6 ms·

If this is just me whinging then I apologize, but in my own life and among some people I know: the insane bifurcation into monster fitness where it’s more impor

If this is just me whinging then I apologize, but in my own life and among some people I know: the insane bifurcation into monster fitness where it’s more important than your job and “no one cares” seems to be a driver of careless weight management. The standard of being “in shape” has gotten so absurd, and the nonlinear payoff around fitness so steep at the “maybe doing some pretty extreme shit” cutoff that I’m personally surprised I have t just given up, and it seems a lot of people have. I don’t know if it’s TikTok, or Marvel movies, or whatever: but “fucking mutant superhero” used to one among many attractive archetypes.

FeaturelessBug 4y ago
I don't know if my own anecdote will help you but I've been overweight since I was a child and I've done just about every diet under the moon. I used to hate myself and my body, a lot. I went to the gym three days a days week pushing myself hard and counted calories, and my weight wouldn't budge. I ended up developing a lot of disordered eating doing fasting and I really thought I could hate myself into being thin. When I finally found keto and it worked, I started dropping weight and I quickly lost control of my diet and started to starve myself in earnest while continuing what exercise I could. After a while all I could do was take long walks. I lost 80 pounds in 8 months doing this, and I was still considered over weight by about 60 pounds. I never got any happier with myself by changing my body. I still didn't think I was worth anything unless I could get tiny. I had really bad brain fog, I stopped being able to produce my own body heat, started to have fainting spells, and finally heart palpitations. When I went to the doctor all they told me is what a good job I was doing losing weight and that the palpitations were from my panic disorder. I finally stopped keto because my partner sat me down and begged me to stop. It was really hard and it took time to give it up, but I finally did. I had no real muscle left and I was so fatigued... Over the course of a year... I gained all the weight back. I still have palpitations sometimes, and I will never know what damage yoyo dieting for years did to me. I don't diet anymore, I've started intuitive eating and my diet has improved over all. I eat variety now, more vegetables and lots of protein. I also have carbs, and dessert with I want it. I've also started doing things for the experience rather than to make my body look a certain and ultimately unattainable way. I don't focus on how I look anymore, I focus on being strong. I am now highly active and doing activities I never thought I would be capable of in my fat body. I take dance classes four times a week, I lift weights, and I am starting Lyra and aerial classes. I also don't step on scales anymore. But I can tell you I haven't magically shrunk. I guess what I'm trying to say is... Any standard of "in shape" can be impossible for any person. We aren't all meant to look that same and I think that people are caring less about being overweight because it should never have been a limiting factor to you enjoying your life, being active, and being well loved by the right people.
- jinjin2 4y ago
  > We aren't all meant to look that same Is that actually true though? Take a look at the photographic evidence of hunter-gatherers. They all largely look the same physique wise. I think there is a good argument, at least from an historical/anthropological perspective, that that is how we are all meant to look.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    > Take a look at the photographic evidence of hunter-gatherers I think this would need more development. What do you mean by "hunter-gatherers", and what photographic evidence we have. For instance there's African societies which would fit the "hunter-gatherer" label (for instance the Akan in Ghana) and they're not all looking the same.
  - snovv_crash 4y ago
    No need to look that far back. Look at pictures/videos of random people on the streets in the 1930s.
- oifjsidjf 4y ago
  You are fooling yourself if you think that being fat is healthy. You were on a very good path when doing keto, but why did you starve yourself? There are two kinds of diets that lead to healthy weight loss: 1) low-fat high-carb 2) high-fat low-carb Pick one and stick with it. But god help you if you will mix large amounts of carbs and fats. Your only mistake is that you starved yourself on keto, people have extreme success on keto/carnivore. No need to starve yourself.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    > You are fooling yourself if you think that being fat is healthy. You are responding to a description of pain and suffering through all kinds of diets....with a push to do more diet. And that, without any better argumentation than "There are two kinds of diets that lead to healthy weight loss". At this point it's just plain evil.
cnity 4y ago
Something that helped me in all my areas of life is realizing that I was attempting to fit myself into the expectations of "the internet". I managed to somehow drop this almost instantaneously after the realization, and now behaving according to my own desires is a constant source of joy.
- benreesman 4y ago
  I take your point, but it's not always directly the Internet though. The last time I was in ridiculously good shape was right before COVID. I was boxing 18 hours a week in 6 3-hour sessions with a 23-year-old kid who looked like Ivan Drago's son. I was 6'4", 240lbs, with a body-fat percentage under 15%. Athletes routinely exceed that level of fitness, few others do. In the 90s I would have been the cut of an NFL tight-end. But in my vicinity were guys who were fucking shredded. Younger and older. Those guys were taking something. Anabolic steroids? Not sure, but fucking likely. Now I've got 10-15% less muscle mass but am up to 260lbs. So my body fat percentage has slowely but surely crept above 20%. And the guys at the gym are even scarier than 3 years ago. Blowing joints on absurd weight and being back at it 1-2 weeks later. Is this because of the Internet? Maybe. But you don't need the Internet to have it all around you.
