This is a fascinating discussion. My husband has a great metabolism. I've lived with him for 11.5 years, so trust me when I tell you he eats WAY more than I could get away with, and he doesn't do it just once or twice a week. We're talking about a guy who can fill 5 plates with steak, chicken, and pizza from the bar at Golden Corral, then come home and eat a bag of chips in front of the TV. This is NOT uncommon. Even the other guys at work (where he is fairly sedentary) rib him about how much he eats. He's always been 6', about 180 lbs. Very handsome too! He's always saying he doesn't understand how I eat as little as I do and remain this weight.

But the fact is that we're all different. I gained weight due to anti-epileptic medication. I put on 30 lbs the first two months I took it. The medication affected my body processes. I don't claim to understand it because I'm not a doctor, but I lived it, so I know what happened. (I immediately took myself off the meds against doctor's orders.) Then I yo-yo dieted my way to a very stubborn weight set point. I've been exactly the same weight for the past six years, whether I eat like a pig or attempt any number of diets. (And my scale's not broken. The doctors' scales agree.) Again, I don't claim to understand it.

I've fortunately figured out that sugar is my arch-nemesis. Eating 1200 calories a day doesn't do a thing for me if part of those calories are from sugar. Now that I've figured this out, the weight is melting off. But each of us are different, and we each have to research our own issues and find unique solutions.

There are a wide variety of medical conditions that can contribute to obesity. Sure, these can be addressed, but it often takes time to figure them out, and in the meantime, it's quite normal to feel depressed and hopeless. We can't judge people harshly for giving up from time to time. I'll bet we've all done it. There are too many factors in this to paint us all with one big calorie-counting brush.

I've been with my BF for 12 years. He just turned 49 and at 6' has never weighed more than 135 in his life. And I know he eats a ton, every day, much more than he ought to be able to to sustain his weight. I even work with the man, in the office next to his. I hear everything he unwraps to eat in there. I know when he visits the candy box outside my office. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and I see how much he consumes in alcohol and cookies and late-night "snacks." I see how much he eats when we go out. We go to the gym together: I know his workout. Nothing he does explains his metabolism. I know him, and I know his ability to eat and not gain weight is otherworldly.

In general I do agree that people who are "naturally thin" are that way because they eat and move in a way that makes them naturally thin. I am one of those people. But I also believe that some people just have freakishly fast metabolisms. And, in my BF's case at least, the doctors have never found any medical condition to explain it. It appears to be simply genetic.

The bottom line is, that no matter what your metabolism is (or isn't,) whatever changes life brings your way as, if you're overweight (whatever that means), you are over-feeding yourself. You're taking in more calories than is necessary, more calories that you require and your body can't burn enough of it. Therefore you are winding up with a calorie overage or surplus and it is being stored as FAT.

I think that it's important that anyone, overweight or underweight, discuss the situation with their doctor to rule out or deal with underlying medical disorders. Society has a tendency to oversimplify this issue... to our detriment.

Originally Posted by Lyri:
I think that it's important that anyone, overweight or underweight, discuss the situation with their doctor to rule out or deal with underlying medical disorders. Society has a tendency to oversimplify this issue... to our detriment.

I actually think that there really aren't too many underlying medical disorders causing people to be overweight. :dunno:

Robin, I'd agree with your statement, if it included two factors...one, which is just a minor quibble, is "what your body requires AT THAT TIME", since metabolism is ever changing and we need to change our intakes with it, up or down. The second would be "More calories than you require of the foods you are eating" - my own experience and the experience of many here is that our burn - the "calories out" portion - must logically be higher when eating whole, unprocessed foods, because we can maintain on 1500 calories of whole foods but not 1500 calories of processed foods, even without taking into account appetite/satiety factors.

Robin, are you a doctor? If so, I accept your experienced medical opinion.

I think we can all agree that the body is a complex thing, and none of us can claim to fully understand it.

Originally Posted by Lyri:
Robin, are you a doctor? If so, I accept your experienced medical opinion.
.

No, I'm most definitely not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV ;).

Are you? If you are, I'd be really curious to hear about all of these underlying medical conditions that cause people to be overweight.

I for one definitely wasn't giving a medical opinion and never claimed to. I have just found this to be the case through speaking with others who have lost a good deal of weight and those that need to lose a great deal of weight. The overwhelmingly large majority of them were/are overweight, is because were/are taking in too many calories, they were/are overfeeding themselves. I certainly was!!

