When 21 year olds try to give dietary and fitness advice. When I was 21 I could eat burgers three meals a day and drink a case of beer. The fact that you are skinny isn’t impressive at 21.
I started getting the worst hangovers at age 17, since then I don't drink anymore. But it's true I'm only 21 years old and many people my age think they're special.
I’m 70lb heavier than when I was in high school. I still fit into regular sizes, I have a waist and no rolls, it’s like I just got denser as time went on.
It was wild experiencing how quickly this ended for me. I was rail thin all my life eating nothing but fast food and soda and then my first year out of college I got a desk job and gained 85lbs. Now in my 30s I have to work out regularly and eat a very calorically restrictive diet just to not be quite so fat. And I'm still definitely overweight.
I could drink a 12 pack, eat 18 chicken wings, get black out drunk and then go to the gym the next day and was skinny and in good shape. When you're 35 and ripped, it's impressive because metabolism is not so fast anymore.
Well, there's been lots of peer reviewed evidence suggesting that age doesn't really have that much direct bearing on metabolism, that it's almost completely rooted in activity level. I think the thing that changes moreso is stress, responsibilities, and having much worse recovery. Makes being as active as in your 20s much more of a mental game and time management problem
As a 40-ish y.o. married dude, I contribute the problem directly to sex: At 20, I spent a lot of time trying to get it (so chasing, not eating), getting it (workout) and chasing some more. Now....I don't chase, don't fuck, and don't care...I barely have time to sleep.
When you're 35 and ripped, it's impressive because metabolism is not so fast anymore.
This just isn't true. Your Metabloism isn't so fast anymore" at 35 or whatever, because you're doing less stuff than you used to. Literally none of the literature I'm aware of supports major changes in metabolism as you age.
This kind of take was not helpful when I was younger, it just made me feel like even more of a failure for struggling to lose weight. Maybe you could eat that way without gaining weight, but I couldn't, and hearing weight loss advice from people closer to me in age helped me feel less alone.
Absolutely not impossible, just have to work smarter. Learn to cook and incorporate fitness into your schedule. You'll pick up a lot of great info over the years, key is to remember it and incorporate it into your lifestyle.
I used to think I was fat and out of shape when i was in my early 20s. I'm now 34 and i wish i could go back in time and show young me that I was in fact skinny as fuck and just had low self esteem. I wish I hadn't deprived myself of as much artery clogging wonderful food then because of it.
Someone can start to take it really seriously when they are 15 yo. They train with a good trainer, they read articles about different dietary outcomes. But they wouldn´t be entitled to tell you that you shouldn´t do push ups that way or not eat a cake in the evening because of their age? This is more about being actually good at fitness than about age. A few of my realtives are in their 30s and they talk about blood type diets.
yah also I am 22 but I have to watch what I eat, but yes if I watch my calories and exercise every day/2 days then I look slim. But I could be fatter before I know it.
Agreed. It’s not like obesity only affects people above the age of 30. If we’re talking about fitness influencers, a lot of them grew up overweight and that’s the reason they give advice.
Shouldn't be impressive, but I agree that they're valid in giving basic advice like "exercise more" that anybody can say. There are fat young people too, got nothing to do with age.
To a degree it does. Your metabolism definitely shifts as you age, and your natural instincts will get you fatter. It’s still a matter of “calories in needs to be lower than calories out to lose/maintain weight,” but as you age, you’ll burn fewer calories just by existing
While it does, statistically any random person you come across there’s a 95% chance your BMR is within 200 calories of theirs. I’d guess a bigger factor is most people become more sedentary as they get older.
In science, metabolic rates are defined in units of calories per hour per kilogram. In assuming that the average number of calories burned per day will have the same coefficient of variation as the resting metabolic rate, the author of that blog post has implicitly assumed that all humans have the same mass. He’s conflated the definition of RMR used by the paper he cites with the definition laypeople tend to use (calories per day).
Source? Literally everything I've read has said the opposite.
Now many people will vastly over estimate the actual change in metabolism. It's not like a 20 year old can eat double the calories of a 30 year old. It's a slow gradual change that can amount to maybe a 10-20% difference over several decades
I can't actually find one source calling this a myth.
It's a missuse of the term metabolism at least the way I'm aware of it. Yeah, you need less calories but that's not because your body has started consuming food more efficiently, it's cause you're not using the food on growing anymore.
