The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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I'm continuing to lose weight from semaglutide (down 25lbs so far in about 3 months), these past few weeks at a rate of 2lbs/week. I'm also working out 6 times a week doing high-volume bodybuilding style training in order to preserve every shred of muscle I've built over the past 10 years of intermittently working out, and of course eating very high amounts of protein.
I'm still roughly 22 or 23 percent body fat, so not shredded by any means, but beneath the fat I have about 165lbs of lean body mass at a height of 5'9.5, and the large body frame that caused me so much anguish as a teenager is starting to play in my favour because it turns out that my shoulders are wide as fuck (21inches across from shoulder to shoulder measured on a wall, and 53inch shoulders circumference, and it turns out that girls like wide shoulders the way guys like tits?) ... so the overall figure is starting to come together, and the face has slimmed down too. Overall I look ok and muscular in clothes, but kind of unimpressive naked.
I have noticed... changes... to the way I'm perceived socially. Lots of furtive glances when I pass by (and some direct staring), lots of girls staring at my chest when I talk to them, a lot more inexplicable hair-playing and lip-licking, groups of high-school girls giggling when I pass by (which caused me a fucking spike of anxiety when it first happened, high-school-girl-giggling was not associated with anything good the last time it happened to me). I notice that people seemingly want to integrate me into conversations significantly more than before, I've noticed a subtle shift in energy when there's a casual group discussion.
It's also kind of fun to see new people I meet kind of be perplexed after talking to me for the first time. Bear in mind that my fundamental personality is that of a physics nerd (though now I do machine learning), that was the archetype that crystallised inside me during my adolescence, and getting muscles and a bit leaner has done nothing to that aspect of me. But this means that people kind of get visibly perplexed when I ask good questions during ML poster sessions, and when I don't fit their idea of a dumb muscle-bound jock. So far this has mostly amused me, we'll see how It'll get as I get even leaner.
As I get leaner the changes accelerate, every 5lbs decrease has produced more changes of this sort than the last. Overall this has been a strangely emotional experience, I'm basically in the process of fulfilling the dream of my 14-year-old self, and I don't really see any obstacle that could prevent me from getting to 12% body fat in a few more months.
I'll write a much longer top-level post with pictures and everything once this is all over.
If it changes your emotional reaction at all, I think you're finding out that you're really a good looking dude rather than just that you're better off not obese.
I'm bigger than I think you are now and probably been a little leaner, and I did not have schoolgirls giggling as I passed by. And for that matter, I'm a pretty dude myself! dropping the weight has revealed that you've been gorgeous all along.
Okay... Today on the subway a ridiculously attractive girl literally started blushing when our eyes met, like, her cheeks and nose became very visibly red, and she wasn't wearing blush make-up, this also happened a few times over the past few weeks. Is that a muscles-dependent effect, or a "you're handsome" effect?
It's not one or the other, it is BOTH together.
I have friends that are built like a brick shithouse, but the finishing on the brickwork was bad, ugly, poor face shape unfortunate haircut bad skin bad style. They don't get stared at.
If you literally have hot women stare at you in public, it's everything you are doing. The styling, the mannerisms, the body, the facial features. In the past, the body was letting you down, and hiding all those other qualities, now it's picking you up and displaying them.
That's the point I'm trying to make contra the Black Pill attitude of "they only love me because I'm not fat now and that's depressing." No, everything else about you is awesome too and was before, it just used to be hidden under the fat.
Keep in mind that visually, if I have a good idea of what your body looks like (mine), if you are losing belly fat that increases the contrast and angle from your shoulders/lats/chest to your waist. You might look bigger and more imposing at a glance than you did when you were actually physically bigger but rounder and softer so you read smaller.
I mean. Large changes in physical attractiveness in either direction tend to produce cynicism. Read some accounts of fat people that lost a lot of weight. Or of people that got medically-indicated surgery for their puny jaws. Or on the other side...stories about people that became disabled or disfigured.
Returns on physical appearance, like returns on most things, are logit-curve-shaped: it rocks to rock and sucks to suck. Luckily, OP has now managed to be well above average for physical appearance. Good for him.
I would go so far as to say that people get weird and cynical about any strongly attractive traits they have. It's a pattern I've noticed in people regardless of what the trait is. Money, Ethnicity, Fame, perfect breasts, a huge cock, whatever. It becomes a question in their mind whether their partner is attracted to some mystical "real self" outside of that one strong trait.
Which is why eyes are the best thing to compliment about anyone, no one will get weird about it. Except occasionally East Asian girls in America, but you can normally get through that.
And any strongly unattractive traits they have.
No, if anything people with singularly strong unattractive traits become Romantic rather than Cynical.
The guy with a huge dick becomes cynical about his strength. "Women only love me for this thing, they don't love the real me."
The guy with a micropenis romanticizes it. "Women would love me, I'm wonderful, except for this thing."
