This weekend I met a single woman who obviously took great pains with her appearance. Her hair was freshly cut and colored, her nails were perfectly done, and her clothes were stylish. Overall she was immaculately put together. But I couldn’t help but notice that despite all that, she was overlooking the biggest thing she could do to improve her attractiveness — lose weight.
These days nearly 1 in 3 people are overweight, and mentioning the fact has become almost taboo. We’re told not to “fat shame” and to practice “fat acceptance” but the reality is excess weight is not healthy or attractive on most people.
Even 20 pounds can make a big difference, as I found quite by accident after unintentionally dropping weight after a break up. I was so distraught at the time, I just couldn’t eat. Despite not feeling good, suddenly it seemed everyone was saying how great I looked!
I could see that this woman would be a real knockout if she took off the extra 40 pounds or so she was carrying and was at a more ideal body weight (note: not overly thin or overly heavy.)
I know that gaining weight is easy and losing weight is hard, but it’s probably the best way a woman can both reduce her risk of all sorts of health issues and dramatically boost her attractiveness at the same time.
Which reminds me, I have put on a few pounds myself! Time to cut the calories and increase the activity. Within a few short weeks I could drop the 10-15 pounds I have gradually regained, and I know I will be a whole lot happier doing that than I will be if I gain another 10 pounds by the holidays!
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
i have to disagree to an extent. some women just look better with a few more curves.
there was this one young lady who worked in the same agency i did back in 2002. she was extremely attractive, but fairly thin at the time. we lost contact with each other over time until earlier this year. it had been about 10 years since i saw her last, and OMFG! she put on some weight and now she looks absolutely amazing. the girl’s got curves now, and everything is in proper proportions. i mean like put a ring on it proportions before someone else does! she was beautiful before, but now she is absolutely stunning.
another young lady i used to be friends with, looks absolutely beautiful the way she is now. i’ve seen pics of her when she was just out of the academy and about 30 pounds lighter, and all i can think of is “meh”.
but i do think that it really comes down to how and where the weight is placed. there’s some proportional equation that makes a woman more or less attractive depending on how its carried. i think that varies from man to man on how he views her, and can ever vary with the same man depending on the woman.
That’s true too, FML, some women just don’t “look right” too thin. And I also agree it depends on how the weight is distributed. Good points!
“ideal body weight (note: not overly thin or overly heavy.)”
i agree. stay away from the extremes. if married, know your man and what he likes – and it’s okay for men to like what they like.
Ive said it before. The rise in obesity directly corresponds from the 1980s onwards where computers, automation etc. removed the need for movement.
I was 16 in 1980. No one had a car and cell phones were in suitcases for rich folks. Wanna see friends? Most nights walk over to the park and people would start drifting in after supper. Then we bum around the neighborhood then walk over to the mall or a movie but averaged likely 2 miles a night just chillin.
After school it was a job stocking shelves or unloading trailers or mowing grass with a walking mower.
Dates were dancing. Or swimming. or sking or snogging. All good clean exercise.
Oh there was A fat girl in school (singular). Always nice and shy and everyones buddy but dateless right thru graduation.
Even today the 130 nurses at work (and long term care nursing is pretty physical) ask how I am 180 lbs and eat like a horse. Cause I walk 5 miles a day and lift over 400 lbs of stuff doing chores. If I went back to a suburban house and ate like I do I would balloon instantly and lose all my strength.
So its easy. Just stop using labour saving devices. If its after 1980 dont use it.
No convenience food….prep real food
No microwave….cook. use a coffee pot.
Park at the farthest spot at the mall.
Doing errands….leave the car. walk the two blocks to the dry cleaners.
too much?
Okay one simple trick anyone can do.
Getting up from a chair, couch, your car
DO NOT USE YOUR HANDS.
That simple.
Tomorrow as you get to work, open the car door and get out using only your legs.
No pushing off the seat. No grabbing the doorframe.
I bet half of you cant do it.
Correction. I KNOW half of you cant do it.
Keep trying til you can until it becomes thoughtless muscle memory.
