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Comment by karlp | Hacker News Reader

> But eventually I realized this has to become my mother-effing lifestyle if I want to keep looking that way.

This is so true, people judge you for not looking like a Hollywood actor (whether you're a man or a woman) but don't realize what it costs to look that way

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I lost 100lbs about 10 years ago (from 320 - 220) but after years of vigilance its hard not to find the lifestyle exhausting.

This is due mainly to the fact that this type of lifestyle is not compatible with American culture. Going against the grain is easy early on when the results are fresh, but 10 years in its a slog. I want to eat like everyone else but my experiments doing so even once a week can result in gain.

Food is everywhere here and people often take your choice to not indulge personally. What's worse is having a previous image of "an eater" means people double down on wanting you to "have more / try some". It's a society of pushers.

It is a massive change and unless you've gone full narcissist (insta, fb, celebrity) all you have supporting your "choice" is you.

American culture is not the same everywhere—try living in NYC for a few years, walking around for miles every damn day, I think people stay pretty active and healthy here just by virtue of the urban density, even if we drink a lot more.

When you read up on actors' routines and how they vary pre/post shoot, you understand it's all utterly unsustainable - they do it because it's their job, it's part of their working day. If your boss told you to use docker on project X, you'd learn docker and do it; their boss tells them to lose 20 pounds and look trim, or gain 20 pounds and look fatty, and they do it for the few months required to complete the project, with all sorts of expensive medical help. You don't see how they look inbetween projects, nor do you see the ones that stop being leads (or never make it) because they cannot keep up the effort.

Vanity isn't a good thing to rely on for long-term motivation. Everyone I know who got healthy so they could look good in a mirror failed to stick to the plan.

Friends who do sports and stuff because they love to have no problem maintaining a great physique over the long-term. Looking good and being healthy is just a side effect of more meaningful and tangible pursuits.

That said, there is a pretty wide gulf between

Paid actor who works out 30h a week

and

Never worked out, 200 pounds overweight

I try to at least put 5 hours a week into bridging the gap ;) (sometimes fail :( )

Of course, but my point was that not even Hemsworth and Jackman can look like Thor and Wolverine all year round. Even Mr. Olympian has to vary his diet to look good on trophy day. So, in practice, a regular person will never fully bridge the gap, and judging him/her by those unrealistic parameters is just unreasonable.

By the way, this has as much to say about capitalism as a way to organize human activity, an even more interestingly en masse, making people do what they otherwise wouldn’t, because “their boss said so”.

A command economy can be found in many places. Sometimes an entire country engages in it (such as came out in the Nurenburg trials).

Anyone remember what Xanatos said to Owen in Gargoyles right after finding the castle in the series opening?

And the nasty thing about it is that even if you do manage to do it, it's just another brick in a wall. I was expecting heaven's bells to ring out and beautiful women to fall at my feet, given the titanic effort I'd just put forth to accomplish something most people couldn't even think about even trying.

My own girlfriend at the time barely noticed. It rated a mention, but yielded no shift in our relationship dynamics, not even a little one.

It would take another titanic effort to go from good-looking and svelte to Hollywood actor level where people really do get those kinds of reactions from people.

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