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Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#131

Post by Shorel »

BeowulfCluster wrote: post #77
stevedt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how your body reacts to food has an effect on how hungry you get. It's easier to eat fewer calories if you aren't as hungry. And the whole point of the article is that we differ significantly on how are bodies respond to food.

Agreed. But obese people need to understand the basics first (EAT LESS!) and then they can tweak their diets to make them more comfortable with fewer calories.

I think keto diets have been in most cases successful precisely because they not rely on understanding and self control, the body simply adjusts and starts feeling full faster.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#132

Post by Shorel »

pietjepuk88 wrote: post #113
leshow wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it doesn't in the realm of weight gain/loss. People's metabolisms vary by a wide margin, we could both eat exactly the same and I could lose weight, while you gain.

Of course no two persons are exactly the same, so your statement about gain/loss is true no matter what. However, I just want to say that a wide margin is only about ~10%, or two tablespoons of peanut butter for a typical "doing nothing" metabolism. This is assuming roughly the same physique and exercise pattern [1]. People differ, but in my experience the influence of genes is overestimated quite often. Of course, t…

> Of course no two persons are exactly the same

With this research, it's seems possible to make two persons to react the same to most food, by making their microbiotic flora the same.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#133

Post by Shorel »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #127

On an individual level the study shows why some people are more prone to weight gain than others. But there's been an epidemic of obesity over the past few decades, and there's no reason to believe people's gut flora changed over that period. Even if it did, there must have been an underlying cause. What has undoubtedly changed are people's lifestyles: (1) Less smoking. (This is a good thing, but it has resulted in w…

The amount of fat free and fructose sweetened food I just saw in the supermarket today seems to be a factor too.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#134

Post by danieltillett »

adrianN wrote: post #33
danieltillett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peasants have been bred by the nobility for thousands of years for improved feed efficiency. Modern humans have become much better at turning the terrible diet the average peasant had into human labor.

So you're saying chubby people are descendants of peasants, whereas skinny people have noble blood? /s

Well chubby people are certainly the descendants of peasants :)

Thankfully the nobility never became a genetic isolated population - they are all just jumped-up peasants who think they are better than everyone else.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#135

Post by mistermann »

vonmoltke wrote: post #99
mistermann wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one is discussing effectiveness of different weight loss approaches, ignoring CI variance based on the exact input foods, and the underlying reasons for that , seems.....unwise.

Who said anything about ignoring it? It is a tangential question.

Thread title: "Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?"

"I'm still pretty sure that calories-in/calories-out theory is more-or-less correct."

Counting calories-in as calories absorbed is not exactly tangential, it may very well be the essence of the conversation.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#136

Post by rdancer »

ozy123 wrote: post #119
mbubb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the link - the study is very interesting to read. I have been bumbling around for a while trying to see what fits for me and there have been counter-intuitive things that seem to work. This study makes me think of that. Part of diet is finding what works to keep things in balance, cravings and spikes might indicate the diet is not working. As an example - initially starting dieting, I stayed away from f…

What are you using to monitor spikes? Trying to locate something that would give continuous readings rather than manual testing after every meal.

Would continuous glucose monitoring devices used by diabetics be suitable?

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#137

Post by rdancer »

onion2k wrote: post #120
leshow wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they can't. While it's true that people's metabolisms vary widely, and the amount of calories for one individual to maintain weight might make another gain, it's not true that the weight gain is outside of their control. They have control over how much food they eat. If you're gaining weight, it means you're eating more than your body can burn, so you need to eat less. This is not as attractive an answer as "i jus…

If you're gaining weight, it means you're eating more than your body can burn, so you need to eat less. Or your body is skipping the usable energy stage completely for some foods and storing them as fat directly without it ever having the chance to be used. Then some of the food you eat makes you gain weight regardless of the amount of activity you do - you just run out of energy and get fat. The mistake you're makin…

If fat were deposited and not burnt under starvation, body would be unable to perform work (law of energy conservation), and organs would fail. Ultimately, starving people would be dying fat.

But we know this is not the case. Starving populations are very skinny.

This is not to say that starvation is healthy, only that starvation is a reliable, affordable, and obvious way to lose weight.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#138

Post by rixed »

vinceguidry wrote: post #106
rayiner wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 19th century, when painkillers first started becoming available, physicians would refuse to give them to woman in childbirth, because the Bible says childbirth is supposed to be painful. Women had sinned, therefore they must suffer. This is a great analogy. "It's your fault" is not a public health policy, it's a cop-out. And it doesn't even make sense. Obesity is rising dramatically in developed countries. I…

> This is a great analogy. "It's your fault" is not a public health policy, it's a cop-out. A cop-out from what, exactly? Does society have a responsibility to make everyone thin? Even if you say it does, how would you propose it goes about doing that? There's no scalable, organizable effort you can take that will make fat people thin. If you say we have to throw more money at research, I say, sure, we should! Along…

It's intriguing how morale is again on the stage; we went from "obesity is caused by lack of will" to "it's not deserving we pay for that research".

Isn't that likely, though, that this research pays for itself?

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#139

Post by rdancer »

leshow wrote: post #107
xenadu02 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been 330 lbs at one point and now being less than 220 you're both right and wrong at the same time. Your statement is the equivalent of saying its a heroin junkies own fault: Technically true but useless. It also has many parallels in the way you grew up, differing genetics, etc. If it were just a matter of willpower or simply eating less then I would already be my ideal weight. It isn't that simple. You can't…

> At least a drug addict doesn't have to take just the /right/ amount of the drug every day to stay healthy! spoken like someone with no experience with drug addiction. ever heard of a maintenance program?

For the rest of your life? What crazy drug did you get yourself into?

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#140

Post by DrScump »

BeowulfCluster wrote: post #69

This is interesting, but people shouldn't be misled. Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight. There was a very highly cited paper in the NEJM where they studied a group of people who believed they were "diet resistant" using a new technique--doubly labeled water--to determine how much they were really eating and exercising.…

  In other words: "Fatties gonna fat.
And his lone datum is a twenty-three year old study.
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