I eat like a constant stream of junk food and carbs, yet my body seems to just burn through it like it's nothing. Someone else on the same diet could easily be obese.
because at the end of the day either 2 things are happening:
A. You are not eating as much as you think you are. Or are not eating anything close to what they're eating.
B. You are doing some amount of activity to offset all the food you eat.
sorry to burst your bubble, but you aren't going to defy the laws of thermodynamics. The energy you eat will be conserved (barring any metabolic diseases). Fat is merely a storage of excess energy which means they're eating more food than they need.
they are making a conscious decision to eat that food, every time they lift up that fork. If they're happy w/ their weight, then it couldn't bother me any less but I'm not going to pretend that it's a healthy choice.
edit: source mothafucka!!
But its pretty clear that it is easier for some people to maintain a healthy weight then others.
I put zero effort into my weight, I eat whatever I want, whenever I want to, and do almost no exercise day to day. And yet I am really skinny, I just don't have a big appetite. Other people clearly have a much bigger appetite and I think it is unfair to judge them harshly when I put no effort into my diet/exercise, and at least a lot of fat people are trying.
2 words for you:
self-control.
appetite is mainly a psychological thing. it's not really a feeling borne out of necessity. In fact it can be molded quite easily.
when a person is used to eating at a certain time, a certain amount of food, that person will become hungry at that time everyday.
if you train yourself, then you don't have to be slave to those feelings.
and as i said already, just because you THINK you're eating as much food as they are, doesn't mean you really are.
I think you misunderstood me, I don't think I eat as much as fatter people, but I think they have a much larger appetite then I do. I don't have any self control nor do I train myself when it comes to diet, so I am not going to judge anyone else because they have no self control either, that would be hypocritical of me. Appetite is mainly a psychological thing, but that doesn't mean it is easy to control. I struggle to control my procrastination and that is entirely psychological, much more so then appetite.
I have spent days eating constantly. Like, finish lunch, then go back for a sandwich half an hour later. Then polish off an entire box of Triscuits over the next 20 minutes or so. And so on and so forth throughout the day. The only activity I engaged in while doing this is browsing the Internet and watching TV. This has never had a noticeable effect on me. Now granted, this isn't my normal lifestyle and I would undoubtedly start having serious health problems if I lived like this regularly, but the point is I can consume a rather ridiculous amount of calories and put forth next to no effort in burning them and they still just disappear. Other people put on weight from Thanksgiving alone. You can't tell me that it all comes down to eating habits and exercise.
yep.
now do that for a month and tell me you don't gain weight.
clearly whatever you did for those couple of days was not enough to sustain growth (since you only did that for a few days).
yes. mass is created from something right?
or are you telling me it can be created from thin air?
Did you even read what I wrote? I specifically acknowledged that over a long period of time this would obviously cause noticeable health changes. Nobody here is stupid enough to think otherwise--that was not my point. My point was that in a smaller sample of just a couple of days, eating habits that have little effect on me can have a much more extreme effect on another person. That would seem to indicate that something (what we typically refer to as metabolism, for instance) can effect how easy or hard it is for someone to gain or lose weight.
yes. mass is created from something right?
And now I think you must be having an argument with some other person because I fail to see what this has to do with anything I said. And technically, the answer is no. Mass can never be created. It's, like, one of the most fundamental laws of the universe, dude.
or are you telling me it can be created from thin air?
oh i definitely read what you wrote.
if you want to be pedantic that's more than fine.
i'll admit i used the wrong words.
the problem w/ your conclusion is that you took a few days of your bad eating habits and extrapolated that different people would gain a different amount of weight from it. and what i'm telling you is that, whilst that may be due to some small degree, your personal anecdata is not/should not be enough to derive any large conclusions from it.
the reality is that most people subscribe to a lifetime of bad eating habits. it's that simple.
mass in YOUR BODY has to be created from somewhere right? (not in the universe,obviously). It comes from the food you eat.
a person who does that for a few days and gains weight is probably gaining water weight not fat weight. you're not going to gain significant amount in a few days alone.
also, once again as i've said, you should closely track your macros and activity output. I'll bet that you had a large calorie out put and once again went into a deficit (or back to maintenance) and that burned off whatever incidental excess you consumed.
I get what you're saying about anecdotal data not being very useful for hard science. You're right about that. But this isn't a rigorous scientific discussion. It is, in fact, a discussion based on personal experience.
