I stumbled upon this article, and I’m not sure whether or not the author has a valid point.
"People have different metabolisms. There are people who eat tons of food and never exercise, yet they are skinny. There are other people who eat healthy foods in reasonable portions, exercise for hours, and will still probably always be “overweight.” "
My initial opinion is that people are just lazy and don’t know what qualifies as proper exercise, and healthy food. Although I suppose there are people who legitimately can’t lose weight. I’ve run into tons of people in my dorm who complain about crappy metabolisms, and yet they drink kool aid right before bed, so I’m tempted to think that most people are full of crap.
it was something along the lines of apperance related garbage.
i want to strangle people sometimes. i dont know if everyone but me is completely ignorant to the fact that people are animals and we have instincts, we have instincts that tell us whats good and bad, what we should and shouldnt do. its how our brain works its how we got to where we are today.
apperance takes the majority of decision process involved in whether or not youd sleep with someone. obviously things can fluctuate by social interactions (personality) friendship, or other variables.
but the fact of the matter is if you look like shit most people arent gonna even give you a second look, no matter how beautiful you are on the “inside”.
i dont feel bad for this person at all, if you want to change the apperance you were born with you have to be proactive.
i used to be really, really skinny. i used to just look awkward, big hands with really snall forearms just dont look right. especially with a face full of zits. but i didnt sit around waiting for people to mope for me well, i did sit around and then i took charge, i got my face cleared up and i started lifting weights and im like another person now. i get nothing but compliments on a daily basis.
its not easy though, you dont walk into a gym one day and leave with pounds of vascular muscle. it takes work. if you want to lose weight, you put in the effort both mentaly and physically and you fucking do it. if it was easy it wouldnt be worth anything.
Yeah, the article is incredibly stupid, but I was wondering if it had any merits. I used to be pretty fat, and managed to lose the weight, without having to kill myself. But just because people on T-Nation can lose/gain weight doesn’t mean that undereducated folk can, I suppose.
to an extent i can sympathize. if i hadnt found this site god knows what id be doing. maybe they really are doing everything they think is right. i use the analogy of flooring the gas pedal but the car is only in neutral. if you dont got everything setup right and dont know what youre doing youre just burning gas and going nowhere.
theres a guy like that right now at my gym. he just lost a ton of weight, guy was like 300 pounds and now hes 180-190 id guess. he looks skinny though. he comes in like twice a day. sometimes hell do a cardio session then a weight session sometimes two weights, usually for 1.5 hrs each or something. he also takes in like 2,000 calories or something lower.
i tell him everytime like dude, you need to slow the fuck down. come in once a day, and i explain to him what i do. and tell him to up his cals. he said he wants to be my size so i figure he’d listen to me?
my point is that he’s busting his ass but he isnt doing shit. this person could be busting their ass too but maybe they just have no clue what theyre doing.
send him a link to the V-diet or something, idk.
if thats really your case i do sympathize. i used to bust my ass trying to have abs too and it didnt work cause i was doing all the wrong shit, its a long story though. but one way or another if you keep at it things will turn out for the best. so if this person really wants it they will get it.
Read the article and I have seen many like it.
Of course genetics plays a role to a point.
Many of us may never be totally shredded. But, I believe that looking good in clothes is attainable for the majority of population.
Look at photos from 1880’s-the men look strong and slim,while the women look stout.
Too little movement,too much crappy food.
I have to disagree here. This is true. Some people can eat carbs and sweets and you can see their veins suddenly pup out and muscles get full as they store up glycogen. Some people will do the same thing and their body will puff up their fat cells and they’ll look more flabby. How you process and partition your food is genetic.
Some can get away with eating much larger amounts of food from less desirable sources and not get fat. Why is this even debated?
