Working Out, Fitness, & Money
Why any excuse you have for not being in shape is pure Cope
One of our biggest pet peeves is when people use ‘work’ or ‘making money’ as an excuse for belonging to the tribe of The Fats.
This is pure and utter cope.
Being in shape is one of the absolute best ways to improve your financial situation. Making more money and being jacked go hand-in-hand. The better shape you are in allows you to work more and more intense.
The better shape you are in, the more attractive you are. And the more attractive you are the more likely people will agree with you, take your direction, and think highly of you.
Excess body fat also jacks up your hormones. Higher fat leads to higher estrogen and lower testosterone. Everyone knows testosterone gives you a zest for life, higher energy, clearer thinking, and a leaner physique and features. While excess estrogen has you eating Ben & Jerry’s “The Current Thing Cookie n Cream” and crying watching the notebook. The science is settled on that.
If you have a visceral reaction to anything stated above, it probably means you packed on a few more pounds than you want (high estrogen will make you more emotional and sensitive).
Fitter People Make More Money
Straight facts - the better shape you are in the more money you can make.
The few studies done on this have found those that workout make significantly more than their fat & sedentary counterparts.
The Journal of Labor Research found a 9% average higher salary
A Freeletics study found a similar $25k to $38k higher salary for those who exercise.
“But the most unexpected finding in the study was that people who exercise frequently tend to make more money, especially the ones who go hard at the gym. On average, those who exercise regularly make $25,000 more than those who never hit the gym. In addition, those who engage in high-intensity interval training (HIIT) make an additional $13,000 more than those who favor low-intensity routines.”
-From Best Life Online based on Freeletics study
There appears to be a strong positive correlation between exercise and higher pay.
But Why?
Exercising Allows for More Energy
There is at least two ways that exercising improves your energy output.
For one, when you exercise you tend to get a mental boost. Exercising leads to the release of those good neurotransmitters - endorphins, serotonin, and norepinephrine - that lead to higher energy output for the day.
This is likely the driver behind the inertia one feels, both when exercising and when living a sedentary life. “A body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion”. This is true in physics and in the real world.
“A body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion”
-Tony Perkis (probably)
We personally think the whole “miracle morning” stuff has gone entirely too far…spending 4 hours of your day doing assorted rituals is “procrastination masturbation”…You are doing a bunch of things to feel productive but aren’t actually making progress.
However, there is truth to starting the day with energizing activities or if you are feeling sluggish later in the day, doing something to wake up your nervous system. And doing physical activities to get your body in motion fits the bill. Go for a walk in the sun, or do a few rounds of push-ups and body weight squats and say you don’t feel more awake and energized.
Days where you wake up and spend hours scrolling social media it tends to be hard to get moving and start doing productive tasks.
Secondly, exercising actually builds up your baseline endurance. If you are working hard and focusing, it is a tiring experience. However, if you have built up your energy systems through exercise, you have a higher reserve to draw from.
A common metaphor used for things like this is a bucket. You start your day with a full bucket. When you are working hard, you are pouring the contents of your bucket out. But the fitter you are, the bigger the size of the bucket.
More energy and more endurance will be a winning combo. Especially if you are crushing it in a wage cuck and also burning the candle on side hustle/income/business.
Exercising Results in Fewer Missed Days
Exercising benefits your immune system. Here is a Haaaarvard (the only way to properly say the name is with a haughty ‘aaarr’ sound, innit?) study that points to healthy weight and regular diet & exercise as key indicator of immune health. Just in case you needed actual support for this basic and obvious fact.
If you are working an hourly job where you only get paid while you are working, clearly less sick days make you more money.
But even in jobs with paid time off (PTO), having unplanned absences can hinder your career growth. Additionally, many high-demand careers you don’t even get to take all the PTO you are allotted. And no client work is going to go well if you are a hacking coughing mess.
Good Looking People Make More
There was an entire study and book written about how attractive people make more money. Economist Daniel Hamermesh analyzed the data and came to the conclusion attractive people make more, this is very much true in sales, but also in other occupations that attractiveness would seem to be less important.
To note, studies also found very unattractive people make good money too. This is likely twofold:
There is a stereotype between being ugly and being intelligent. Think of the stereotypical nerd character.
This is a tenuous at best relationship as attractive people also tend to be smarter (ignore the soy conclusion at the end, the first few paragraphs provide study support))
Ugly people benefit from the ‘underdog effect’. Aka - everyone loves the underdog story of someone overcoming odds and achieving. So just like that time in HS when cheer squad captain Susan let you grab a little boob under the shirt out of pity, people at work are giving you more opportunity due to being ugly
This opinion piece from CNN (barf…but it covers the above point well), explains how ugly people benefit from HR women…We will quote a chunk here for you:
“the ugliness premium has to do with the human tendency to favor the underdog, a tendency especially apparent among women. And it's not a noble act. Instead, it's a form of intra-gender sexism, or clear and troubling evidence of female misogyny.
Women have an inherent desire to hold other women back, especially those women whom they perceive as better-looking, smarter or wealthier than they are. This is a form of self-preservation. Fewer spots at the top -- of whatever ladder women are seeking to climb -- have resulted in a drive to limit those who can truly compete. Rewarding the ugly, the non-threatening, is one way to keep those more threatening women down.