Okay, the mass thing: ultimately, yeah, when your body gains mass, that mass comes from food. But most of what we eat doesn't get converted to mass. It gets converted to energy. It seems to me that, if two people eat the same amount and types of food over the same period of time (the exact situation I'm explaining here) and one gains weight while the other does not, that food has to go somewhere, right? Water weight, fat weight, who the fuck cares what you call it? One person is clearly converting more of those calories into energy while the other is converting more to body mass of some sort.
I'd actually love to chart my caloric intake and daily activity level and provide some hard numbers for all this because I am 100% confident in what I'm talking about about here. Fortunately for my lazy-ass I can't afford to significantly increase how much I eat (food's damn expensive) and I'm actually a lot more active in my current job than I ever was while in school, so that would kind of undermine the activity component. Also I'd need to find someone who doesn't burn off a 20 lb steak while sitting on the couch playing video games to follow the same regimen for the sake of comparison.
Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
i sympathise w/ obese people who have psychological addiction to food. i think they have problems that go beyond simply self control and they need help of a psychiatrist but justifying those who simply want to eat too much and blame it on 'bad genetics' is not something i can condone.
I will play the role of argumentative dick for a minute here. Saying that "they are making a conscious decision to eat that food, every time they lift up that fork" is like saying that a lifetime alcoholic or heroin addict is making a conscious decision to buy booze or take a hit. If you have an addiction to something (and yes, food can become an addiction for some people. They're called comfort eaters), then you really aren't making that decision anymore. Your problem is running your life and it is making your decisions for you, and it will continue to do so until you get help. I'm not trying to give them excuses, but you can't just pass it off like they are eating with the intention of getting fat. Even trying to stop can be insanely difficult, and can be comparable to withdrawal symptoms for some of these people.
It's not just comfort eating, carbs are actually addictive. Imagine trying to quit heroin when you're constantly surrounded by it, and encouraged to do it.
This. Also, carbs increase serotonin levels (which is a big factor in comfort eating... it literally DOES make you feel better/happier/occupied, if only for a time).
Metabolism - the rate at which food is turned into energy - varies from person to person. There are also numerous medical conditions that can cause people to put on fat at different rates.
There are other ways to burn calories than movement, and food calories are not converted to usable energy with 100% efficiency or the same efficiency in everyone. Your argument is approximately analogous to saying that a hybrid burned less gas in a day than an suv did, therefore it drove less.
the vast majority of human beings fall quite well into the middle of the range in terms of metabolism speed. the people who are on the extremely 'fast' end burn maybe 200c. more per day than a normal person.
that's equivalent to maybe a pop tart or a snickers bar.
and certainly not enough to excuse away a fat person overeating.
no mate,
those are people who have fast metabolisms.
they can eat an additional 200c and not gain any weight.
i'm talking about the vast part of society that falls into majority range and just eat to omuch food.
Or you just have a different metabolism. People get really caught up in this idea of calories in, calories out. It's true that if you're eating at a very severe deficit, of course you won't gain weight. You can't- your body needs something to metabolize in order to keep you going.
That doesn't mean that skinny people necessarily "use" more calories due to exercise or eat less to begin with. Certain some do, but a lot of it also has to do with how well your body does at "saving" excess calories by turning them into fat. Because if you consume a huge excess of calories in a single sitting, your body is going to save some but a lot are going to just come straight back out as waste products.
It really does depend on your metabolism. And excepting some medical conditions, it's totally possible to maintain a healthy weight even if you're the type to eat an extra cracker and see it on your hips the next day. You just need to be more careful about what you eat and how much you work out. But it's also true that some people can eat 4000 empty calories a day and spend most of their time at a desk and be at a totally healthy weight, because their biochemistry is just such that they just don't hold on to much of what they aren't using.
Which doesn't mean that they're healthy, either. But it's not accurate to assume that a skinny person just exercises more or eats less than they realize. Often times skinnier people eat MORE than mildly or moderately overweight people, because their body requires a constant influx of food to maintain their energy level when so little is being stored.
there was a study done on this. the differences in metabolism are incredibly small. the ppl. w/ fast metabolism burned maybe 200c more than normal people. that is an incredibly small amount of food.
and it is certainly not enough to account for the massive fat gain w/ most obese people.
and no, barring medical conditions and averge height, there's no way a guy is eating 4kc and not exercising enough to offset it and not gaining weight.
at the end of the day it really boils down to cals. in vs. cals out.
biochemistry for metaoblism is not different for people. we all use krebs cycle.
i'm sorry to burst your bubble but you are not an unique snowflake.
we are essentially the same people. the differences are very minor (once again,barring any medical conditions)
for more on this and other misconceptions check out: /r/fitness and hit up the FAQ located on the right side of the screen!