  - IThoughtYouGNU 4y ago
tick_tock_tick 4y ago
I honestly think the opposite, or maybe both are possible at once, people have gotten so used to fat people that they seem to think people at perfectly healthy weights are underweight.
- baxuz 4y ago
  Exactly this. In most of the western world, more than half of people are overweight. Being fat is something that is starting to get normalized, which is horrible. And it's not all about the fat. People have become horribly weak because of their sedentary lifestyle. Sit at a desk for 8h, sleep 8h, sit on the couch for 2h for entertainment, sit while eating for 1h. And it's perfectly understandable that people want to take care of their body more than they care about other things. It's the only thing that is truly theirs and no amount of money can fix it if you don't take care of it.
- anothernewdude 4y ago
  Until recently I was morbidly obese. I didn't even think of myself as being fat.
  - workingon 4y ago
    How?
    - wccrawford 4y ago
      My pet theory? We all see ourselves as an idealized version of ourselves that was set a long time ago. In my case, I was well past the "obese" point on the BMI scale, but not "morbidly obese" yet. I thought I was overweight, but not badly so. Then I stopped and took a good look at my BMI and where it should be, and decided to diet. I lost some weight myself, and then went to a doctor who prescribed a drug to help me. I ended up losing almost 70 lbs. I've gained about 20 of that back now, but I've been holding (or slowly slipping) for quite a few years now, and still want to lose again. I look at old pictures of myself and I'm horrified at how fat I was. But at the time, I didn't see a problem.
    - 4y ago
have_faith 4y ago
I don't think I know anyone who looks up to the "mutant superhero" aesthetic. I'm guessing this is because all of the fit people I know are into lifestyle outdoor sports (hiking, climbing, biking, etc) instead of weightlifting and exercise focused activies. In the climbing community it's actually the opposite: obsession with strength to weight ratio, not getting too big etc.
znpy 4y ago
> but “fucking mutant superhero” used to one among many attractive archetypes. I've been thinking for a while that male people mostly did not receive attention at all from the whole body-positivity movement. Which is very relevant, because a lot of people strive for a physical condition which might simply be unachievable, or they try to reach such body shape in unhealthy ways (i've so many friends start using wey powder as a significant part of their nutrition without consulting their doctor and/or a nutritionist). In general I think male people would generally benefit from some body positivity...
- eastbound 4y ago
  The only valid body positivity is having it validated in the form of a girlfriend, kids, etc. Before that, any body positivity is theoretical.
zelos 4y ago
There is definitely something to this. Basically any man who takes their shirt off in a film is generally ridiculously muscular. As in, a body shape that's only achievable with hours of intense training a day, probably with an expensive personal trainer, diet plan etc. I remember an interview with Henry Cavill (The Witcher) describing the process of dehydrating himself on days before shirtless scenes to enhance muscle definition. I know it affects me. Looking at media 20-30 years ago I don't this was as prevalent.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Johanx64 4y ago
  >As in, a body shape that's only achievable with hours of intense training a day, probably with an expensive personal trainer, diet plan etc. It's all steroids. Hours of training and some super rigorous diet plan is all a ruse. It's steroids. People have recovery time, hours of intense training a day is physically not possible, atleast not in the way which would build muscle for the type of shitless shots.
  - eggsmediumrare 4y ago
    It's steroids and hours and hours of training. Steroids aren't magic, you still need to work for it.
    - Johanx64 4y ago
      You can't have hours and hours of training without the fast recovery effects of roids and various PEDs. Mentioning hard work is completely unnecessary, it is a given. Following the programme and rep-ing till failure isn't necessarily particularly "hard work" especially if you're roided up. The difference between using and not using roids & PEDs is so massive, that all this mentioning of "hard work" is extremely disingenuous.
- Der_Einzige 4y ago
  People don't want to watch movies with ugly people in them if possible. This is why a series like the Witcher has a at least a 50/50 general balance in the enjoy.ent if the TV show even though the player base of the games is a sausage fest...
Johanx64 4y ago
TikTok and Marvel movies is all steroids. It's just steroids & PEDs all around wherever you look. Getting to low BF% is all very doable though, just keep your carb intake to bare minimum. But getting the shredded/body builder look people asociate with weightlifting? Most of the time that shit is just pure steroids and unachievable naturally outside of some very rare 0.01% specimen.
- eggsmediumrare 4y ago
  It's steroids and hard work. Most people can achieve a comparable look (of marvel movies, not mass monster bodybuilders) with years of hard work, with the exception of maybe some delt size.
  - Johanx64 4y ago
    See, mentioning hard work is pretty meaningless. It is a given. And thus the missing component ultimately is roids really. Because if you don't use roids, by far most people can't get roided tiktoker/marvel super hero look. Hard work or not. The fact is, that most actors in those movies get there very quickly, relatively speaking and they do use roids. With some very, very rare exceptions. The hard work isn't the missing component, the roids is the missing key component.
chobytes 4y ago
I think its the addictive nature of cardio. Like I definitely feel like I need to get out there and get my heart going. Takes restraint to rest when I know I need it. I wonder if we could just induce a little healthy endorphin addiction is less fit people to prime them? Haha