As far as doctors go, my doctor wasn't able to help me. Granted I had none of these underlying medical conditions that you speak of, but my doctor told me that unless I got weight loss surgery that it would be impossible to get off all of the weight that I needed to in order to get to a healthy weight.

Originally Posted by :
I think we can all agree that the body is a complex thing, and none of us can claim to fully understand it

Agreed. Glad we can see eye to eye on something. :smug:

Originally Posted by mandalinn82:
Robin, I'd agree with your statement, if it included two factors...one, which is just a minor quibble, is "what your body requires AT THAT TIME", since metabolism is ever changing and we need to change our intakes with it, up or down. The second would be "More calories than you require of the foods you are eating" - my own experience and the experience of many here is that our burn - the "calories out" portion - must logically be higher when eating whole, unprocessed foods, because we can maintain on 1500 calories of whole foods but not 1500 calories of processed foods, even without taking into account appetite/satiety factors.

Yes, I did kinda state the bolded underlined sentence of yours. , (not so clearly), when I said "whatever changes life brings your way".

Your second factor, ummm, I suppose, but I don't think that that is a major factor and didn't think it had to be stated. But I'm glad that you did- just in case. :)

wow this thread lit on fire!

i dont really know for sure how much metabolism plays in here. i do know that when i was a teenager i could literally eat whatever i wanted and not gain a pound. now i cant remember well enough to know whether i just wanted less than i do now or not!

i also know that i gained most of my weight when i was on a medication which listed weight gain as a side effect due to several things, one of them being that it "depressed metabolism".

i think we all know that people lose weight at different speeds. if you and i are at the same starting weight and get on the EXACT same plan and i lose 1.5 lb, and you lose 3 in a week, that doesn't mean i didn't try as hard as you. it just means that my body loses weight more slowly. maybe the next week id have a "whoosh" and you'd stay the same. whether it's metabolism or not, we all just have to find what works for us and stop worrying about what we do vs. what other people can or cannot do!

I'm not going to offer my opinion on the medical side of this, but I do want to offer one thought: What if they just want to change the topic?

Maybe these people work really hard to remain thin and just don't want their habits scrutinized by someone who is nosy enough to ask "Why're you so thin?" in the first place. Maybe they are doing something unhealthy to remain thin and don't want to talk about it. Maybe they have a messy medical condition that keeps them from gaining weight. Maybe it is just an excuse, but unless we know these people we don't know.

I'm equal opportunity when it comes to this. Just as we shouldn't assume a fat person is stupid, lazy, etc. we shouldn't assume a thin person has an eating disorder, is a drug addict, etc. We should give people a chance to prove themselves, but sadly those chances are few and far between.

Well, thyroid problems reducing BMR is well known. I know of at least one other underlying medical condition that reduces BMR - PCOS, which has an estimated prevalence of 20% in overweight and obese women. So approximately 1 in 5 women who are overweight or obese may have an underlying medical condition that lowers BMR. Now, PCOS may be worsened by being overweight, but there are at least some genetic or environmental predispositions involved as well.

Originally Posted by :
Adjusted BMR was 1,868 ± 41 kcal/day in the control group, 1,445.57 ± 76 in all PCOS women, 1,590 ± 130 in PCOS women without IR and 1,116 ± 106 in PCOS women with IR. Adjusted BMR showed a statistically significant difference between women with PCOS and control subjects, with lowest values in the group of PCOS women with IR, even after adjusting all groups for age and BMI.

http://www.fertstert.org/article/S00...008-X/abstract

As for the "what you eat" part affecting metabolism/calories out, I can only speak from my own personal experiences and what I have read here from others.

Originally Posted by mandalinn82:
That said, we don't understand all of the things that can change metabolism, so much so that for many people, the calculators are literally useless. And just because we haven't identified the factor that caused my body to burn 1500 calories a day and someone else's to burn 2000 calories a day, that difference is enough to divide us by just about a pound a week. That'll level off, of course, as the one with the 1500 calorie burn gains weight and starts burning more, but that's still a significant difference, particularly over a number of years. And the fact is, there are many metabolic differences we don't understand yet, so your hypothetical experiment couldn't ever take place...we are incapable of controlling for all factors that influence calorie burn because science hasn't quite nailed down what they are.

I don't disagree with this. The factors that go into metabolism are obviously complex and there are many factors that we don't understand very well...

