Some people have a skewed image of their body, and no amount of convincing will convince them they look good enough. Other people are fat. Convincing a fat guy he should be content with his disgusting body isn't doing him any favors. Here are some nasty unintended interpretations:
- Looks don't matter (so why shower? why shave? why replace tattered clothing?)
- Your body is good enough. Don't bother about making it better, it's fine the way it is.
I've had a few people say I should be getting in shape for myself, not for women. I suppose that now that I'm sufficiently disgusted with being fat, not being able to do a pull-up, dehydrating more readily when playing team sports, etc., I am doing it for myself. If I didn't get disgusted with being fat, the only reason I would have done it was to increase my odds with the ladies. And really there's nothing wrong with that.
People do all sorts of things with finding a mate as a primary motivator; I don't think it's sacrilegious to have that as a reason to get a better body. I don't see why when someone hears sex appeal as a reason for working out and fixing their eating habits they immediately encourage the person to do it for him/herself instead. Motivations are really a personal business. It's a more effective motivator for my workout to be disgusted with being fat than to do it for girls, but it's bizarre how that's a motivation that's not socially acceptable. What are people trying to do, demotivate fat guys from taking steps to quit being fat guys? No. I think it's well-intentioned leftover inertia from discouraging people (especially young women) with improperly poor body images from developing eating disorters. But as long as I actually am fat, don't worry!
My motivators, in order:
- Stop being fat, then never be fat again
- Win the love of a beautiful woman
- Live to 100 (hooray for a family history of heart disease!)
After that, yeah, I'd like to be able to do a pull-up. But that's about it. I'll keep these motivators, especially #1, as a reason to maintain an active lifestyle, which is fortunately easy around here between hiking, walking, kayaking, skiing, biking and sports leagues. It'll be a lot of fun and I'll never be fat again.