This one thing will tighten your thighs, give you an ass and produce abs.
or you can just give up and bury yourself in Fritos wondering why your soulmate
doesnt want AAAAAALLLLLLLLL THIS.
p.s. I can be an asshole because I earn it.
“Which reminds me, I have put on a few pounds myself! Time to cut the calories and increase the activity. Within a few short weeks I could drop the 10-15 pounds I have gradually regained, and I know I will be a whole lot happier doing that than I will be if I gain another 10 pounds by the holidays!”
Good girl! I’m so proud of you for wanting to stay in shape. ^_^ Be especially wary of refined sugars; those’ll pack on the pounds like nothing else.
RPG,
It’s not that one in three are overweight, you are a little behind the times in numbers. The last word that I got was that forty percent of women are obese and enough are overweight to round it off to two thirds between the overweight and obese.
Given those numbers, any woman that can get herself down to a healthy weight is going to get double the attention.
“any woman that can get herself down to a healthy weight is going to get double the attention.”
*struts around gloating*
😉
Mgtowhorseman, I heard most of you have robots to do you vaccuum cleaning now! Me, I don’t even use a bread machine, just kneading by hand and an oven. I don’t drive – everything is within walking or bicycling distance anyway, although I wish I had a license to visit museums while my husband is at work. I have no dryer or dishwashing machine, no microwave.
I don’t exercise. But I push swings and run around after little ones and I keep a clean house 🙂
I think the easiest thing most people can do to change your diet is just skip the liquid calories. They count toward fattening you up, but don’t count toward filling your stomach.
And then there’s of course the issue of American style food… I once watched a youtube video where a way to prepare these lovely wild mushrooms was shown. To my dismay… This man goes out into the forest, gathers this beauty of a mushroom and then proceeds to turn it into what is basically a hamburger! With greasy sauce and the nastiest looking factory bread and oooooh, the horror! A friend of mine who went to highschool in the States told me about her school lunches, she gained 20 pounds that year. Even the fruit was covered in sugary syrup and everything was junkfood. I’d have probably flyed back within the week, yuck.
How good a woman looks from a weight perspective is a pretty good indication of how well she takes care of herself. How well she takes care of herself is a pretty good indication of how well she will take care of the children she gives birth to. On a strictly biological level, this is why men put such importance on women’s appearances. His DNA wants healthy offspring. If women are unable (or unwilling) to wrap their heads around this fact, that makes them pretty shallow.
Trigger Warning for my offensive opinion:
“If women are unable (or unwilling) to wrap their heads around this fact, that makes them pretty shallow.”
Nay, that’s way too kind and too vague. Need a more pointed mansplaination; they’re too lazy and too stupid. I was really tempted to accentuate that with the f-word, but I’m trying real hard to keep decorum. 😉
I’d say that we also overlook the importance of decent muscle development (euphemistically called “tone”, but biologically it is just having stronger, denser muscles, the same as in men, children, cats, rabbits and horses] to shaping your body.
Doing a bit of resistance training can:
-> lift, round and firm up your butt
-> lift and support breast tissue
-> flatten bingo wings
-> shape, thicken and tighten thighs
-> draw in the waist
-> draw in the chin and neck
With the added benefit it can also:
-> help you burn more calories when at rest
-> help resist sugar cravings
-> regulate mood
-> alleviate menstrual cramps and other “random and unexplained” aches and pains
A 30-45 minute weights session twice a week or a 30-60 minute vinyasa yoga or intense calisthenic session every other day will leave you stronger and firmer.
Some higher T women like myself actually need to be careful with free weights and other intense forms of resistance training as, although we will never get as big as a man, our arms and legs can get disproportionately big. However for probably around 90-95% of women, the sky is the limit in terms of how much resistance training you can do, as, contrary to the myth, your body will never “get bulky” without a testosterone shot.
Growing up with a sister that starved herself I am so very weary of this kind of Posts. It was hell for me. My Parents never reacted or did something about my sister. Until she nearly died. Then I was the one everyone overlooked. I buried myself in independence, success and books. She is, even today, unable to own up to her fuck ups, to the pain she caused others and to the fact her health is destroyed forever. I took on extra weight, trying my damnedest not to end up like her. But that has come off now. I am at my healthiest, fittest and best ever. I have a wonderfull partner and soon a little one.
