I've read in numerous articles that most of the time, there's no such thing as a "slow metabolism" (or a fast one!) unless you have a medical condition.

However, I have to wonder if some people DO have naturally slow metabolisms, considering I have this one friend who eats normally (not perfect, just normal for a college student) and probably weighs around 250. I have another friend who is THIN and eats literally about twice as much as my fat friend. Both never exercise. Could someone explain why this is? Is it genetics? Are some people just meant to have bigger body types and therefore store more fat and everything else?

I think a lot of it has to do with the type of food a person chooses to eat. Two people can look like they are eating the same amount of food, but one is eating food that is much denser in calories and scant on nutrients while the other is eating food that is more well rounded.

I think some of it has to do with how healthy a person is inside. You can look thin but have awful cholesterol because you don't eat healthy food. Just being skinny doesn't make you healthy.

I think some of it has to do with how much inherent exercise a person gets. Do you take the stairs or the elevator? Do you walk to class or call a cab? Do you jiggle your leg when you're sitting still or just lay down? The more you're moving the more calories you're burning, and even those small amounts add up.

I think some of it has to do with history. People who consume more calories than they burn will gain weight, and if they are just consuming slightly more than they burn, they'll gain it slowly and consistently.

Short of being on some kind of medication that keeps weight on or keeps swelling up or something, I think anyone is *able* to lose weight, you just have to have the motivation to get past your hang-ups about giving up what has made you gain the weight in the first place.

My two cents.

Kara

Well I am hypothyroid, and I have awful metabolism because of it.
I can workout very hard and eat low calories, healthy choices, and still not lose weight. It is beyond frustrating. When I found out I had hypo-thyroid, I was very thin, they told me not to be surprised if I gained weight very quickly ..almost over night at somepoint. It took a few years but I did gradually gain weight, then after I had my kids the thyroid got worse during pregnancy. I struggle with it, but I do work out and I do eat right, I just can't lose weight. Well I just have a very hard time. I have anoter appt soon to have my thyroid checked and they will probably give me a new dose (prescription)
.

Fast and slow are relative terms and easily bandied about. A turtle is slow, a rabbit is faster but I can outrun a rabbit in my Sunfire anyday without breaking the speed limit.

I'm glad 2Bthinagain posted here right away. That is a medical condition. It does indeed impair her metabolism. Barring a miracluous healing ... her metabolism will always be slower than mine .... However ...

2Bthinagain has chosen to 'bloom where she's planted'. There's not much sense in her sitting around wishing she had a faster metabolism (wouldn't we all like that). She's just doing what SHE has to do. And has a three pound loss to show for it! Good on ya!

You are a strong woman! I hope you didn't feel like I was attacking you with my opinion. My grandmother struggled with medical problems for over fifty years and had to be on steroids, which made her gain weight even though she tried everything she could to not do so. You're doing a great job with your loss so far! Keep it up!

Kara

A. Last year, John Stossel and ABC 20/20 did a piece on slow metabolisms. They had a panel of experts study people that thought they were fat because they had a slow metabolism. What they learned was that larger people have a higher metabolism than smaller people, but that larger people move a lot less during the day, thereby burn fewer calories.

B. However, it's also been proven that you can take two people of the same weight, do metabolic testing, and find they could require considerably different amounts of calories to live. Some people do metabolize slower, needing fewer calories.

From what I gather, most overweight people fall into category A than B.

BUT I don't buy the idea that slow or fast metabolisms can only be due to medical reasons.

I certainly have no way of knowing this for certain or even close, but chances are the 250 lb friend is moving less then the other one and eating large quantities of food while no one is around.

And again, I have no way at all to know this for certain, but chances are the "thin" friend is really and truly NOT eating double what the 250 lb friend is eating. She's probably more active and manages to keep her eating in check majority of the time.

And as a former closet eater I can say that you have no way of knowing if the heavy friend is eating double what you see her eat. I was darn good at getting rid of the evidence.

I dont know what the cause is but i know there is some truth to 2 people eating the same and weighing different. I lived with a girlfriend of mine when we were younger. We ate together constantly and did basically everything together. We both ate poorly and too much. and neither of us exercised. She weighed 170 while i weighed 256. She didnt move her body any more than i moved mine, we were both very lazy. She actually ate more than i did. She would get a double cheese burger, while i got a single. She would order so much food sometimes that she would buy an extra coke so the cashier wouldnt think all that food was for her...so i KNOW she ate more than me. So the age ol' question...why did she weigh almost 100 pounds less. She was chunky, but not "Fat" like me. I didnt sneak food, and i know she didnt exercise more than me. So i dont know what the answer is other than genetics and set points. She has always been around 170 and still is, 15 years down the road. I have always been 250ish, and still am, 15 years down the road. We have both dieted, not dieted, but we always seem to end up back where we started. Interesting huh?

