AestheticPrince
Gold
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2019
- Posts
- 993
- Reputation
- 1,063
Motivations
I see lifting more frequently advocated than dieting and I wonder if the community thinks dieting loses value when you are no longer fat.
Intro
Regarding physical attractiveness, RP advice includes building muscle mass and reducing body fat. Lifting is more frequently suggested than losing weight, suggesting that muscle mass is thought to be a more important contributor to overall physical attractiveness. Here I argue that body fat has a bigger overall contribution to physical appearance than musculature. The takeaway is that dieting increases your physical SMV, even if you already at a healthy weight.
Body
It's already accepted that lifting and dieting contribute strongly to overall physical attractiveness in RP, so I will take this as given. The two areas affected are musculature and body fat.
Regarding musculature, it can be divided further into muscle size, muscle definition, and proportions.
[1] Muscle size is just that, how big your muscles are. Generally, bigger is better, and upper body muscle size has a larger overall effect on SMV than that of the lower body, in part because the upper body is more visible.
[2] Muscle definition is how clearly individual muscles can be seen under the fat lying on top of them. With good muscle definition, you can see the boundaries of separate adjacent muscle groups. Sometimes, you can see the striations of the muscle and the veins. Losing fat can ironically make you look more musculature by increasing muscle definition. Muscle size increases definition a little, but the best way to increase muscle definition is to lose body fat.
[3] Muscle proportions speak to muscle size in relation to other muscles in the body. Jokes about missing leg day refer to this, but I am referring more to muscles in close proximity to each other. If your biceps are big but your triceps are small, it's going to look strange.
Body fat does not have subdivisions and can be measured by body fat percentage. A good number to hit is around 12% body fat, where a 6-pack starts to show. Unlike musculature, body fat affects facial aesthetics and has a large contribution to your health. Body fat contributes to the following areas:
[1] General health.
[2] Muscle definition, because the fat lying on top of the muscles influences how the muscles look. Overlying fat makes sharp features appear much smoother, which is not a good thing.
[3] Facial feature definition. Specifically, the mid face and the lower face. Fat obscures some of the bony features that compose an attractive male face. The areas affected most are the zygomatic region (cheekbones), the jaw angles, the jawline, and buccal region (cheeks). These four features are all some of the most important for male facial aesthetics. These facial features almost always look better with more definition and there is probably not a realistic limit where your face would look better with more fat. There are noticeable changes in these features for each couple of percentage points of body fat and the benefits of losing a percentage point of body fat increase the lower your body fat is.
So lifting affects musculature and dieting affects both facial aesthetics and musculature. Given that the face is the most visible area which contributes to your physical SMV, dieting alone contributes more to physical SMV than lifting alone.
One interesting trend I've seen actually comes from male models. Models are chosen for possessing unusual (but not unattractive) features and/or a density of physically attractive features. (For those not aware, modeling is pretty broad and isn't always about being conventionally attractive. However, for males the features they select for are ones associated with physical SMV.) You can get a good sample of male models from directory listings all modeling agencies have. Most male models have good musculature and low body fat. Some models don't have good musculature but have low body fat. I've never seen a male model without low body fat. To me, this suggests that musculature is important, but not critically important. Low body fat, in contrast, is critically important.
Summary
Dieting affects muscle definition and four important areas of facial aesthetics. Lifting affects muscle size, muscle proportions, and to a lesser extent, muscle definition. Since the face is the most visible area that contributes to your physical SMV, dieting has a larger effect than lifting. For most men with OK body fat and OK musculature, adding 10 lbs of muscle will increase your physical SMV less than losing 10 lbs of fat. Both lifting and dieting are important.
I see lifting more frequently advocated than dieting and I wonder if the community thinks dieting loses value when you are no longer fat.
Intro
Regarding physical attractiveness, RP advice includes building muscle mass and reducing body fat. Lifting is more frequently suggested than losing weight, suggesting that muscle mass is thought to be a more important contributor to overall physical attractiveness. Here I argue that body fat has a bigger overall contribution to physical appearance than musculature. The takeaway is that dieting increases your physical SMV, even if you already at a healthy weight.
Body
It's already accepted that lifting and dieting contribute strongly to overall physical attractiveness in RP, so I will take this as given. The two areas affected are musculature and body fat.
Regarding musculature, it can be divided further into muscle size, muscle definition, and proportions.
[1] Muscle size is just that, how big your muscles are. Generally, bigger is better, and upper body muscle size has a larger overall effect on SMV than that of the lower body, in part because the upper body is more visible.
[2] Muscle definition is how clearly individual muscles can be seen under the fat lying on top of them. With good muscle definition, you can see the boundaries of separate adjacent muscle groups. Sometimes, you can see the striations of the muscle and the veins. Losing fat can ironically make you look more musculature by increasing muscle definition. Muscle size increases definition a little, but the best way to increase muscle definition is to lose body fat.
[3] Muscle proportions speak to muscle size in relation to other muscles in the body. Jokes about missing leg day refer to this, but I am referring more to muscles in close proximity to each other. If your biceps are big but your triceps are small, it's going to look strange.
Body fat does not have subdivisions and can be measured by body fat percentage. A good number to hit is around 12% body fat, where a 6-pack starts to show. Unlike musculature, body fat affects facial aesthetics and has a large contribution to your health. Body fat contributes to the following areas:
[1] General health.
[2] Muscle definition, because the fat lying on top of the muscles influences how the muscles look. Overlying fat makes sharp features appear much smoother, which is not a good thing.
[3] Facial feature definition. Specifically, the mid face and the lower face. Fat obscures some of the bony features that compose an attractive male face. The areas affected most are the zygomatic region (cheekbones), the jaw angles, the jawline, and buccal region (cheeks). These four features are all some of the most important for male facial aesthetics. These facial features almost always look better with more definition and there is probably not a realistic limit where your face would look better with more fat. There are noticeable changes in these features for each couple of percentage points of body fat and the benefits of losing a percentage point of body fat increase the lower your body fat is.
So lifting affects musculature and dieting affects both facial aesthetics and musculature. Given that the face is the most visible area which contributes to your physical SMV, dieting alone contributes more to physical SMV than lifting alone.
One interesting trend I've seen actually comes from male models. Models are chosen for possessing unusual (but not unattractive) features and/or a density of physically attractive features. (For those not aware, modeling is pretty broad and isn't always about being conventionally attractive. However, for males the features they select for are ones associated with physical SMV.) You can get a good sample of male models from directory listings all modeling agencies have. Most male models have good musculature and low body fat. Some models don't have good musculature but have low body fat. I've never seen a male model without low body fat. To me, this suggests that musculature is important, but not critically important. Low body fat, in contrast, is critically important.
Summary
Dieting affects muscle definition and four important areas of facial aesthetics. Lifting affects muscle size, muscle proportions, and to a lesser extent, muscle definition. Since the face is the most visible area that contributes to your physical SMV, dieting has a larger effect than lifting. For most men with OK body fat and OK musculature, adding 10 lbs of muscle will increase your physical SMV less than losing 10 lbs of fat. Both lifting and dieting are important.
