Re: Greek god body type: health and practical considerations (Was: Are looks rea
Urban Dictionary said:
Broscience is the predominant brand of reasoning in bodybuilding circles where the anecdotal reports of jacked dudes are considered more credible than scientific research.
Chase wrote here:
Chase said:
SZ, look at all the mainstream bodybuilding programs out there. You've got Body-4-Life, 4 Hour Body, BodyBuilding.com, a bunch of other ones that are probably super well known with large brand recognition and lots of people familiar with them / household names even. You've got guys perpetually on the top of Amazon's best seller lists in the space like Michael Matthews with Bigger Leaner Stronger. And despite the level of mainstream awareness, how many guys are actually swole? Some areas have more jacked guys than others... but most guys still aren't all that ripped.
I'm curious if you've read some of the top reviews of
Bigger Leaner Stronger on Amazon. When evaluating a book's Amazon reviews, I like to concentrate on the not so raving but relevant ones, containing insightful criticism. This is where the topic of workout gets super confusing and contradictory.
So much so that you guys, @Motiv and @Eliasmusic give me advice
- That is at least quite different from one another, maybe even contradictory?
- Which assumes the familiarity with special language a layman like me is not well versed in, let alone has the background to evaluate the merits of the thinking behind such language
We wrote with Chase here:
Chase said:
This is more due to diet than anything. Food in the West is loaded with sugar and sugar replacements (like high fructose corn syrup). It's in everything -- it's in the bread, it's in the pizza crust, it's in peanut butter, it's everywhere. People live hectic lives and don't cook their meals anymore like they do elsewhere in the world; all the food comes out of a box or a jar. It's all processed stuff, loaded with junk that goes straight to their fat deposits. And women on average hold onto more fat than men. So the men get fat; the women, fatter.
Space said:
By the West, do you mean the US? In Europe we don't have so much high fructose corn syrup as you guys over there. Maybe because our agriculture doesn't focus as much on corn. There was a Michael Moore documentary about HFCS.
After all, maybe you want to say it's mostly diet, less so about exercise? We are at it. This is just a hypothesis, but I think the average people for average prices in an average supermarket can buy somewhat healthier (or less unhealthy) foods in Europe than in the US. Not talking about hing end chains, like Whole Foods. Then whether you put the processed on unprocessed foods into your shopping bag depends on your local culture, and your individual circumstances such as your busy life.
This is the Lifestyle section of the forum, not the Getting Good With Girls section. So is health really more dominantly about diet than exercise? That's
the first question. An important one. Of course, both diet and exercise information is full of contradictions and controversies and that shouldn't mean you should avoid any form of exercise and you shouldn't strive for eating reasonably healthier. Even though the information isn't clear. I know, it's complicated. I just naturally tend to go not to the V-shape route, but to the opposite direction when it comes to health advice. See my first post!
The second question is how pursuing the V-shape or the Greek god or the
American frat boy caricature or whatever you want to call it body type relates to health? Is there a positive or a negative correlation, or perhaps there isn't any correlation? I'm obviously skeptical about the positive correlation. We assume the caveman had at least a relatively healthy build (even though he lived a short and miserable life) as he didn't sit in an office chair all day starting at a screen but he had to be constantly on the move to gather enough food to survive. Would sporting a Greek god body would have been more beneficial or detrimental to his well being? I'm not an expert on the topic but I assume sporting a Greek god body wouldn't have beneficial to Mr Caveman's objectives. In fact, maintaining it would have been quite expensive to him in terms of burning scarce resources.
There is a school of though which says the
health is is the legs. That's the school of thought I assume Mr Caveman subscribed to. That's the school of thought I naturally inclined to subscribe to. And to connect it to something relevant to our purposes, there is dating advice praising the benefits of the ability to walk sexily. Which man walks more sexily? A Greek god body type who hasn't concentrated as much on his legs as @Motiv suggested or a guy who is the opposite? Someone who does mostly healthy leg exercises when working out concentrating function rather than aesthetics? Logic suggests me the latter should definitely walk sexier.
Then the next logical question:
Is attraction more about looks, such a non-functional, V-shape body, or about movement, such as a sexy walk, even though the man who walks the walk has an aesthetically less appealing body than Mr Greek god but useless statue?
And finally:
I find the idea of working out for the sole purpose of getting girls psychologically damaging. As long as the purpose is getting healthy or there is a direct correlation, I'm all in, but working out only for girls? That sounds like a totally depressing and a mentally damaging attitude to me. (
The first video here.) It simply isn't a useful way to spend my resources like my time.
I'm not overweight, I have an average to slightly athletic, lean figure. I never feel myself inferior to a meathead in a situation when for example we approach the same girl at different times. Working out and mutual attraction are both complex topics but I always feel like I connect better to girls who value a thoughtful conversation or an emotional connector or whatever it is to the visual stimulus of a caricature type of body. I don't much remember losing this or that girl to a meathead. Girls into meatheads aren't my type of girls in the first place. On the other hand, my type of girls aren't that much into meatheads (I suppose). So to each to his or her own. Of course, the meathead is just a stereotype and I'm probably just as much a different stereotype in this example but you get the idea.
Eliasmusic said:
This is indeed something I should do. So I don't usually feel out-Alpha'd (or how to say it) by the meathead, but by the calm, slow, and peaceful guy, quite possibly a meditator. Yeah, that's a common (even if not frequent) experience I can relate to. I remember
David Deida (
a writer inspired many) wrote in his book that you should do breathing exercises. I don't remember the part where he wrote you should build a V-shape body though. I'm not even sure it wouldn't be detrimental to your efforts regarding your breathing exercises. That's a point.
