I prefer the outdoors but I’m not going to be a nature snob and say people who use treadmills are doing it wrong.
I think Matt’s point is to examine your ulterior motives and try to find forms of exercise that are as fun and enjoyable and less like work as possible to ensure maximum sustainability.
I think Thomas’s point is that sex drive and other forms of competition came be a healthy driver for people to better themselves and that any positive net effect is a good thing regardless if you actually wind up getting the girl or not,
I think Ann’s point is that the ultimate goal in a marriage is to try to fulfill each others needs as much as possible. We all do have a need for an attractive ( physically, mentally, and spiritually) mate. As long as we are healthy we should all give enough of a shit in marriage to not let ourselves go to hell just because we are out of the dating pool. I am definitely not disputing the fact that most men including myself like slender ladies. I am also not disputing the fact that people cheat and leave relationships for a whole myriad of reasons with weight gain being just one. I will dispute the tone though in which Ann makes it pretty much a given. It may be more prevalent In today’s shallow narcissistic world but it is certainly not the way I was brought up to view the contract of marriage. For better or worse except I. The event of a thirty pound weight gain. I mean sheesh. I was once accused of being gay by a womanizing ” friend” of mine for not taking the opportunity to sleep with a friends wife who came on to me. Excuse me if I’m wrong but if being a “typical” man means not having morals or principals than I am glad I am not a ” typical” man. If having a healthy sex drive and being a man means fucking everything that moves regardless of consequences than I guess maybe I am queer. All I know is that as I get healthier I am thinking more and more about the fact that I want a mate to grow old with. She may be slender or she may look like the girl In the curve appeal link ,it doesn’t matter as much to me anymore. After all I have been through I am realizing how much more Important it is to have someone that is dependable, honest, funny, mentally resilient, caring and passionate. I also want someone who is attractive but my definition for that is much broader( no pun intended) than it used to be.
Finally a real man speaks.
She’ll be a lucky woman, Jdubs.
Awesome!
Your reply is so well written. I am the woman who gained 30 pounds but I wasn’t just sitting around wallowing…maybe a little wallowing. I work full time, have a close knit circle of friends and try to work out a little. I am also single and I’m sure many men have judged me for being overweight- im 5’3″ and a size 8 -10 and tend to look a little stocky. I weighed myself yesterday and was already slipping and sliding towards a 1200 calorie diet to lose weight. After reading this and go kaleo’s blog, I feel a little more in control.
I think along my journey in the last 4 years my expectations from a partner have also changed to encompass the intangible qualities of a human being. Maybe that was the life lesson for me through this weight loss struggle.
Jdubs, first of all, I want to commend you on trying to summarize the positions in a civil manner.
Second of all, your interpretation of what I intended is partially incorrect. I am not accusing you of interpreting it that way in bad faith. Perhaps it was my failure to communicate properly. In any case, I’ve written enough on the matter, so I will let you or anyone interested go back and re-read what I said, if you care to do so.
I just want to make one comment. I agree with some things Ann said, but I probably disagree on others. I suspect that she is coming from a Conservative perspective which I largely disagree with. That said, her position needs to be treated respectfully and taken seriously. Her argument is peppered, or so it seems to me, with the positions of evolutionary psychology, Buss, et al., which is considered a serious intellectual movement. Even though I disagree with large swaths of evolutionary psychology, I think trying to psychologize your criticism of her (i.e. by writing that she’s coming from “a place of fear”) is extremely speculative and tries to discredit her based upon some assumed psychological issue. I would suggest that you break from that and take her position at face-value. If you want to criticize it from an intellectual point of view, have at it.
The dogmatists of any school of thought will often deploy this tactic, ad hominem attacks, in order to discredit someone who disagrees with them. So, when Freud got criticized by some of his followers, he would often attack by accusing them of having oedipal conflicts, etc. When you make such an attack, you discredit the person, and undermine their argument without really criticizing it in a principled way. I don’t think you did this maliciously, but still I would advise against going down that path.
Point taken
If my girlfriend gained weight & became completely “fuck it” about everything I wouldn’t just leave her on the spot – I’d try & understand WHY she’d become to be that way in the first place & then try with all my love & support to help her fix what had fucked her up inside. Excessive weight gain & abandonment of self-care doesn’t just happen for no reason. Not in this beauty-obsessed modern western culture, nu-uh. You have to develop a pretty unhealthy internal relationship with yourself to become the unsightly kinda fat, I think. I’ve seen in happen to my mom. Slowly but surely since my dad cheated on her she’s gained weight via comfort eating. He cheated on her with her then best friend when I was 5. They are still together (*pukes* he so doesn’t deserve her, I hate him so much). Their relationship is one of the most fake boring loveless things I have ever witnessed. & so she eats to numb the pain she feels from having stayed with such an emotionally cold aggressive man as he. She constantly tries to teach & reinforce it as “just how marriage is” to my little sister & I & OMG it makes my heart break for her. She obviously has deep issues that are rattling her psyche to have continually ate with such reckless abandonment for all these years. She’s not obese. YET. It’s only a matter of time though, maybe. & this is the part that makes me so upset: because I have tried to supply all the help I could to get her to realise how she’s living isn’t healthy for neither her mind nor body, but she just won’t ever listen to me. She’s made her choice to stay with him & won’t leave. She told me in the past that the main reason she stayed was his money. Because she didn’t want my sister & I to go without (if you compare my moms salary to his, well, he looks like a freakin’ millionaire). It’s just gotten to be one hella big mess now. & yeah, my scummy cheater of a dad is now a fatty too. It’s the same with him. The longer this sham of a marriage has continued the bigger he’s gotten. Uh. Probably guilt-eating from knowing he’s such a horrible person. These are meant to be my role models?! Double uh. Anyway, I’ve kinda detracted from the point I was trying to make (I don’t even know what point it was actually going to be now oh wow brain thanks) but yeah all I’m saying I think is that in relationships that started with 2 healthy attractive individuals & along the way one of them suddenly goes all “off the rails” & piles on the pounds & stops even washing or something else equally as WTF dramatic then something’s obviously happened that needs a-fixin’ – even if you’re married & all that it changes nothing; you have an unwritten instinctive duty of care towards the one you love & even if you did say “for better or worse” in your vows or whatever I can’t believe some people would just sit back & let their other half turn into a wreck & not intervene just because you’re supposed to remain loving someone just the way they are even if they’re killing themselves etc… As I’ve described both my parents have emotional-food-attachment-eating-getting-fatter problems & don’t even love each other so I don’t ever see how they could ever sort it out between themselves… It’s too far gone now. *tears up in frustration at the ridiculousness of the whole situation*
Parents often suck, they really do.
