joejack951 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:41 pm
As another poster responded, we live in a world with easy access to food. I am fairly confident in saying that any of us on this board can easily afford to eat enough food to get seriously overweight. As such, our 'natural' weights are heavily predisposed toward being on the high side. Especially for those like myself who enjoy eating. Perhaps you just enjoy eating less than your friend and/or developed better eating habits than him over the years. I don't buy the genetics thing. I hear that a lot from fat family members. I see it as an easy excuse to be lazy and not try to lose weight.
If someone is exercising a lot and not losing weight, they are compensating by eating enough to offset those calories. It isn't an impossible thing to do. After all, we all reach that state at some point.
Again, I’m not sure it’s that simple. While the genetic makeup of each individual will differ, and there’s certainly no evidence thus far of a “fat gene”, food - or more specifically, its macro-nutrients - does affect the blood brain barrier and, in regard to the typical “Western diet” (SFAs and simple sugars) can lead to BBB impairment and therefore, obesity, diabetes, dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Like drug and alcohol use, (and/or pharmacological drugs) once the blood brain barrier is impaired, the potential for “rewiring” the brain to rely solely on external stimulus for “normal” hormonal regulation means that if an individual’s diet has compromised the integrity of the BBB it may in fact be difficult to reverse, even in cases in which the individual makes appropriate changes.
That’s not to absolve individuals of responsibility for their choices, but to suggest that there will be cases in which consumption of SFAs and simple sugars - especially if consumed during (early) childhood and maturation into adulthood - will lead to long-term neurobiological damage that may prove exceedingly stubborn to change.
There are habits of repetition (external stimulus), and habits of biophysiological adaptation (internal stimulus), and sometimes the two are intrinsically linked.
So the issue becomes not one of calories in, calories out, but at what stage of development those calories are consumed, and the macronutrient composition and its effects on later development/change.
We also have to accept that initial weight loss is easy. Like muscle gains, it’s very easy to see results quickly. However, as the body adapts, results will taper off, plateau will occur, and the final percentage of loss/gains will come very slowly. A person who has 30kg to lose might likely drop the greatest percentage rapidly via a caloric deficit and aerobic exercise - the rest may take years, and will need to come from a shift toward anaerobic (building/maintaining lean muscle mass) that will not come from calories in/calories out alone. That is, the stage of weight loss needs to be factored in, as does the type of exercise being done. Some of us are at the beginning stages, some the latter.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4023063/
Shrike wrote:Body weight set point.
That's what they're calling it. That's what I was referring to earlier when I said fixed weight. Read about it on popsci a week or so before starting this thread. Worth looking up, there is some evidence for it and studies looking at whether a western diet masks it.
Interesting. Thanks.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990627/
Best,
853guy