[runningfromfat]

I agree with mandalinn82 that it comes down to semantics. How do you definite "naturally fat"? If you meant that a person living in nature or like we did thousands of years ago would still be fat, then no. However, if you define it as someone who is more likely to gain when there is an abundance of food or maybe better put if you put everyone at the same weight/height on the same calorie diet then a "naturally fat" person would gain while others would lose? Definitely.

However, I also think that some people just have seriously messed up metabolism due to years of yo-yo dieting so it might not be that the necessarily have a disease or other underlying health problems that make weight loss difficult. Certainly, there ARE people who health issues that cause weight gain but in general, I'd guess they are the minority rather than the majority.

All that being said, it IS possible to lose weight no matter what but it might be a much larger struggle for some compared to others. There are just so many factors that go into that.

Additionally, like others pointed our current eating habits are HORRENDOUS. I love to watch The Middle but I swear what that family eats makes me itchy. Pretty much every day they eat fast food, they are constantly sitting in front of the TV and they normally eat pop tarts of frozen waffles for breakfast. WHY ARE THEY ALL THIN????

It drives me nuts to see that portrayed on TV because it normalizes behaviors that will lead to a very unhealthy lifestyle. Additionally, it gives completely unrealistic expectations of what you'd look like if you ate that way everyday. It seems emotional eating and fast food is 100% normal if you watch TV, yet it's always portrayed by svelt celebrities (I'm thinking of Two and Half Men here too..).

[MariaMaria]

I think 5'3.5 and 155 without eating horribly is well within the range of "naturally this size," FWIW--that a reasonably healthy, reasonably active person could have that setpoint. Some bodies hold more weight than others. It sucks if you've got one of those bodies and don't want it.

[kaplods]

Scientists have bred rats for diet/metabolic experiments for their propensity and resistance to obesity. They refer to them as obesity-prone strains and obesity-resistant strains. If rats can be bred to be obesity-prone or obesity-resistant, I suspect the same is true of human genetics.

Obesity-resistant doesn't mean obesity-proof, and neither does obesity-prone mean thin-proof.

I think the most important information to take away is that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for maintaining a healthy weight, and some people will have to work much harder than others. We have to stop assuming that all failure is due to lack of effort.

[Eliana]

Originally Posted by kaplods

We have to stop assuming that all failure is due to lack of effort.

AMEN to that!

Not that anyone here is assuming such a thing. When I was at my heaviest and had been trying to lose weight for 10 years I wanted to wear a sign on my forehead that read "I am trying!"

Like I said before, it wasn't about effort, not for me. It was about education, and not the little "eat less, move more" advice. No, I needed to know the physics, really, of how my body worked and why I needed to do what I needed to do.

[JohnP]

There are people who have massive difficulty losing weight because:

A) Their BMR is very low. Just as some people have abonormally fast metabolisms there are those who have very slow ones.

B) Their bodies rapidly adapt to reduced calories. Everyone's metabolism will slow down a bit while dieting, the amount varies as does the length of time it takes to do so.

There people are very rare but they do exist.

[EagleRiverDee]

Originally Posted by QuilterInVA

"Naturally fat" people usually have a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits.

While this is mostly true, there are people with medical reasons for being overweight. A thyroid disorder, Cushings, etc. can cause weight gain and an inability to lose weight. They have also linked some virus antibodies to higher incidents of being overweight. Some drugs also cause people to gain weight.

My Aunt is a "naturally fat" individual. She eats like a bird. She doesn't eat sweets. Her food choices are amazingly healthy, and her portions are very good. She exercises. And she's 300+ lbs. As I was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder that is hereditary, I have mentioned it to her in the event she would like to be tested. I know that I gained weight and was unable to lose it until I was diagnosed and began treatment.

[Italiannie]

I'm naturally fat.
When someone asks me if I want another slice of pie I say, "Naturally!"

[Munchy]

Originally Posted by mandalinn82

Pregnant, with the same exercise routine, my weight gain goes off track if I get over 1750-1800 calories a day. In fact, even at that level, I'm gaining slightly faster than my midwives want (but they don't want me to cut my calories any further, to ensure I get all the nutrients the baby needs, so I'm sort of stuck with whatever my body does at this point).

It's funny that you say this. I severely under-ate from the time I was 11 years old until my pregnancy at 25. I started to eat small, moderately healthy meals when I was pregnant and gained a lot (70lbs!) very quickly. My family even commented on me "eating a lot" because they had hardly seen me eat in all those years.