Everything is genetic and genetics express themselves early and fast. If you’re meant to grow muscles quickly, you will not have to find the magic routine for you. It will just happen with any weight you touch. For others it’s more of a struggle and the less favorable genetic expression you have towards that activity the more difficult the road will be. Otherwise anyone could be Ronnie Coleman or Arnold, if they just “believed” and “worked for it”
Just to be clear im not saying it should be used as an excuse. but it’s good to know and accept certain limitations. Because whether you accept them or not the limitations will still be there. I think that it;s smarter to accept a limitation then to brainlessly pound and pound for something that can’t happen to happen. Thats insanity.
Frank Zane accepted his body. Good thing he didn’t obsess about looking just like Arnold. Because the reality he NEVER could or would.
Personally I think the #1 problem with most people’s mentalities is a misunderstanding of diets and resistance training.
A lot of people run and run and run and eat starvation diets, and don’t understand why they can’t lose weight (or they lose too much muscle along with the fat) so they blame genetics. I have sympathy for these people - there is so much misinformation out there that even making a good effort to learn the RIGHT way to do things may leave you really confused because of so many fake “experts” who think bosu balls are the fucking nuts. Resistance training is also a scary mystery for some people - when it’s really the key to getting in shape.
That being said there are people out there who genuinely have it tougher due to genetics. HOWEVER, in my opinion it’s vastly overstated and NO ONE should claim that they are genetically incapable of doing something when they haven’t been doing things right. For insance no one should claim they’re incapable due to genetics of putting on 30lbs of muscle when they eat like an anorexic. Almost ANYONE who is just starting out can put on that much muscle. I have never heard a story of a beginner who had a perfect diet and lifting program and still could not make any progress whatsoever solely because of his genetics. It’s tough but in 99% of all cases, if you’re super fat or super skinny it’s your own damn fault.
I think that bodybuilders near their genetic potential may have to accept what they look like because they can’t push themselves much farther. But most people are nowhere near that and should not accept their bodies unless they are happy with them.
[quote]daudowen wrote:
Just don’t buy the genetic argument.
Read the article and I have seen many like it.
Of course genetics plays a role to a point.
Many of us may never be totally shredded. But, I believe that looking good in clothes is attainable for the majority of population.
Look at photos from 1880’s-the men look strong and slim,while the women look stout.
Too little movement,too much crappy food.
[/quote]
Agreed and this is one argument most “fat acceptance” people just seem to ignore - they believe that genetically we have a certain predestined “set weight” and all efforts to change it are basically futile. But it makes no sense why suddenly the predestined “set weight” for all of america would jump 30lbs or so in a generation (we did not have an obesity crisis in the 50’s).
It’s clear as day that shitty food and lack of exercise are responsible for this much more than any sort of genetic change.
[quote]nowakc wrote:
daudowen wrote:
Just don’t buy the genetic argument.
Read the article and I have seen many like it.
Of course genetics plays a role to a point.
Many of us may never be totally shredded. But, I believe that looking good in clothes is attainable for the majority of population.
Look at photos from 1880’s-the men look strong and slim,while the women look stout.
Too little movement,too much crappy food.
Agreed and this is one argument most “fat acceptance” people just seem to ignore - they believe that genetically we have a certain predestined “set weight” and all efforts to change it are basically futile. But it makes no sense why suddenly the predestined “set weight” for all of america would jump 30lbs or so in a generation (we did not have an obesity crisis in the 50’s). It’s clear as day that shitty food and lack of exercise are responsible for this much more than any sort of genetic change.[/quote]
i would actually argue that shitty food and lack of exercise are responsible for a genetic change.
i dont have a background in anthropology but it just seems logical that over the years the worse you make your own genetics the worse potential your offspring would have.
take a look at the Belgian Blue, the cattle which was bred to be born with double muscles or something to that extent, basically the ronnie coleman of cattle. so its proven that through the breeding of paticular genes the next generation will have more of those traits and you can breed the best of that group to produce more, and so on.
so the obvious opposite to that would be that if you take the worst of the worst and keep letting them mate they would keep producing worse offspring.
so if two obese people whos parents were obese have kids its more likely that the those genes are going to be the ones passed down. which actually brings up another argument; could this guys family background be so awful he is actually predestined to be fat?
i would say no however because i dont think these obesity crisis has been around in enough generations yet for it to be that significant but perhaps in 3 or 4 more generations it is a likely possibility.
genetics are a fact. breeding is a fact. if you are muscular and your wife is fit you will probaly have a higher probability to have more athletic, or at least good looking children. of course if you feed them nothing but blueberry pie it may not turn out so good.
