Most men aren’t naturally ripped
Okay, let’s talk about men for a second. I’ve spent this entire blog discussing women and how men truly love their curves and shouldn’t starve/exercise themselves into sticks. Men on the other hand have a different struggle. Women love to see shirtless guys with their ripped physiques.
The problem is that in today’s society, for a man to maintain a physique like that is near impossible unless they work in a strenuous job or make huge sacrifices. How do I know? Because I tried. I tried hard.
I spent over a year waking up at 5:00 AM (which sucked because I’m a night owl), working out, eating right, and not partaking of wonderful French wine or ice cold martinis. I was on a solid workout regimen (not something I just made up, a tried and true workout regimen) and I ate things like baked fish, brown rice, and steamed vegetables around the clock, which is excruciating for a foodie like myself.
I really wanted to get a body like this guy.
I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on supplements – creatine, nitric oxide, protein powders, blah blah blah. If there was something out there to take to try to reach my goal, I tried it.
After a year of busting my butt, I sat there in my recliner about to fall asleep at 7:00 PM because I was so exhausted and began to wonder if what I was going through was worth it.
I got up and went in the bathroom and took off my shirt. Guess what. I looked exactly the same as I did a year before. Exactly the same! I decided right then that waking up at 5:00 AM and eating nasty food wasn’t worth it anymore. Not only did I not look like the guy above, I certainly wasn’t anywhere near this guy below.
I toyed with the idea of switching my workouts to the evenings, but I have a young son and wife at home that I actually enjoy spending time with – so I certainly wasn’t going to sacrifice t-ball games or catching up on the day with my wife so that I can go sweat in the gym.
The truth is, I just don’t have the genetics for that physique. I’m a tall, average built guy, and I just had to come to terms with that. I felt bad for a long time until I really got to thinking about it. All these ripped shirtless guys in People Magazine each week aren’t “real” people.
They don’t have 8 to 5 jobs where they sit at desks all day. They don’t have to sometimes eat just whatever they can because the day is crazy. They spend countless hours with personal trainers and dietitians and drink things like wheat grass smoothies. I’m not that guy (and every guy I know isn’t either).
I decided that I’d much rather get a healthy amount of sleep, eat my wife’s scrumptious gourmet cooking, drink fabulous French wine, and spend valuable time with my family. To me, that’s way more important than beating myself to death trying to obtain some seemingly unattainable goal.
So ladies, the next time you see the latest “it” guy in a magazine, running down the beach with his rock hard abs and chiseled chest, don’t look at your man and let out a disappointed sigh. We have real jobs, real families, and real obligations.
We’re not proud of the fact that you can’t see our abs, and we most definitely would love to have pecs that could dance for you. We just hope that you love us anyway and that our jobs as fathers and providers help make up for what we lack.
Seriously, guys with abs are cool but yes, I agree that there is so much in the process of maintaining that body that is a complete turn off. (For example: A guy on my freshmen co-ed floor who went through like 4+ mega cases of protein power in a three month term and *LIVED* at the gym). I think girls like looking at those guys (I know I do LOL) but at the end of the day we’d like more time spent with us than on their bodies.
Unless you’re ready to shoot up, underwear-model bodies aren’t obtainable by those of us with lives outside a gym. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to work out… it just means that we aren’t going to be sporting the 8-pack. I’m ok with that.
Talk about rationalizing. If it was easy to have a 6 pack everybody would; But it is attainable. And using “real people can’t do it” is a bad excuse. I feel like I just read “The great Gatsby” rendition of the 6-pack dream. You could do it if you really wanted it. But like you mentioned towards the end, good food and other comforts definitely outweigh abs.
I think guys are as obsessed with the muscle-thing as women are with the skinny-thing. As a woman, I don’t find large muscles on a man attractive.Not at all, actually. I think I prefer somewhere between slender and “average”, whatever that means. However, to a lot of men it seems to be important to have a “six-pack”. I couldn’t care less, I think as long as he looks healthy, that’s fine. Men tell themselves that women only want muscle guys the same way women tell themselves men only want rail-thin models. I think the majority of people don’t really care much.