I agree with this wholeheartedly. While I do think there are a lucky few who have the "fast metabolism," I mostly think it's all about lifestyle. I'll use my husband as an example. He is what I would call "naturally fit." He looks great. He is muscular and fit. Yet, he eats whatever he wants. He uses butter, eats fried foods, and the like. Usually, I'll buy 1 1/2 pounds of boneless chicken breast, and I'll grill a couple of thin slices for me, but I'll bread and fry his. With this fried chicken, he'll eat a plate full of pasta w/ olive oil and garlic and some parmesan cheese on top. So, naturally, anyone seeing him eat this sort of dinner consistently, would think that he's just blessed with a fast metabolism. But if you really examine his eating and exercise habits, that's not the case. He may eat a big dinner, but he usually only eats twice a day, and his breakfast is usually a couple of slices of Italian bread w/ butter. He rarely eats lunch. He very rarely snacks, and he doesn't have a sweet tooth.

Also, while he's never seen the inside of a gym and thinks people who run are nuts, he is always doing something, especially yardwork. And when he does the yardwork, he does it the old fashioned way--he rakes rather than using a leafblower (he & I hate the noise), he uses manual hedge-clippers rather than a chainsaw, he uses a push lawn mower (without any automatic propel).

Oh, and by the way, my husband is 57 years old, so if he were going to be overweight, it would have happened by now.

In short, if you closely examine the lifestyles of people who seem blessed with faster metabolisms, you'll notice that it's really thier lifestyle choices that make them thin.

There's a pretty good chance she's got a bag of Hershey's Kisses stashed somewhere. I still don't think my own husband really understands why I gained so much weight. I barely ever eat too much in front of other people.

Obviously there are going to be medical conditions that effect metabolism but I think that among normal healthy people that the range of metabolism is probably pretty small and doesn't explain the difference between normal weight and obesity.

As a general rule, overweight, obese, and normal weight persons all burn calories at the same rate -- 50 calories per kilogram of lean body mass. Of course, that's an average and there's individual variations, but study after study has shown that -- minus medical issues like hypothyroidism -- people do not generally gain weight because they have "slow metabolisms".

2BThin, I'm hypothyroid too and I understand your frustrations! Once you get your thyroid meds correctly regulated, I think you'll find it a lot easier to lose the weight. Exercise is very helpful for those of us with thyroid issues.

I lived with a few female friends when I was younger. They were half my size, and we ate together and ate the same amounts (I made sure not to overeat in front of them). They wondered aloud one day how I could weigh more than them, when I didn't "eat like an overweight person". Well, actually, I did, I just hid it well - scarfing down a muffin when I ran to the gas station, eating a candy bar on the way home from the grocery store, etc.

On a tangential note, I've always wondered if circulation was related to metabolism. If you have poor circulation, is that an indicator of how fast your metabolism is?

phantastica ... I have Raynaud's syndrome so I don't think so.

However, no part of the body works independently from the rest.

That's a question I've asked myself a few times as well. While I wouldn't pin down a *really* slow metabolism (as the saying goes) on anything else than a real medical condition, such as hypothyroidism, I'm really not sure about those other differences. There are so many little details that should be taken into account in all of this, that I don't know if, seeing people from the outside, one can really tell if the eating we see them perform is what they do all the time, if they really don't do any physical activity, etc.

I don't know if some of you here read or have the Skinny Daily Post blog, but I remember that a few years ago, JuJu there had written a post about pedometers. She had bought one, tried it, thought that she'd get about 3000-4000 steps on it at the end of the day (that was a workday, I think, not a day off), then was shocked to see she had barely made 800 steps--she wrote something along the lines of "It seems that unconsciously, I'm very efficient at using the less energy possible". Maybe it's that. Maybe we don't realize. Maybe a person fidgets more than another, or will eat the enormous cheeseburger (that we witness) at noon but eat a salad only in the evening (which we don't witness), maybe they don't consider themselves active but bike for half a hour every morning to go to work... Maybe it's even tinier factors than that, yet still adding enough to make a difference.

That said, I still have no definite answer to bring, sorry.