FeaturelessBug 4y ago

I don't know if my own anecdote will help you but I've been overweight since I was a child and I've done just about every diet under the moon. I used to hate myself and my body, a lot. I went to the gym three days a days week pushing myself hard and counted calories, and my weight wouldn't budge. I ended up developing a lot of disordered eating doing fasting and I really thought I could hate myself into being thin. When I finally found keto and it worked, I started dropping weight and I quickly lost control of my diet and started to starve myself in earnest while continuing what exercise I could. After a while all I could do was take long walks. I lost 80 pounds in 8 months doing this, and I was still considered over weight by about 60 pounds. I never got any happier with myself by changing my body. I still didn't think I was worth anything unless I could get tiny. I had really bad brain fog, I stopped being able to produce my own body heat, started to have fainting spells, and finally heart palpitations. When I went to the doctor all they told me is what a good job I was doing losing weight and that the palpitations were from my panic disorder. I finally stopped keto because my partner sat me down and begged me to stop. It was really hard and it took time to give it up, but I finally did. I had no real muscle left and I was so fatigued... Over the course of a year... I gained all the weight back. I still have palpitations sometimes, and I will never know what damage yoyo dieting for years did to me. I don't diet anymore, I've started intuitive eating and my diet has improved over all. I eat variety now, more vegetables and lots of protein. I also have carbs, and dessert with I want it. I've also started doing things for the experience rather than to make my body look a certain and ultimately unattainable way. I don't focus on how I look anymore, I focus on being strong. I am now highly active and doing activities I never thought I would be capable of in my fat body. I take dance classes four times a week, I lift weights, and I am starting Lyra and aerial classes. I also don't step on scales anymore. But I can tell you I haven't magically shrunk. I guess what I'm trying to say is... Any standard of "in shape" can be impossible for any person. We aren't all meant to look that same and I think that people are caring less about being overweight because it should never have been a limiting factor to you enjoying your life, being active, and being well loved by the right people.