Unless fat is selected for that won’t make any sense - fat is still not an advantageous trait to have so those who are predisposed to it don’t have any natural genetic advantage that makes them more likely to breed. Unless something interesting is going on, skinny people are equally or moreso likely to breed than fat people, meaning there shouldn’t be any rise in “fat” genes in the population.
[quote]nowakc wrote:
Unless fat is selected for that won’t make any sense - fat is still not an advantageous trait to have so those who are predisposed to it don’t have any natural genetic advantage that makes them more likely to breed. Unless something interesting is going on, skinny people are equally or moreso likely to breed than fat people, meaning there shouldn’t be any rise in “fat” genes in the population.[/quote]
Flat out laziness beats logical assessment of genetic traits each and every time. Fat people are growing in number because they comfort themselves with other fat people. How many fat guys do you see with fitness models or skinny chicks? Most of the time, both in the couple are fat. They reject the people who are more in shape because it makes them feel bad about themselves.
This is one reason some of the guys here really believe girls hate muscles. Most girls (in general) today aren’t in shape at all. They wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone who made them look bad.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
This is one reason some of the guys here really believe girls hate muscles. Most girls (in general) today aren’t in shape at all. They wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone who made them look bad.[/quote]
That is true, but even more than that I think it comes down to an issue of self-confidence. Just from my college experience, I know that most of my peers, deep down, don’t have the quiet self-confidence that is born of accomplishing something through hard work. I think that’s basically what you are saying though and not like I’m saying anything that most people on here don’t already know.
A lot of girls DON’T really go for a guy who’s really in great shape, because they are in shitty shape and would feel incredibly self-conscious around a guy who’s built.
Same thing with guys; I have friends who are more likely to go after the skinny-fat girl than a guy who is in great shape, simply because they are intimidated by a girl who is in great shape.
I don’t know a single person who is very committed to eating right and working their ass off in some sort of physical training (whatever their goals may be) who hasn’t seen noticeable progress, either to put on muscle or “get toned” or whatever the hell they are trying to do. 99% of people who are committed are going to get some sort of results. Nobody here is going to be Ronnie, but just about every single human being can get to the point where they won’t be embarrassed at the beach.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
Professor X wrote:
This is one reason some of the guys here really believe girls hate muscles. Most girls (in general) today aren’t in shape at all. They wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone who made them look bad.
That is true, but even more than that I think it comes down to an issue of self-confidence. Just from my college experience, I know that most of my peers, deep down, don’t have the quiet self-confidence that is born of accomplishing something through hard work. I think that’s basically what you are saying though and not like I’m saying anything that most people on here don’t already know.
A lot of girls DON’T really go for a guy who’s really in great shape, because they are in shitty shape and would feel incredibly self-conscious around a guy who’s built.
Same thing with guys; I have friends who are more likely to go after the skinny-fat girl than a guy who is in great shape, simply because they are intimidated by a girl who is in great shape.
I don’t know a single person who is very committed to eating right and working their ass off in some sort of physical training (whatever their goals may be) who hasn’t seen noticeable progress, either to put on muscle or “get toned” or whatever the hell they are trying to do. 99% of people who are committed are going to get some sort of results. Nobody here is going to be Ronnie, but just about every single human being can get to the point where they won’t be embarrassed at the beach.
[/quote]
I agree completely. You will see the same with your friends once you graduate if you happen to eventually make more money than them. Misery loves company. People are more likely to try to bring you down to their level than assist you in reaching any social status viewed as “superior” to their own.
That means when some very average woman claims she doesn’t like big muscles, don’t assume this means she doesn’t like big muscles. Very often, her reasons for rejecting that look are based on more than appearance alone. I also firmly believe that most women do have low self esteem. The ones who don’t are rare.