I agree with the main point of Matt’s post. As far as I can tell, losing weight is horribly ineffective as a motivation to engage in exercise, because the weight loss will be slow and it’s easy to give up if that’s all we care about. Diet is a much easier way to lose weight (not that any way is particularly easy for most of us). Nevertheless, exercise is hugely important. I work out every day because I see significant, immediate improvements in strength, speed, stamina, and overall well-being–even if I’m not losing weight. Ever since I got off my ass 2-3 months ago and started going to the gym, the needle on my bathroom scale hasn’t moved a millimeter, but I look better, feel better, and have a better life overall. If all I cared about was weight loss (and to be honest, I would like to lose some weight), then I would have gotten discouraged and quit, and I wouldn’t see all the amazing improvements I’ve been experiencing.
I have to remind my wife about this all the time. She’s been working out along with me this summer, and her weight hasn’t really changed either (though in my opinion, she doesn’t need to lose any). Yet she’s in much better physical condition than she was before–and more “tone,” which seems to be the goal most ladies have. She gets discouraged because the scale’s not moving, so it’s my job to I remind her about all the other gains she’s made, which I think are much more important than weight loss anyway.
In fact, all the talk of sex and attraction half-way through the thread got me thinking how I should give her more attention–not wanting to lose her, after all–which is why this comment is being posted about half an hour later than it would have otherwise. :)
I think the above conversations are probably way more interesting than my comment, but on the topic of exercise I have just an anecdotal story.
I was a cheerleader in high school, which involved “two-a-day” workouts that included running 1 mile, pushups, stretching, tumbling, as well as lots and lots of stunting, which involves lifting other girls if you’re a base like I was. We got lots of exercise and ate whatever the football players ate, so I definitely wasn’t restricting at all during this time.
When I graduated high school and went to college I didn’t do any kind of physical activity besides walking around a very small campus. My friends and I ate in the dining hall and had quite a bit of Jimmy Johns, Taco Bell, etc. I was the thinnest I’ve ever been in college, with no exercise, eating probably not the ideal diet, and drinking lots of alcohol. I don’t really know why I was thinner living this way instead of when I was in high school doing lots of physical activity…but it makes me think there’s a lot more to being thin than diet and exercise.
Happiness counts for a lot, in my experience.
I think you’re right. Sucks that real life isn’t as fun as college! Haha.
I hope you read this Matt. Goonies, Short Circuit, both filmed in my hometown Astoria, OR! Not to mention Ninja Turtles III and Free Willy, just so you know.
One point that Ann made,i did find interesting is the one about estrogen. Lately im wondering more if estrogen&serotonin migth be the defining factor in health&especially mentally&energyin women who have gained?
Bc some seem to become more cheerful&active,while others feel more sluggish,experiencing pain,mental issues especially accepting oneself. Im wondering if the first group of women migthve actually restored a healthy hormonal balanve and the other group not so much?(high serotonin/estrogen).
And while i dont think all advices regarding selfacceptance is BS,i do think its also a slippery slope just as with this exercise article.
From personal experience i found that these hormones can seriously take over your emotions&thougths and various psychological practices wont do much to solve the problem in general,it migth give a little relief at the moment itself. So,it migth be a helpful tool but wont be the longterm solution imho.
Anyway,thats just me theorizing since there isnt an article on this difference in women(yet?). Would. Also explain why more men are less worrying about/affected by fatgain,bc they have lower estrogen in their body to begin with….
Well I am still waiting for Ann or anyone else to offer an alternative to Matt’s program. I have gained weight to heal my metabolism. I have not heard of one single alternative route!!
I exercised a lot in the 80s; 6 days a week, actually. God bless America those were good times, except for the inevitable 2 courses of Accutane I ended up having to take from the cystic acne…… Back then no one knew and no one cared. I’m not sure much has changed.
I’ve been really active the last 5 years or so. I walk many days a week and do a lot of Pilates. I feel good, but the narcissistic aspects of it continue to annoy me and probably always will. 24 inches, 25 inches, it makes no difference- unless you are skeletal and gorgeous you’re nothing in the current culture.
I took two courses of Accutane a few years ago. Have you noticed any long term effects? I haven’t at all.