Attractive physique seems unattainable, do I need that?

You know you’re not banned, but there are no matches.

Well. As you are getting no matches, then that must mean your body is not attractive, right? After all if they found you attractive, you’d be getting matches. Inversely, because you aren’t getting matches that must mean you’re ugly, right?

But there’s such huge discrepancy between your body and bodies of top level models and bodybuilders. Is that really the level needed to get laid in dating nowadays?

I won’t lie. It is true that a good physique is extremely beneficial in dating. This is especially true on Tinder, which places even greater emphasis on physical attractiveness.

However, you don’t need to be a top model to get laid or find a hot girl you enjoy spending time with. While visible abs are nice to have, they aren’t necessary to have a satisfying sex life.

So, what’s the physique needed then? What kind of level do you need to achieve to be consider fit enough for dating?

What kind of physique should I aim for?

A lot of girls like fit and athletic men, who wouldn’t be an embarrassment to walk outside with. But that’s extremely vague, so let’s rephrase that and make it more concrete.

You should aim for lean and muscular. Lean meaning your body fat percentage is low enough that your muscles and veins have visible definition when you go shirtless. In numerical terms, you’d be looking for the 10-12% body fat ballpark. Muscular meaning that you have broader shoulders than your waist, which creates a slight V body shape.

Okay, but isn’t that still quite vague? Isn’t majority of guys looking like that so how would that make me stand out?

You assume majority of guys fit that criteria, but it’s actually the opposite. In Europe and US, more than half of adults are at least overweight if not obese when measured by BMI and the percentage of overweight people has been rising steadily. So being lean and slightly muscular is increasingly rare, so by just having above average physique you would already stand out in the dating market.

However from those two, I’d argue that being lean is more important than being muscular. Working on both is important, but especially for an overweight man getting lean is crucial. Before you are lean, there is no amount of muscle that you could build to showcase it through layers of fat thus you wouldn’t achieve the V-shaped body.

For example my case, I started from 120kg and lost more than 50kg over six years. At around 106kg I probably was at my strongest with squatting 5x 150kg and deadlifting 5x 170kg. I possibly had the most muscle at that time, but it wouldn’t be visible under all the fat. It was only the last 5-10kg that I lost which made my muscles visible.

For underweight men, the leanness isn’t as much of a priority because they already are maybe even too lean. For them, gaining weight and building muscle would be the major priority.

However even for overweight men, getting lean and building muscle are not mutually exclusive goals. Rather, you can lose weight and gain muscle at the same time when you have that extra energy stored as fat. This is especially true if you’ve never done progressive overload training like compound lifts.

How much above average do I need to be? Do I need to be physically maxed out like a top model before you can get laid?

Comparing your current physique and models with top physique can feel like an impossible mountain to climb. Is it a somewhat inspiring dream that you could achieve something similar? Maybe. Does it feel feasible? Yeah, no way in hell would that be possible. It feels like it will take years to lose all the fat and build similar amount of muscle to be anywhere near IG models. Is that level of above average really needed?

The short answer is no, because you hit diminishing returns for your physique after a point. In other words, when you hit the point of muscular enough for V body shape and lean enough to show your muscles, your efforts are best spent elsewhere. You can’t go much leaner because it’s not healthy to be too lean, and building muscle to be noticeably more muscular is increasingly harder and time consuming. Essentially, you don’t need to be the most chiseled bodybuilder to get laid.

When you already are above an average person in terms of physique, your effort and focus can and probably should be spent better elsewhere.

For reference, here’s my picture and compare it to a top physique IG model magic_fox. I’m nowhere his physique and with some loose skin due to extreme weight loss, but that doesn’t stop me from getting dates and lays from girls I find hot. Would having his physique help? For sure it wouldn’t be detrimental. But necessary? Definitely no.

Important take away here is that you can achieve an above average physique, which is good enough and doesn’t require huge leaps. It’s mainly consistent effort with habits to reach the state of lean and muscular enough to have a slight V-shaped body.

How can I achieve this physique?

Leanness and muscle are built with two distinct sets of habits.

First, leanness and the so-much-sought-after visible abs come from your eating habits. If you are skinny, you need to learn how to eat enough to fuel your muscle growth so you don’t waste your time in the gym. If you carry around a lot of fat over your (future) muscles, you need to learn how to eat less to lose weight steadily and keep it away.

Whether you need to gain or lose body weight, the How you make it happen is fairly similar. You want to track your macros and weight, and make adjustments to your daily intake based on your body weight trend.

However especially with eating habits, I emphasize the habits part because the actions needed are fairly simple. The hard part comes from doing them consistently for months and years. Whatever your leanness goal is, focus on building habits that support doing actions toward it automatically. Then achieving a better physique becomes a waiting game, rather than a tremendous task you need to pour effort into constantly.

Second, to build muscles you need to go to a gym and exercise. Before you pick any lifting program, it is more important that you build a habit of going to the gym e.g. 3x per week regardless of the weather, mood or life situation. If you haven’t gone regularly to a gym, it’s more important that you build this habit first, even if you only go and tap the gym door before going back home. Lifting programs won’t matter if you don’t train consistently.

Moving onward. My preference is to spend as little time at gym as possible, thus I’ve tried to find the most time efficient ways to workout. For me, progressive overload with compound lifts has been the best bang for buck timewise. If you’re a newbie or haven’t done free weights with a proper program before, pick up Stronglifts 5×5 or Starting Strength and get lifting.

Focus on improving your technique so you don’t hurt yourself, increase the weights you lift as programmed, and you will lift heavier each time. Especially if you are starting to lift or haven’t lifted with progressive overload, getting stronger will make you more muscular. Or more correctly, basically any physical activity as a newbie to progressive overload will make you stronger and more muscular if you keep adding more resistance. With compound lifts, you can keep the progress for building muscle going for longer and easier (and in my opinion more time efficiently).

After the novice linear progression comes to an end and you can’t add weight every workout, then it might make sense to take a look whether you want to focus more on bodybuilding and aesthetics, powerlifting for strength, or some combination program of these.

Regardless what program you start with, I highly suggest having some sessions with a lifting coach eventually to ensure your technique is good. Personally, my main limiting factor to lifting heavier was technique. I was lifting inefficiently, but more importantly I was afraid I’ll break myself with the weight I was trying to lift.

When I hired a coach and we focused on improving the technique, we could progress my squat from ~120kg to 150kg without much effort. I wasn’t afraid that I’ll break myself with it, rather now I feel confident that I’ll most likely be OK even if it’s heavier weight than I’m used to.

To sum up, your program, coach, and foods you eat won’t matter unless you consistently do the actions needed to reach your physique. So put your effort into building habits that move you towards your dream physique, and you will achieve it eventually.

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While your physique is important, you will hit diminishing returns for your results on Tinder and dating in general if you focus solely on physique. When you’ve worked on your physique or already have a decent physique, check out the other major factors affecting Tinder results.

The important take away here is that you can get an amazing sex life even if you don’t look like the most chiseled Greek god. You just need to have an above average physique and you’re already above your competition.