Maybe you feel out of place because you're thinking in terms of "alphas" etc., which to me sounds like a totally douche/"bro" thing to do. Most people I know that don't lift don't care about body shapes etc., otherwise they would lift.
There was also a time when I was a fat nerd, about 22 years ago when I emerged from college, and for a while would have made many assumptions about the intelligence of someone who was fit and especially someone who was 'buff'(can I use that word? does it make me sound like I 'bro'? I don't know...).
This is a lie and you know it. Everyone and I mean literally everyone cares about appearances. No matter how you slice it everyone has a style they are trying to project. This same goes for body shape.
If we had a pill that instantly -- without effort -- gave everyone a six pack and lean muscular body, everyone of your friends would be on it, because deep down they care.
Problem is one of discipline. It is not easy to wake up early and hit the gym or after hard day of working to do the same. It is not easy to not eat that doughnut (it is Sally's birthday after all and it would be rude not to take a free doughnut).
I am far from perfect, but I try my damnedest each and every day and I'm making progress and I've already noticed it affecting people around me, but I'm also fortunate that the team I work with is full of sport-y people, so at least I get to hang out with "my people", but I feel the difference when I interface with other teams.
> Everyone and I mean literally everyone cares about appearances. No matter how you slice it everyone has a style they are trying to project. This same goes for body shape.
Even those few people who are too lazy or apathetic to project an image on purpose have preferences about others' appearances. This is literally the reason why advertising uses professional models to sell products.
No. Why are you talking in absolutes after spending so much time on the internet? There are always exceptions.
Muscular body requires a ton of energy and protein to maintain. Not trying to get on a soapbox here, but I am personally trying to minimize my impact on the environment. This includes eating the minimum amount of protein required to stay healthy. I definitely won't waste the additional energy to maintain useless muscles (which are absolutely useless for a desk job), which will not even be visible under the baggy shirts I prefer to wear.
>useless muscles (which are absolutely useless for a desk job), which will not even be visible under the baggy shirts I prefer to wear.
This is cope if I've ever seen some. You can rationalize it anyway you want, but deep down you know that if you at this instant could have rock hard abs with perfectly sculpted body without any effort you'd take it. You'd find use for it.
One of them being that protein-dense foods always has a greater impact on the environment than other foodstuffs. There are plenty of vegetarian or even vegan bodybuilders, and we know how to isolate protein from vegetables. Pulses are protein-rich, if you don't want to eat isolated proteins.
The second one is that a muscular body will always require more energy than a non-muscular body. While muscle does have higher calorie requirements than most other kinds of tissue, most fit people actually eat less calories (and better quality calories) than unfit people, due to being used to keeping their diet under control.
The final one is that the only thing one might want to do with their life is their job. Even if you work a desk job, that doesn't mean you won't want to be physically active in your off time.
Not discipline - priorities. I'm lean and fairly fit, and while I would like to be a little bit more muscular I'd rather spend the time at the piano or with my family
Judging this is real hard since fairly fit means such different things for different people, but spending 5 hours a week at the gym isn't a big time investment. It obviously won't be getting you Mr. Olympia body, but it will make you bigger and stronger than most people.
Part of discipline is also fighting against excuses. Excuses like I don't have time to work out. I don't have time to prep my meals. That's why you need discipline.
Taking things to extreme you could wake up at 4:00 am to workout for an hour every single day. Obviously that means giving up on media consumption time during evening to get full night's of rest, but that is why you need discipline.
But true your milage may vary, but usually it is just discipline issue. People want instant gratification and do not want to wake up early to hit the gym before they head out to work.
That's a sizeable investment when you have kids. Which is fine -- but you definitely have to stop doing something else in order to do it. If like me (and perhaps parent comment) you _already_ don't passively consume media, go to bed early, etc, you really do have to trade something for it. And (again, perhaps like OP) if you are already healthy and fit (ex: I can play soccer for 2 hours) there's even less benefit (relative to your other pursuits). Which is all actually to say -- there are many people for whom discipline is certainly _not_ the issue.
All my meals are already home-cooked (and, in the summer, mostly home-grown), and I exercise for 30 mins 5 days a week (plus extra physical work in the garden at weekends). I'm fit enough. The extra couple of hours I'd need a week to build muscle are better spent doing something else, IMO
I've been fitter and I've been way unfit (in my 20s I was a gym rat), early thirties I ballooned to 245lbs and these days I sit around 185lbs (because of health reasons I struggle to eat enough to keep weight on) having lost 60lbs a few years ago via diet and exercise.
For someone approaching 40 I look decent physically (which is actually a problem since I have multiple serious health problems).
For me the cycling is important, it's both a fuck you to illness and a pressure valve - as a friend said once "it's impossible to be remain angry on a bike" as you just exert yourself harder.
Added to that is calisthenics every other day (planks, pressups, sit-ups and pull-ups) as I'm focussed on maintaining functional strength as much as I can.
Finally, I learned to get on a good program and TRACK MY MACROS. That's making a huge difference.
It's not always discipline. Sometimes it's finding the right program. It took me literally 20 years to figure that out, because I was laboring under the bad advice that "you should just eat healthy and you'll get there" that my dad kept telling me.
For the naturally skinny, you need a constant caloric surplus (or even just a regular amount of calories to recomp -- I couldn't even recomp effectively because I'd starve myself) or you're mostly wasting your time.
The funny thing is, physical appearance is the primary way we judge other people. Like Arnold said, "A well built physique is a status symbol. It reflects you worked hard for it, no money can buy it. You cannot borrow it, you cannot inherit it, you cannot steal it. You cannot hold onto it without constant work. It shows discipline, it shows self respect, it shows patience, work ethic and passion. That is why I do what I do."
> I do suspect that if you do add a lot of musculature to a tall frame it can be a bit intimidating in engineering cultures where most men are out of shape and view the activity as "meatheadish."
And it devolved into this:
>The followed up with a mountain of excuses about why they're too busy or they'd rather play piano or whatever other explanation is necessary for "I'm actively choosing to look like shit."
Jesus, I wasn't rooting for the scrawny nerds at the outset of this thread, but now I am.
So, I don't really find it far fetched that quite a few people by a reasonable definition "don't care", by which I mean they don't consider the benefits worth paying much cost at all, which I consider a fairly reasonable definition of "don't care." I'd like to know Sanskrit; if I could take a pill and know Sanskrit, I would. But do I really care? No. I won't pay my time and attention for it. It'd just be neat. Mostly, too high of an opportunity cost to spend the time on it. The same applies with body shape for me. It'd be nice, but it's not worth my effort. I won't pay much for it, so "I don't care."