"getting jacked" correlates with about a hundred other positive behaviors, leading to obvious confusion about which is the magic sauce that actually causes female attraction. The article incorrectly assumes its mere bulk mass, but fat dudes do not attract women, so ...
Higher protein/lower carb diet of lifters naturally leads to lower body fat, face and neck look better, which also correlates with reproductive success.
As if I needed yet another reason not to start smoking, I don't want to pass out coughing at the gym so I don't smoke, with a side effect of my teeth are therefore not yellow. Non-yellow teeth also correlate with reproductive success.
Even stuff like I don't binge drink or use drugs and get reasonable good sleep therefore my eyes are rarely bloodshot in the morning, again, eyes that don't look like a gore pic correlate with reproductive success.
A lower carb diet plus some sweating in the sauna eliminates all skin problems for me, and again lack of zits correlates well with reproductive success.
A final interesting correlation is there's an absolute fixation by non-lifters on "beating people up" whereas in reality I've lived in a concealed carry state for decades so people are much more civil and polite to each other and I'm not in a demographic or social class where beatings are part of life. I would instead propose it seems rather obvious that a guy who takes excellent care of himself will take excellent care of his partner and children, which seems to market pretty well to women, every woman wants to see her kids grow up healthy strong and attractive, so a guy that "cheats" his natural genetics by putting in a couple hours in the gym every week is going to massively attract women.
That said, the specific cause doesn't really matter, if you generally join the overall "lifter lifestyle", it will work out well. Eat better, exercise, treat your body well, and that will attract people.
What I really enjoy about this post is that in a logical manner it exposes the weakness with this type of research.
The correlations aren't useless but they aren't strictly useful either. Instead what is useful is developing a pseudo DAG of cause and effect for behavior.
You also elude to how optimizing for one variable can lose sight of all the other down stream decisions that correlate to the result.
I can speak to my own anecdote as well since working out more my partner and I have enjoyed more intimacy. Is it strictly the increase in muscle mass, probably not I'm not exactly swol or ripped at all, but more likely one of the meriad of other down stream benifits due to the change in behavior associated with the activity.
Once again, correlation does not imply causation. You made a million assumptions in your statements.
Life is way more complex and there are a million confounding factors.
The kind of people who find the time both to exercise, sleep, eat well and have an intense dating life tend to be young - which helps - and wealthy enough that they don't have to spend a lot of time working.
Or they are disinterested in other activities and interests that would take time away from exercising.
>absolute fixation by non-lifters on "beating people up" whereas in reality I've lived in a concealed carry state for decades so people are much more civil
Your experience is that "non-lifters" are the aggressive ones fixated on beating people up? I don't think that would match most people's experience.
And I highly doubt concealed carry leads to more polite interactions.
Most people are not lifters, and there seems to be no correlation, so yes that is a fairly common experience.
Also the level of aggression in the weight room is extremely low compared to the basketball court. You "win" in the weight room by lifting something heavier then fist bump your friends, lifting is not a zero sum game, in theory everyone can win every week if they're making gains. The only way to win on a basketball court or similar, is to dominate a the weaker into taking a loss, its a zero sum game.
Very rare in media to hear about a fight breaking out in the free weights room; fights happen every day at basketball courts, hockey arenas, soccer stadiums ... team sports are super violent.
> Higher protein/lower carb diet of lifters naturally leads to lower body fat, face and neck look better, which also correlates with reproductive success.
As an aside, the US infantry soldiers’ rations included about 22 ounces of beef per day during WW1. The eat ten pounds of bread and almost no red meat per day food pyramid is so awful I wonder if it’s malicious.
22oz of beef per day seems crazy high for peacetime cattle ranch owners, let alone deployed infantry. (I’d love it, but that’s 5.5 quarter pounders per day, which seems really high for wartime rations. If the US pulled that off, that had to be a massive [relative] advantage in troop energy and morale.)
Here you go[1]. That source gives 20oz for the 19th century rations and a lower number for WW1 "reserve rations." I can't find a source for my 22oz WW1 claim, but as you can see from what I did find, it's well within the realm of plausibility. And yes, the doughboys were doughty lads to be sure.
Our species has survived for millennia because women selected mates that were providers and protectors and men selected mates that were healthy enough to birth and feed her children.
Awkwardly, technology and modern society has made it so that our biological desires are no longer useful for selecting a mate. This explains why someone like Ronaldo is very desirable in our world. He meets the biological desire of athletic and tall and also meets the logical desire to be with someone who makes a lot of money.
Higher protein/lower carb diet of lifters naturally leads to lower body fat, face and neck look better, which also correlates with reproductive success.
As if I needed yet another reason not to start smoking, I don't want to pass out coughing at the gym so I don't smoke, with a side effect of my teeth are therefore not yellow. Non-yellow teeth also correlate with reproductive success.
Even stuff like I don't binge drink or use drugs and get reasonable good sleep therefore my eyes are rarely bloodshot in the morning, again, eyes that don't look like a gore pic correlate with reproductive success.
A lower carb diet plus some sweating in the sauna eliminates all skin problems for me, and again lack of zits correlates well with reproductive success.
A final interesting correlation is there's an absolute fixation by non-lifters on "beating people up" whereas in reality I've lived in a concealed carry state for decades so people are much more civil and polite to each other and I'm not in a demographic or social class where beatings are part of life. I would instead propose it seems rather obvious that a guy who takes excellent care of himself will take excellent care of his partner and children, which seems to market pretty well to women, every woman wants to see her kids grow up healthy strong and attractive, so a guy that "cheats" his natural genetics by putting in a couple hours in the gym every week is going to massively attract women.
That said, the specific cause doesn't really matter, if you generally join the overall "lifter lifestyle", it will work out well. Eat better, exercise, treat your body well, and that will attract people.