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.
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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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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