Hmm. Maybe a micropenis isn’t exactly a great example here: it’s not obvious and doesn’t lead to discrimination in social settings. Someone that looks like Freddy Krueger, on the other hand…he’ll conclude that people kind of suck and are slinging a lot of bullshit about being inclusive and accepting. I’ve read about (but never personally knew) Freddies; I’ve known a couple of Fridas. I don’t know if a deeply unattractive woman becomes cynical while her equally-ugly Quasimodo-like twin brother develops a sense of romanticism.
I’d contend both are like “damn, people suck and are superficial”…
EDIT: Frida told me that she felt her personality didn't matter. That all that mattered was physical appearance, or rather that her face was too ugly to ever find love. I don't think she thought her personality was remarkable or that she had any kind of exceptional inner beauty: she was sad, angry, and cynical. Also blunt and hilarious and caring.
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Hmm, somehow I doubt that. It's not like all schoolgirls I pass by giggle, but it's happened like 3 times over the past month (I probably pass by more schoolgirls than you because I take the subway). But then I'm curious, what things did you notice in your case?
Hard to say, I don't really have the transformation you're undergoing to talk about. When I started lifting in college I went from 5'11" 165 to 185-195 for ten years, but I kept wearing 32 pants and a 40 jacket they just fit differently over time. I generally am in Thibs' old Muscle Migration Theory, my weight and general muscle stayed the same it just varied from half assed Oly lifting to climbing to powerlifting. It's only in the last year I changed up my lifting and my supplements and packed on another ten pounds to 205 and just can't find fucking anything that fits right without stretch. I'm definitely the attached meme here, my level of female attention has barely changed from 18 to 31 despite carrying 20 or 30 more pounds of decent muscle, at varying distributions and levels of leanness. Lovers will often compliment things like my shoulders, or my forearms, or my biceps, but only after we get together and I strongly suspect that they are pretty secondary to the attraction.
In general my model of human, and especially hetero male, attractiveness is that the curve is very discontinuous. The return to a good vs a great personality is more or less zero difference if you're a totally unfuckable 1/10, and even getting to a 2/10 won't change much, but get to a 5/10 and all that starts to come into play. An 8/10 handsome face attached to a 3/10 fatbody doesn't deliver much, but put it on a 5/10 ordinary body and all of a sudden it's go time. Essentially the biggest returns are all at that point between 3-6/10 when you go to average and then slightly above average; then there is almost no return until you get to 9/10 and you're actively everyone-in-the-room-looks-at-you gorgeous. The factors all kind of hang together and need to be in line for any one to really give you returns.
Which is to say: You've been a good looking smart charismatic dude all along, you finally dropped the literal anchor holding you back. Better living through chemistry. Mazel tov!
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Hmm. I kind of disagree here. Being 2/10 probably sucks a good deal less than being a 1/10. At a certain level of unattractiveness...say bottom five percent or so, rough ballpark...it's kind of understood that you're not interested in sex or relationships, and to be interested - even in the abstract - is transgressive and creepy. Nope: Quasimodo doesn't get to join in when the guys are shooting the shit about attractive celebrities, there's an awkward silence. If Quasimodo hits on Jane Average, there is a good chance that he will be considered creepy for doing what would be unremarkable for Joe Average. Once you aren't experiencing what disability theorists call desexualization...yes, you're right there. It's a logit-curve-shaped distribution.
No, I am not pulling this from my ass, incel boards, or other crap. I've personally experienced this (although it was due to a combination of autism and physical unattractiveness; I've had friends tell me on several occasions that I either should never have a relationship or that my only hope was gold diggers). And my experience aside, I've had similar conversations with unattractive men and women that described the same phenomenon I'm talking about...not to mention the disability theorists' description of this.
This is NOT "You're unattractive; I'm not interested" but "Damn: you're unattractive as fuck - how dare you be interested in anyone, ever?". It's doing poorly on the basketball court versus being told you shouldn't even be on the court at all.
My point coincides with yours, my man.
I think of a 1 and a 2 as equally more or less unfuckable grades, so moving up one grade delivers nothing at all. Being Disney Quasimodo rather than Hugo Quasimodo delivers no advantages.
Going from an unfuckable 2 to a merely unpleasant 3 is a HUGE return, going from 3 to a below average 4 and to average 5 and above average 6 are each delivering returns. But getting from above average to slightly more above average delivers less.
Yep. There’s either three or five classes. A lot of average in the middle to chug through. Like…there’s 0s, 1s, and 2s. Or 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.
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Also highly relevant in the middle tier is dressing well and getting a decent haircut. Contrary to what the Russians mentioned in the thread the other day think, maintaining a decent haircut isn't gay and doesn't take any real effort. If you're going to be wearing a suit, do get it tailored. Buy shirts that conspicuously display your forearms when they're rolled up. Whatever positive features you have, accentuate them.
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