Ideas
Working out should be thought of more like a daily commute - something to get rid off
Nothing about the world we live in is natural and we shouldn't be thinking in those terms at all. I believe, our human nature is from 200k-300k years we were hunter gathers - everything else is chump change in evolutionary time scales
Our brain is programmed in many ways that are misaligned with the world we live in - one of these cores ways for people in the first world, but also richer people in the second/third world, is that we live in a world that is post scarcity on food. Our bodies aren't designed for a post scarcity food world, our bodies are designed to over index on not starving which was the core concern for most of our time here.
Another aside, why is cancer so dominant in 21st century life - cause for most of our existence other diseases killed us longer before the cancer could. This is likely the same with diabetes and obesity, beyond the simple more physical lives we used to live.
Graphic from: https://youtu.be/USmu0scNcSs
We should be meaningfully thinking of our brains as a form of a “computer” with some “programming” and understanding our programming but also meaningfully thinking about how can we use our modern technology to reprogram ourselves. (BMIs, Gene editing, etc)
I find very little discourse in this context or thinking about solving obesity or even being overweight in a way where the consumer has to do no work - I've only really seen it from palmer luckey. We shouldn't be thinking in terms of the person has bad habits or is lazy or wants to eat food, let them eat/do whatever they want let's use technology to solve for it - that us the point of technology.
We should live in a world where you can how much every you want, whenever you want and remain completely healthy. I think this would need more innovation than just reprogramming our mind to not store fat, we also should def be thinking about petroleum-based foods or similar things where we have full control over the taste profile but also the caloric value. Imagine a world where we can eat the best cheeseburger and it has 10 calories or whatever. More about this topic in this amazing podcast: https://youtu.be/dBeosjr7PyY
What does any of this have to do with cars? I think most people view daily commute as a necessity today but mostly a waste of human man hours, one that should be materially solved for. I would use the same lens to view time spent in a gym, many feel it is a necessary of modern life but they don't think about is as a waste of human man hours.
Now a few things of the bat, for someone people this commute gives them some peace, a time to reflect, they enjoy it, or some just love driving(me) but most don't really like it but have to do it. This is likely the same with gymming but the necessity is a bit less cause you affect your health but not your immediate job prospects.
Second, in the future world I'm imagining/proposing you'd feel the same great way you feel when you are healthy because you will be healthy.
The future world I see is a world where commutes are eliminated by self driving cars as they are a colossal waste of man hours and then some drivers (like me) drive for sport - this is likely a world we are getting and hopefully soon.
I'd love to see the same for gymming, most people just get to be healthy by reprogramming our minds - that gym time can be spent doing whatever you truly enjoy and if that is really gymming you can/should totally do it for sport.
That is to say, today it might be a necessity for some but we should as “technologists” recognise it as the problem it is and strive to use technology to solve it.
What's in this for me? Well I'd like someone to build this, might be someone way smarter than me or maybe it's something I'll build in a few years. Maybe this or watching palmer on that pod, was the start of this idea maze for me.
Appendix
A quick aside, solving this problem doesn't need to involve “technology” like self driving cars, it can involve “technology” like more liveable and walkable cities. See this video the point here is to solve it upstream
Whenever we do this reprogram our mind thing, we are definitely causing some problem for our future self. But the way my ancestors trusted that I'd fix climate change, I trust my progeny to fix whatever ripples this cause. Tho I do think we have to make sure the people that get this don't go to Mars (probably not going to be a post scarcity society) and do understand the risk they are taking in an apocalyptic situation where food does become scarce again.