jinjin2 4y ago
> We aren't all meant to look that same Is that actually true though? Take a look at the photographic evidence of hunter-gatherers. They all largely look the same physique wise. I think there is a good argument, at least from an historical/anthropological perspective, that that is how we are all meant to look.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  > Take a look at the photographic evidence of hunter-gatherers I think this would need more development. What do you mean by "hunter-gatherers", and what photographic evidence we have. For instance there's African societies which would fit the "hunter-gatherer" label (for instance the Akan in Ghana) and they're not all looking the same.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  No need to look that far back. Look at pictures/videos of random people on the streets in the 1930s.
oifjsidjf 4y ago
You are fooling yourself if you think that being fat is healthy. You were on a very good path when doing keto, but why did you starve yourself? There are two kinds of diets that lead to healthy weight loss: 1) low-fat high-carb 2) high-fat low-carb Pick one and stick with it. But god help you if you will mix large amounts of carbs and fats. Your only mistake is that you starved yourself on keto, people have extreme success on keto/carnivore. No need to starve yourself.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  > You are fooling yourself if you think that being fat is healthy. You are responding to a description of pain and suffering through all kinds of diets....with a push to do more diet. And that, without any better argumentation than "There are two kinds of diets that lead to healthy weight loss". At this point it's just plain evil.

cnity 4y ago

Something that helped me in all my areas of life is realizing that I was attempting to fit myself into the expectations of "the internet". I managed to somehow drop this almost instantaneously after the realization, and now behaving according to my own desires is a constant source of joy.

benreesman 4y ago
I take your point, but it's not always directly the Internet though. The last time I was in ridiculously good shape was right before COVID. I was boxing 18 hours a week in 6 3-hour sessions with a 23-year-old kid who looked like Ivan Drago's son. I was 6'4", 240lbs, with a body-fat percentage under 15%. Athletes routinely exceed that level of fitness, few others do. In the 90s I would have been the cut of an NFL tight-end. But in my vicinity were guys who were fucking shredded. Younger and older. Those guys were taking something. Anabolic steroids? Not sure, but fucking likely. Now I've got 10-15% less muscle mass but am up to 260lbs. So my body fat percentage has slowely but surely crept above 20%. And the guys at the gym are even scarier than 3 years ago. Blowing joints on absurd weight and being back at it 1-2 weeks later. Is this because of the Internet? Maybe. But you don't need the Internet to have it all around you.
- IThoughtYouGNU 4y ago

tick_tock_tick 4y ago

I honestly think the opposite, or maybe both are possible at once, people have gotten so used to fat people that they seem to think people at perfectly healthy weights are underweight.

baxuz 4y ago
Exactly this. In most of the western world, more than half of people are overweight. Being fat is something that is starting to get normalized, which is horrible. And it's not all about the fat. People have become horribly weak because of their sedentary lifestyle. Sit at a desk for 8h, sleep 8h, sit on the couch for 2h for entertainment, sit while eating for 1h. And it's perfectly understandable that people want to take care of their body more than they care about other things. It's the only thing that is truly theirs and no amount of money can fix it if you don't take care of it.
anothernewdude 4y ago
Until recently I was morbidly obese. I didn't even think of myself as being fat.
- workingon 4y ago
  How?
  - wccrawford 4y ago
    My pet theory? We all see ourselves as an idealized version of ourselves that was set a long time ago. In my case, I was well past the "obese" point on the BMI scale, but not "morbidly obese" yet. I thought I was overweight, but not badly so. Then I stopped and took a good look at my BMI and where it should be, and decided to diet. I lost some weight myself, and then went to a doctor who prescribed a drug to help me. I ended up losing almost 70 lbs. I've gained about 20 of that back now, but I've been holding (or slowly slipping) for quite a few years now, and still want to lose again. I look at old pictures of myself and I'm horrified at how fat I was. But at the time, I didn't see a problem.
  - 4y ago