We see this attraction to the underdog all the time -- in friendships, in the workplace and even in families. Women favor those who won't outshine them. We see it in teenagers, when girls may seek out the unattractive friend who makes them look attractive by comparison…”
In short, if you are the 80% in the middle of the bell-curve, then getting in better shape will move you more to the right and help you earn more.
Good Looking People Are More Likely To Get Hired
Let’s be honest, hiring is like speed dating. You get a small window to make an impression and most people make decisions based on how they leave feeling rather than substance. Aka-good looking people have the advantage.
We won’t rehash it all here, but most people are drawn to good looking people.
We will point out we have a fashion expert in the jungle that can help you improve your overall wardrobe to make the best with what you got.
Fat Stereotypes
Fat people are thought of as being lazy, unorganized, and poor at handling problems. Lazy, unorganized, and gluttonous aren’t the qualities that pop our when looking to fill a role.
Whether it is true or not…it is the way people feel and make decisions.
However, in a world where most of the population is fat, what is defined as ‘average’ person and ‘average size’ has changed a lot.
And yes, here is a post around a study that ‘fat people get paid less’.
Counterpoint: The Purple Hairs
We have a short-hand in the F’er household for the crazy, angry, soy people…They are collectively referred to as ‘the purple hairs’. It sums up the people who view the entire world as being oppressive and despise all things beautiful.
This name fits even if they don’t have purple hair (albeit, it is usually some odd color to virtue-signal to the world).
[Note - Interestingly enough, we have a good friend who has purple hair and is very based. So at least for a n=1 sample size it doesn’t always indicate the type]
These are the current gate-keepers of the corporate world. And as soon as one gets into a corporate HR, assume many will follow.
They do 2 things well
Destroy everything they can
Self-replicate by hiring other purple hairs into HR
A true purple hair is a Chad & Chadette hater. (As opposed to a confused one who will still be drawn to aesthetics). This is one of the only times being good-looking and fit may be a negative.
Here is one study that points to woman in HR hiring based on their own emotions (similar to the post above about women in the office). [Don’t @ me about the statistical significance or conclusion of good looking men being fine. Study is from 2011 and the type of HR woman 10+ yrs later has changed. The point, HR ladies screen based on emotions]
“To check this stereotype, researchers telephoned the companies who were recruiting to find out about the people who screened the candidates.
They found that 96 per cent were female, the majority were between the ages of 23 and 34 and nearly 70 per cent were single.”
Bottom line…It happens….sad cat-mom HR women were discriminating based on beautiful girls in 2011, and the purple hairs are discriminating against anyone goo-looking and fit in 2022.
[The world needs more beauty. If you want to fight back against the purple hair destroyers, BowTiedApollo will show you how to improve all of life’s aesthetics]
However, the small chance an HR gremlin prescreens you out of consideration isn’t a reason to be fat.
What Can I do To Get Fit
We aren’t a fitness niche. However, here is enough information to get you started:
Your entire diet should be focused on vegetables, protein, fruit,…….then “clean” carbs (think rice).
Don’t drink your calories
No one got fat off broccoli, chicken, and blueberries
Eat slower and stop when you start to feel discomfort
Do resistance training 3-4 days a week - preferably real weights at a gym
When it comes to resistance training progressive overload is king.
Pick a non-[redacted] starting workout
Hit each set with maximum intensity
Add more weight or reps every week
Consume more than 1g of protein per pound of lean body weight
Grow
[We would recommend BowTiedOx workouts. Save yourself years of bouncing between subpar advice]
Do more intense cardio 3-4 days a week
Don’t be a cardio queen though. 30-45 mins of inclined treadmill at fast pace or stair climber or 20 mins of a rower.
Longer than 45 mins and you start being counterproductive
Walk more.
10k steps a day should be your goal.
When we are in meetings we need to listen to, but don’t need to participate in, we pace circles around our home work area to get extra steps
Do the above and you’ll get back to being fit and aesthetically pleasing
Conclusion - Jacked & Wealthy
This free post is a slightly different flavor than our typical ‘tism laced personal finance advice. We didn’t even have to open excel and do any calcs.
However, the list of benefits we identified for being in shape & better looking are directly tied to making more money which ALWAYS makes you financially better off.
By increasing your energy output, you will increase your ability for longer and sustained work.
This can help in your day job but more importantly it will give you the energy to work your side hustles after.
Being fit makes you attractive and both will help make you money.
You will improve your hormone profile improving your vigor. (Note if you are over 35 you should be getting your T checked too)
And being healthier will give you energy to enjoy life and live longer to actually use all this wealth you have been building.
Discipline in one area of life tends to bleed over into discipline in other areas. When you are nailing your workouts & meal planning, you tend to nail the rest of your day
We aren’t saying personal finance advice from one of the the fats is wrong…but the list of benefits of being in shape make us question if they are really gooroos or just LARPing .
But there is overwhelming evidence that points to being in better shape (which increases your attractiveness) will help you. Remember that next time you use the excuse of needing to make more money as the excuse for being fat. Paradoxically, maybe more time working out is what you need to get that pay boost.