When I finally went for nutritional therapy, my RD put me on a 1600 calorie a day diet and I gained 15lbs. After nutritional planning and therapy/blind weighing (and a doctor who told me to drop some weight despite knowing what I was going through) I maintained the high weight. I finally decided to go down to a very nutritionally dense 1000-1200 and dropped that extra.

So, I would consider myself to be "naturally fat" but only because of the years of damage I put my body through by eating so few calories a day.

[Arctic Mama]

I think bodies come in all shapes and sizes with a huge spectrum of natural variation. Add to that the various genetic and metabolic conditions/propensities that might predispose someone to a particular accumulation of, or lack of, fat, and the short answer is yes! Some people have heavier, fattier bodies than others. And that can be completely independent of their health markers.

That said, I don't think it looks like what many people claim. Just like there are not many women with naturally low body fat or BMI's (less than ten percent body fat, lower than 15 on the BMI scales, etc) I don't believe the dramatic converse is true - that people naturally exceed the outer limits of our standard deviations in weight and frame to the degree we often see. That is, the naturally fatter people are likely not as fat as many of us who abuse food or compulsively overeat - and when you look at these women and men, they likely look 'thick' or 'dense' but not 'fat'.

The accumulation of fat that characterizes a naturally heavier person looks different than the type and locations of accumulation that seem to indicate over fatness. It's the same reason a woman my height might look pudgy at 130 when I look fit at 150 - for her body, her fat accumulation is abnormal. But my frame accumulates fat different and has a different 'normal' range because of my composition than hers does.

I say all this to indicate that yes, I do believe there are large variances in frame size, fat distribution and amount, muscle composition, etc. But just as there aren't too many naturally slender women who look emaciated (the latter has a very different appearance than the former), there aren't too many heavier people who appear the same as an overfat body.

It's a really complicated discussion, and when I hear people say their bodies are fit and happy at large sizes I believe it may well be true, depending on their individual health, but overall much of the body composition we see isn't typical, ideal, or healthy, on either extreme of the scale. I am one of those women who runs the 'stockier' side of the scale of normal, but at my fittest and best I don't LOOK fat, despite what the scale might say. This is where understanding your natural proclivities and frame really helps in realistic goal assessment. Waist circumference ratios, fat location, blood panel markers, dietary compositions... All of these are better indicators to go by than weight, for all the above variances and reasons. But I would hesitate to call myself (or anyone else) naturally fat unless their own health indicated that they were in their top shape and living a healthy, vibrant life (internally and externally) in a body that refused to change up or down.

[JayEll]

You know, it sounds to me like we're all guessing on the basis of not very much concrete information.

Human metabolism is way, way more complicated than most discussions make it out to be. So rather than worrying about whether one is "naturally fat" or "naturally thin," it might be better to look at lab tests, nutrition, and exercise levels, and make sure one is healthy and eating well, getting enough activity without overdoing it, and so on.

There indeed may be people who eat less than others and gain weight, just as there may be people who eat more and lose weight. But so what? You have no way of telling which you are!

Stress can cause weight gain, by the way, so if your dissatisfaction is adding to your stress... well...

Jay

[Arctic Mama]

JayEll, if you're interested in some of the more concrete information on human body composition, dietary needs/changes, and the like, might I direct you to the Suppversity blog? It is hard to summarize so much diverse research, but that one does an excellent job of critically interpreting and translating the papers on these subjects.

http://suppversity.blogspot.com/

[JayEll]

Sorry, Arctic Mama, but that site was a complete turn-off to me. To each their own...

Jay

[Arctic Mama]

Turn off? I'm not sure I understand?

The archives contain discussions on many of the most recent studies regarding the technical side of body composition. If that is your interest or you're looking for facts, it's am excellent place to start. If you're not interested in facts, it's a lot of Greek and noise. But turned off? That's a bit of an odd reaction to a weight science blog! I might be misunderstanding your word choice, though...

[DietVet]

Originally Posted by Arctic Mama

Turn off? I'm not sure I understand?

The first thing that I noticed is all the pictures of the flexing muscle man. I haven't even looked at any of the words and I'm afraid of what the site might be about!

(I jest, and I'm interested in checking out the posts, but I can fully empathize with JayEll's reaction!)

[lin43]

Originally Posted by Arctic Mama

JayEll, if you're interested in some of the more concrete information on human body composition, dietary needs/changes, and the like, might I direct you to the Suppversity blog? It is hard to summarize so much diverse research, but that one does an excellent job of critically interpreting and translating the papers on these subjects.

http://suppversity.blogspot.com/

Thanks for posting the link, Arctic Mama. I'll have to bookmark it; I'm always interested in learning more (even if I don't always have time to! ).