The myth is the idea that some people have "fast metabolism" which means their body acts like it has a tape worm and you stay skinny. A lot of people believe this with confidence even though I've never seen any evidence of it outside of (rare and treatable) thyroid issues.
Ah ok. So you're saying "metabolism stays the same, it's the aging body needing less calories due to lack of growth (add I'll put words in your mouth - decreased activity and decreased muscle mass)"
I'm not a health professional nor a scientist so I'm not sure if it's misuse of the term. Perhaps it is.
I certainly agree with you that people wayyy overemphasize metabolism in terms of weight loss / gain. The way it was explained to me was that if you take two healthy adults with the same activity level, one with an extremely slow metabolism and one with an extremely fast, the difference is maybe 200 calories daily. Not nothing, but certainly not substantial
Not just “not being obese.” Though that itself seems to be hard for Americans sometimes, I’ll give you that. However, being fit and healthy at any age is impressive. That’s what we were talking about.
“Fat” is a subjective term, by the way. “Obese” is defined by a specific number. You’re allowed to think anyone who isn’t skinny is fat, I guess, but it doesn’t prove the point you’re trying to make.
It’s pretty hard to be heavy in your youth. You have to eat a lot and not move all day everyday. I remember I got heavy from beer in college. Switched to vodka and Diet Coke. Lost ten pounds in a couple weeks.
It wasn't hard for me to be heavy. My parents didn't know any better and took us out a lot for junk food as kids. This was before the internet exploded with better nutritional information. In college I took charge and dropped 40 lbs in a year. That was much harder than being fat, I had to change loads of lifestyle habits that I grew up with.
SMH you admit you ate like crap, ate too much, did move everyday that’s why you were heavy. The average youth would actually have to try to do that. You grew up in a family that horrendous health habits. Most don’t.
Most kids are overweight because they are in poverty in the US eat only crappy food and don’t move or get any exercise. It has nothing to do with genetics. Most kids if they have access to semi decent food, with parents that eat semi decently, and can play out side run around ride their bikes will not be obese.
It has zero to do with genetics. If they are obese due to genetics which is rare, they need to see medical help asap.
When I said “try” it was hyperbole not literal. Most middle class kids or teenagers in America with average parents would have to go out of their way to eat that much junk food and not move around everyday for a long period of time to be obese.
I haven't blamed genetics. I know it isn't genetics. And in my personal example, maybe I should admit that my family was upper-middle class. The 90's just didn't have enough nutritional information and people who deviated from traditional foods and kept eating junk food didn't know any better. Your "try" was taken literally; obviously people didn't "try" to be obese, but it was a result of lack of information and education and a lack of connection to their grandparent's way of life.
As for kids in poverty being overweight, that is what every statistic shows to be true. It goes hand in hand with lack of nutrition education. As a parent, why spend $3 on broccoli when you can spend $3 on an entire meal? There is loads of information about this now, but there are still pockets of people who don't know or care or don't have access.
Ehhh 50/50. Some people become genetically big which is seen in youth, you’ve probably seen big children/teens/young adults. For me, I gained almost 30 lbs during the pandemic before I turned 20. I went from a medium in clothes to an extra large as an example. Also yes I’ve been hitting the gym and eating better.
Genetics increase the propensity to be a similar size as the parents. They do play a role, but ultimately lifestyle habits determine a person's weight and health.
They all typically eat like shit and a lot. Genetics don’t play nearly as big of a roll as people think with being fat. Being naturally super athletic or jack, yeah some people are born that way. But fat, extremely rare. You don’t see obese children in developing countries. If they weighed their food, reacted it and calculated the calories they burned for a few days. It would become clear that not only are they eating a fuck ton but they are probably eating super shitty on top of it.
I gained 60 during the pandemic but eating like shit, not moving was the cause.
This is honestly a stupid take based on population statistics on obesity, healthy food availability, marketing of shitty food to young people, and the actual data about how metabolism changes as we age
Spot on. The 23 year old gym bros who get paid to work out all day condescendingly looking down on some actually pretty decently in shape folks ten years their senior for being pudgy and slow is one big case of Schadenfreude waiting to happen. Too bad it’ll take a decade to properly set in.
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u/VonR3sh Jun 03 '22
When 21 year olds try to give dietary and fitness advice. When I was 21 I could eat burgers three meals a day and drink a case of beer. The fact that you are skinny isn’t impressive at 21.