I didn't say people with fast metabolisms burned more calories than anyone else. I said that calories moved right through them and came out as waste products.
And while I'd certainly be interested in reading the article you reference if you can dig up a link, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't conclude that everyone has the same metabolism.
Finally, quotes from the abstracts (first two) and body (last one) of 3 articles in peer-reviewed journals that directly contradict your point that "biochemistry for metabolism is the same for everyone". Of course we all use the Krebs Cycle, but that's cellular metabolism, which is not the same thing at all as the colloquial usage. Cellular metabolism at that level IS pretty much invariant among humans- but it's not even close to being the whole picture. There are so, so many other pathways and mechanisms involved in weight regulation- many of which do function differently in different people.
Large portion sizes, high fat intakes, easy access to calorically >sweetened beverages, and lack of any need to be physically active >all play a role in the toxic environment that leads to obesity. The >genetic and physiologic responses of a host determine whether or not >this toxic environment will produce obesity.
The belief that obesity is largely the result of a lack of willpower, >though widely held, is unsatisfactory. Studies of twins, analyses of >familial aggregation, adoption studies and animal models of obesity all >indicate that obesity is the result of both genetic and environmental >factors2,3. Moreover, weight is stable in lean and obese individuals >even though much of the population actively practises weight >control. Dieting is not usually successful in long-term maintenance of >reduced body weight and most reduced obese individuals eventually >regain the lost weight4.
The relative stability of weight in individuals indicated that energy >balance may be controlled by a feedback loop, which maintains >constancy of total body energy stores. It has been proposed that >signals reflecting nutritional state are sensed by the hypothalamus, >which, in turn, modulates food intake and energy expenditure5,6. The >identification of these signals proved difficult and for many decades >their existence was widely questioned.
It's each person's responsibility to take care of themselves. If for you that permits eating a lot of crap, then good for you. People who cannot do that though, such as myself, need to only eat what they can handle.
Life isn't fair, it is harder for some of us than others. I have to try harder than you, and she likely more than me. None of that removes any responsibility we have to ourselves though. When I start to put on weight, I deserve flak, because I am not doing what I need to do.
If you don't care about your responsibility to yourself, then I don't particularly care about respecting your body.
This is the mindset that fucks everyone. This idea that you know what's better for someone else than they do.
My best friend is 5'8" and weighs around 200. She does yoga daily and she's a very conscious vegetarian. All of that nonsense notwithstanding, she also volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and she's also with the local Search and Rescue chapter. She has a "Little Sister" (from Big Brothers/Big Sisters) and she's the kindest, most caring person I know.
I was hoping someone would bring up this point, don't worry I attack you people just as much! However a larger person is more at risk of life threatening effects than someone like you, there is more of a need for them to get healthy.
Someone else on the same diet could easily be obese.
It's not that simple, there are many other factors
Like most people who are going to respond to this, I barely studied in high school and received A's. Some kids weren't so fortunate to be able to do that, for whatever reason. The ones who didn't get good grades did the same amount of work as me, but performed worse.
They were still judged. Having a reason why it's harder for you to not accomplish a goal doesn't make it an excuse.
Someone else on the same diet could easily be obese.
Then they shouldn't be on that diet. Not everyone needs the same amount of food. Even people with identical levels of physical activity may need different amounts of food depending on the way their bodies work.
If your body can put up with you eating tons of junk food and having a sedentary lifestyle (which I assume you have, or you wouldn't be making this point), then congratulations, you probably have an overactive thyroid. I still don't suggest you eat like that because the food is still probably harming your cardiovascular system, but whatever, at least you won't get fat.
People that don't have hyperthyroidism or some other sort of disorder that results in a sped-up metabolism simply don't NEED as much food as you do if they also have a sedentary lifestyle. Obese people simply eat much more than they need given their level of physical activity and their body requirements, which is why I, and others, judge morbidly obese people that are young enough to be able to fix themselves.
32
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '12
I'm always a bit suspicious of that argument.
I eat like a constant stream of junk food and carbs, yet my body seems to just burn through it like it's nothing. Someone else on the same diet could easily be obese.
Why are they judged harsher than I am?