People letting themselves go once in a relationship.

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I exercise to look good. To be more precise, I do it to not look hideous. Also I think it helps with my depression.

What motivates people to keep exercising is the results and the health benefits, but what gets them started is that they want to beef up to look like Vin Diesel, or lose weight to look like Mila Kunis. This is not necessarily a bad thing as long as you keep your expectations realistic and realize that Rome wasn't built in one day.

I originally wanted to look like Frank Zane. Regardless of how muscular I became, this was impossible, due to the fact that I have a heavy frame, a slow metabolism, and the fact that Frank Zane was on small dosages of various types of anabolic steroids. Nevertheless, I discovered that looking like--and becoming just as strong as a heavyweight boxer was well within my reach. Next to the strength and muscle gain, my diet and exercise has given me an excellent heartrate, perfect blood pressure, and at the most 2-3 headaches every year.

I work out so I'd look like Miranda Kerr. I'm a lot older than her and even not the same race but whateves.

I always thought working out was very vain of me, mainly about the looks (and fun), but the year after my daughter was born I had wayyyyy less time for working out, and oh man. All of a sudden I aged ten years. And that's when I realized that this stuff had actually been about health and strength and vitality, and that your body really does fall apart and become unrecognizable if you stop.

What is a mistake is to expect you'll work out at the same intensity your whole life. I mean apart from changes in obligations and lifestyle -- aging is a real thing. Your body composition will change regardless of what you do. Your abilities will change. So it's a constant exploration, trying new things, paying attention to how you feel, and just remaining on good terms with your bod.

I don?t think it?s great but I think the majority of people go to the gym primarily to look good. Of course everyone says they're doing it to keep healthy but I honestly doubt that there are people at the gym who have never considered how they're exercising affects their physical appearance. People really get off on ?being noticed? and the opposite sex giving them a second glance. Sometimes to the extent that certain girls at my gym walk around back and forth (obviously in really minimal and tight fitting clothing) just to get attention, doing nothing that could be described as exercising of any kind. It didn?t even occur to me that someone would do something like this before my friends pointed them out, but apparently people have an insatiable appetite for attention. I guess it?s easier to get motivated by observable changes, especially ones that affect how people treat you, rather than something that might only show up in blood tests for instance.

But at the same time if they?re improving their health and well being by exercising and hopefully eating sensibly, then that is good enough for me. Whether they?re reasons for doing so are sensible, or make their efforts sustainable long-term isn?t really any of my business. People have to find out for themselves what motivates them, no one else even healthcare professionals are going to be able to coax others into leading a healthy lifestyle. But I do think that everyone should have someone to support and encourage them along the way. Even though the motivation and the effort has to come from yourself, everyone falters and struggles with the changes and falls off the wagon now and again, having both a healthcare and a social support network can make a huge difference. All the props to everyone who is making healthier lifestyle changes!

I am losing weight way too quickly but I am only on a 500 calory deficit!

You'd probably have more than a 500 calorie deficit. Your BMR may be 1,800 but if you get out of bed every day you should multiply that by 1.2. On top that your walking could be several hundred calories per day.

Riika, honestly, most girls don't parade for attention. We get all the attention we want and more, usually completely unsolicited (and unwanted), simply by existing. Starting around age 11 or so. A lot of people just sort of wander in the gym between workout bits or after the workout's done but they're not ready to quite the gym and go home yet.

My experience working in and going to gyms says that people are there primarily focused on themselves, not on showing off. I mean it's quite a narcissistic experience for most people, fixed on their own performance, own image in the mirror. The population that seems to be there mostly to impress others and mold the body for that purpose -- I mean as opposed to " there for health/fitness" -- are the older (50ish) out-of-shape guys, the huff-and-puff types with the big guns and big bellies. They're hell-for-leather after something, and they don't seem to have any felt connection between what they're doing and their bodies. And the ones who most obviously don't give a s**t what you think are the old ladies, who're there being disciplined about keeping up their health.

In gyms, 90% of guys transform to expert trainers, certified nutrition specialists and pharmacists when some hot gal enters the room.

Must depend on where you are. Around here, the needle doesn't move: the guys are there to lift. (Young guys. But people of all ages are at the gym working out, here.)

In the grittier US cities where I lived, the guys actively resent women walking into the weights area. They figure it's their turf and they don't want girls there. It's a significant barrier to women's fitness and I've often been the only woman in the weights room, because f**k that hostility. The guys will sometimes get passive-aggressive in response, banging the weights around, refusing to remove 50-lb plates from machines like they're supposed to when they're done, then pretending they don't know what you're talking about when you say, "Would you please put your plates away so I can use this machine."

Actually that's funny, Boo, I'd have expected to've seen stuff like what you're talking about. I must've in high school...but no, even then, when I ran track and the coach told us go work out, the football boys just pretended the girls weren't there or grunted a lot more and took off. It's the creepy yoga guys who always want to position your body. And the bike guys are kind of mansplaining a**holes, that's true. But in the gym...huh, most of the trainers are women now, so you get these middle-aged dudes hiring them, and the dynamic is kinda icky. The women have to play along unless the guys do something overtly inappropriate.

Never saw that in real life.

Because you're not hot enough, haha.

Might be, but I've never seen it happen to the hottest of hot girls either.

I'm kidding Me neither, I'm pretty sure it must be a US thing.

I didn?t believe it either at first. But trust me, they?re doing it for attention. I don?t know, maybe the US is really different, but in the country I?m living in there are significantly more females than males, and the culture tends toward very traditional gender stereotypes, so girls are raised to and do have to put a lot of effort into looking good. Pretty and thin doesn?t cut it here since the majority of girls are pretty and thin.

I?ve been living here for a while now and I think I?m starting to get a warped sense of what?s healthy because for the first time in my life I?ve actually considered that I might be fat, because the girls here are SO slim. And I have a BMI of 19.

lol I?ve seen this. You don?t even need a girl for it, men turn into experts the moment they walk through the door.

Yep.