Made perfect sense, I'll just never be able to wrap my mind around that silly mindset.
Well, there's two ways to look at it.
One is to assume that people are lazy and don't want to put in any effort.
The other is that we're evolutionarily designed to expend as little energy as possible when working towards our goals meaning we're designed to search out the magic pill that will deliver results with as little effort as possible. Marketing, obviously, plays off of this.
Personally, I subscribe to the second theory. I'm a marketer by trade and I know first hand the power that words hold (pick up a book called Ca$hvertising by Drew Eric Whitman; download a PDF copy if you don't want to buy it - it contains literally dozens of ways to exploit emotional triggers to get people to do what you want them to do - super interesting stuff). It's possible to break through marketing's hold but it requires more willpower than most have.
Now, willpower is an interesting thing. Studies have found that we all have limited amounts of willpower but some have more than others. I imagine the people who succeed in fitness (or business, or whatever) have more willpower available to them than those who don't.
I used to get a little depressed about it but I've come to accept it now. I'll help people who ask for my help or advice but I won't get annoyed if they ignore it. It is what it is.
(Edit - I should probably add that most of my experience here is in the business world. I've probably given about 70-80 people advice on how to start their own online business and maybe 1 has actually followed through with it. I was lucky coming into this fitness thing because I was able to take my experiences with business and apply it to this. It's interesting how the principles are quite similar.)