have_faith 4y ago

I don't think I know anyone who looks up to the "mutant superhero" aesthetic. I'm guessing this is because all of the fit people I know are into lifestyle outdoor sports (hiking, climbing, biking, etc) instead of weightlifting and exercise focused activies. In the climbing community it's actually the opposite: obsession with strength to weight ratio, not getting too big etc.

znpy 4y ago

> but “fucking mutant superhero” used to one among many attractive archetypes. I've been thinking for a while that male people mostly did not receive attention at all from the whole body-positivity movement. Which is very relevant, because a lot of people strive for a physical condition which might simply be unachievable, or they try to reach such body shape in unhealthy ways (i've so many friends start using wey powder as a significant part of their nutrition without consulting their doctor and/or a nutritionist). In general I think male people would generally benefit from some body positivity...

eastbound 4y ago
The only valid body positivity is having it validated in the form of a girlfriend, kids, etc. Before that, any body positivity is theoretical.

zelos 4y ago

There is definitely something to this. Basically any man who takes their shirt off in a film is generally ridiculously muscular. As in, a body shape that's only achievable with hours of intense training a day, probably with an expensive personal trainer, diet plan etc. I remember an interview with Henry Cavill (The Witcher) describing the process of dehydrating himself on days before shirtless scenes to enhance muscle definition. I know it affects me. Looking at media 20-30 years ago I don't this was as prevalent.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Johanx64 4y ago
>As in, a body shape that's only achievable with hours of intense training a day, probably with an expensive personal trainer, diet plan etc. It's all steroids. Hours of training and some super rigorous diet plan is all a ruse. It's steroids. People have recovery time, hours of intense training a day is physically not possible, atleast not in the way which would build muscle for the type of shitless shots.
- eggsmediumrare 4y ago
  It's steroids and hours and hours of training. Steroids aren't magic, you still need to work for it.
  - Johanx64 4y ago
    You can't have hours and hours of training without the fast recovery effects of roids and various PEDs. Mentioning hard work is completely unnecessary, it is a given. Following the programme and rep-ing till failure isn't necessarily particularly "hard work" especially if you're roided up. The difference between using and not using roids & PEDs is so massive, that all this mentioning of "hard work" is extremely disingenuous.
Der_Einzige 4y ago
People don't want to watch movies with ugly people in them if possible. This is why a series like the Witcher has a at least a 50/50 general balance in the enjoy.ent if the TV show even though the player base of the games is a sausage fest...

Johanx64 4y ago

TikTok and Marvel movies is all steroids. It's just steroids & PEDs all around wherever you look. Getting to low BF% is all very doable though, just keep your carb intake to bare minimum. But getting the shredded/body builder look people asociate with weightlifting? Most of the time that shit is just pure steroids and unachievable naturally outside of some very rare 0.01% specimen.

eggsmediumrare 4y ago
It's steroids and hard work. Most people can achieve a comparable look (of marvel movies, not mass monster bodybuilders) with years of hard work, with the exception of maybe some delt size.
- Johanx64 4y ago
  See, mentioning hard work is pretty meaningless. It is a given. And thus the missing component ultimately is roids really. Because if you don't use roids, by far most people can't get roided tiktoker/marvel super hero look. Hard work or not. The fact is, that most actors in those movies get there very quickly, relatively speaking and they do use roids. With some very, very rare exceptions. The hard work isn't the missing component, the roids is the missing key component.

chobytes 4y ago

I think its the addictive nature of cardio. Like I definitely feel like I need to get out there and get my heart going. Takes restraint to rest when I know I need it. I wonder if we could just induce a little healthy endorphin addiction is less fit people to prime them? Haha