And also, at least empirically, there certainly seem to be some people who are much more vulnerable to the obesogenic environment.

When I see a young child or preteen who is morbidly obese, I always think that some combination of factors MUST have stacked the deck against the poor kid-- some combination of factors that we don't yet fully understand from a scientific point of view.

My point is a little different.

I still don't think that differences in BMR between individuals are enough to explain why some people become morbidly obese.

And I think that in the absence of a treatable medical condition, such as hypothyroidism, it's a mistake to blame our weight woes on our metabolism.

That being said, I DO feel sorry for myself personally that I lose fairly slowly on 1200-1400 cals a day with vigorous exercise. Drat that metabolism.;)

I think there are more medical and physiological factors than is often assumed (and research seems to be finding and identifying more and more - though the scientific results seem to enrage people. Ignoring the truth that's discovered and shouting that it "gives people an excuse to stay fat.")

I found it easier to lose weight when I identified and dealt with those physiological factors. I did not use the information to stay fat - quite the reverse. Understanding the problem, helped me find solutions that were more effective.

Even acknowledging medical problems you can still say "all overweight people are overweight because they're taking in more calories than they need."

If a person can't lose on 1000 calories - I guess that means that 1000 calories are "too many."

If you eat nothing, you will eventually starve to death - losing weight in the process, so I guess that's proof that "everyone can lose weight by calorie restriction alone." If it takes 400 calories a day to do it, well sucks to be you.

I don't "blame my weight woes on my metabolism," but understanding my metabolism has helped me tremendously in finding strategies that do work.

I am hypothyroid (but not severely enough for most local doctors to treat. I could doctor shop until I found a doctor willing to medicate - or I could move to a location where the standards are different, but I'm satisfied with my doctor, so I just deal with the hypothyroid as best I can).

I'm also insulin resistant (as much a result as a cause of obesity, but it does slash metabolism, so once you're on the low metabolism train, you're kind of stuck there for a while. Good chance that I can get off with enough weight loss, but for now, I'm stuck with the metabolic effect of the IR).

For me, I really need a low-carb diet to be able to lose weight. Lot's of reasons for it, doesn't really matter what they are. Unfortunately, I never tried low-carb dieting seriously (only for short-term crash dieting, and then I'd "come to my senses" and get back on a "balanced" low-calorie diet that I never could stay on long enough to lose much weight).

I'm confident that if I had found low-carb dieting before I reached 250 lbs, I would have never reached 394, and probably wouldn't have reached 251, but that's not my experience.

I spent over 30 years trying to lose weight by force of will - "mind over matter." I didn't believe in the medical/physiological factors, so I never attempted weight loss that took them into account. I truly believed that it was just a matter of mind over matter (I still get sick of people telling me THAT's why I'm succeeding. I most certainly am not. If I hadn't found the physiological issues, I would still be gaining).

On one hand, it doesn't matter what metabolism cards you've been dealt. You've got to deal with them, regardless - but simple calorie control may not be enough. You may need medication and/or a special diet.

For me, metformin, the right birth control, and low-carb dieting is my "magic combo" and I think it works because it addresses the physiological factors contributing to my obesity.

Isn't my weight still my "fault?" You're perfectly welcome to do so (not that you'd need my permission, if you're of that mindset).

Personally, I don't use that word. It is my responsibility, but I don't have to blame anyone or anything (including myself, my parents or my metabolism), but understanding as much as I can, sure helps me find paths that are easier.

And weight loss is tough, finding ways to make it easier is nothing to be ashamed of.

Thyroid issues and PCOS were indeed the only two medical conditions that immediately came to mind when the underlying medical conditions topic first came up.

Even with those two conditions, and boy I don't envy any one with them, talk about making something challenging even more so, and yes, these factors should be looked into, still the overwhelmingly large percentage of overweight people *I've* come across, are not affected by these.

I bet if we took a poll here at 3FC we most certainly would run across many with those two conditions, but again, I believe the overwhelmingly large percentage would NOT be afflicted by either of them.

And yes, these conditions should be identified, it is never wrong to speak with a doctor. And for those with these conditions, you will still find them able to lose weight and not have to be morbidly obese/obese/overweight.

And of course, medications - but I for one in my mind didn't lump that into the underlying medical conditions category. It is a factor, but not a condition.

Do some people have more challenges than others? Yup, you betcha.