PS: Eat not for two, but eat healthy for two. Double the health factor end leave the amount. Your body knows best. Even if his demands are crazy. 😉
Sandra – i hear you. eating disorders are serious. i think that’s where this comes in from the OP:
“a more ideal body weight (note: not overly thin or overly heavy.)”
i used to be seriously paranoid about my weight. i was paranoid about every bite i ate, every ounce i gained. i weighed myself several times a day. i would make my annual doc appts in the middle of august when i could wear the least and lightest clothing, make them for first thing in the morning and make sure not to eat or drink anything for a long time before so my weight recorded on my med charts was as low as possible. i always looked in store windows and held my stomach in thinking i was fat. i wasn’t anything close to fat, but i thought i was.
it was when my daughter was a toddler and started weighing herself everyday that i stopped b/c i didn’t want to pass that down to her.
when i was very little i developed a huge phobia to vomiting; HUGE … as in … i go into a huge panic attack at even the thought of anyone, including me, vomiting. if i even think someone is going to barf, i’m long gone, and it will take hours to calm my system. i think God gave this to me to keep me from having a full-blown eating disorder. i hate the phobia, but i’m also thankful for it.
i had to take some medication some years ago that caused me to gain weight. it’s been harsh for me to deal with. but my husband has been amazing about it. i still eat very healthy and do my best to take care of myself. i’ve really had to work at developing a healthier self-image so i didn’t pass down to my girls the bad stuff. i’ve succeeded. neither of my girls know anything about what i’ve gone through.
i’m very very sorry to hear about your sister. i had a sister who stole all my parents’ attention … and it ended up to be to not only my detriment, but hers, too.
Fuck those fuckers and fat shams those fat bitches
It appears that most women don’t care what they look like as long as they get male attention. I’m with Ton. Rather than helping women lose the weight, I think it’s better to fat shame them. That way they still get attention but it doesn’t go to their head and cause them to act like an idiot. And, really, if a man goes out of his way to fat shame a woman, there has to be something there. Otherwise he’d just ignore her.
But, that’s just my opinion and sometimes I get lost in all the subtext stuff. I really didn’t learn how to read women until I started reading them by braille.
“Fuck those fuckers and fat shame those fat bitches” Amen. Preach it, brother. 😛
SS so true, it’s not just about weight, it is also about tone and health. Having good muscle mass is important, especially with age, as a key indicator of health. I have known girls who were thin, but had no muscle mass or strength. That “works” in youth, but not over time. Better to be actually fit and healthy, not just thin. There is nothing as beautiful as someone who is the glowing picture of good health!
Sandra and Ame, yes good points. I know many women struggle with being obsessed with weight, but in a self harming, unhealthy way. That is not what I am advocating for here, by any means. Thanks so much for adding that pov.
it’s the attitude that says, “I can do whatever I want and look however I want and whoever I want must like it anyway” that is so wrong. there’s always that other side, but the reality for these kinds is harsh, and they refuse to accept that people have preferences that do not include them.
Rather than fat shame, it may be best to tell the big girls to stick with the big guys and leave the lean ones alone. It is more subtle.
Thank you for your post (and your work in general). As a man, it’s not something I can say but it’s important for women to understand …if for no other reason that they’re own health.
Honestly, I can’t have a physical relationship with a woman who is obese and according to the stats, many if not most American women are.
The typical American diet is bad for body, mind and spirit. And if a women is obese when single, I suspect she’ll just get heavier once she’s reeled you in.
Sorry for the typo above: their health is what I meant
Agreeing with RPG’s points. Obesity is a problem for both women AND men, and it’s not healthy. I agree that a woman can carry a little extra weight well (depending on where it’s placed), and that men have different tastes in what they consider attractive. Same way with men, some carry a little extra weight well and can be cute and cuddly. Others…not so much.
It’s important to be sensitive to any person (male or female) who has weight problems. Don’t treat them like they’re loathesome and hideous (which falls under the category of “shaming”) but encourage them to exercise more, and eat better. Show them how much better life will be and how much better they will *feel*.