regarding high risk obesity gene

[ICBINEG]

link

I think I have it.... this sounds so very like me....particularly the protein working better than anything else to reduce appetite.

So anyone else think they are in the 1:6 with a high risk obesity gene?

AIBU to think it really does help to know WHY it is harder for some people to lose / keep weight off than others?

The 200 calorie page..

Look at how beautifully coloured the top of the page is and it gradually gets duller and duller. I watched an obesity surgeon say on telly once that he only eat colourful food never beige and you can see why here.

The only colour at the bottom of the page is artifical!

10 grandchildren not great-grandchildren in my example.

I certainly lack a proof-reading gene!

I certainly beleive that this is true. When I was growing up in the 70s, my one constant memory is of being hungry. looking at photographs, I ranged from mildly chubby to thin. I did a lot of exercise which probably helped. Come adolesence, I gradually put about 2 stones on in two years (the exercising had stopped) but I didn't feel like I was over eating greatly. Over the years, I've yo-yo'd between 9 and a half stone and 12 and a half stone. During that time, if I wanted to control my weight I had to eat 1200 calories a day or fewer. I always went to bed hungry. I could keep this up for a fairly long period but after a while, the hunger would be become overwhelming and I'd eat my way back up to a higher weight and then suddenly, my weight would stabilise. The problem I have (even now as an old gimmer) is that to eat a moderate diet, I am hungry a lot of the time. Especially on my home from work. Even if I've had a snack mid-afternoon (fruit or veg), if I can't eat by 6.00 pm, the hunger pains are crippling and painful and make me want to cry. Eating low carb helps a lot but it's difficult being surrounded by carb-based food outlets. I don't know anyone else who gets this (I've asked and people look at me in a strange way). I think there must be something in our genetic make-up that makes it so hard for some people to lose/maintain weight. I am hungry as I'm typing this and I've just had lunch.

This is really interesting. Thanks, ICBINEG!

Just before I read the whole thread more carefully, wanted to pick up on this: How does that explain the lack of obesity before the 1980's?

Baby boomers. The 1980s were our 20s to 30s. Now we're in our fifties, so less active and very likely eating less high-quality protein.
We are the largest population sector, so what we do skews averages.

So you don't think that cheap, easiliy accessible crap food is the overriding factor garlic?

I would say that it was more to do with the great abundance of food today combined with the sheer amount of crap processed food on sale.

Often this rubbish is on 2 for 1 offers at the aisle ends.

Basically, I'm pretty sure that if ICBINEG chewed through 200 cals of celery then she'd be fine (as would most people that struggle with their weight).

I have not got this gene, I am long and leanish. I do believe some people put on weight far more easily than others.

No, Techno, since cheap, accessible 'crap' food has always been available. My childhood was lavished with toast & dripping, jam butties, suet puddings, pie & chips ... Such foods may look more 'real' through the rose-tinted spectacles of history, but they were cheap filling 'crap'.

And I put crap in inverted commas because no food is inherently bad.

I have always strongly suspected that there's a genetic component to my weight. I come from a large family so it's easy to see how some of my siblings put on weight easily and some are slender. The pattern is clear in my cousins on my Mother's side, though not my Father's.

It's always been annoying that the two of us most prone to putting on weight are my brother, who only managed to keep within the normal range while in the army or when undergoing training for extreme sports, and me who is the most physically fit of all the siblings.

MumblingMummy, I recognise your description of the hunger. I'm finding celery helps.

I don't know anyone else who gets this - You do now, MM :)

Aside from having anorexia in my youth, I've dealt with this through a very high-protein diet, mountains of fresh fruit/veg, and abnormal amounts of exercise. Can't do either now, due to lack of money & health respectively.

I get physically weak with insufficient meat. To the extent, these days, that I fall over. Pulse/grain combining doesn't cut it, neither do eggs on their own.

I think that weight is a far more complex issues than advertising & the diet industry would like us to believe.

Due to some medical issues there are times in my life when I've had every bit of food I ate recorded, and my exercise, and my weight. Every time I've been checked like this, I've been told that I should be losing weight, yet I will be gaining it.

There are such a number of contributory factors including (and probably there's things I haven't considered)
Lifestyle - amount of regular moving around
'Real' exercise, e.g. a workout at the gym
Quantity of food
Quality & type of food
Response to hunger/full feelings
Habits from childhood
Emotions and eating
Any other medical conditions.

I do really well on healthy diet, a job where I move around a lot and regular gym workouts etc.

I do really badly on all the other stuff.

In theory my food/exercise balance is great and I shouldn't be overweight. But I am obese, partly due to some medical conditions.

My dh does no exercise, eats as much as he wants, and has a job where he rarely moves. He used to be seriously underweight, but is now mid BMI range in his late 40s.

I think it's pretty obvious that people vary in weight gain just like they do hair color/height etc.

Baby boomers. The 1980s were our 20s to 30s. Now we're in our fifties, so less active and very likely eating less high-quality protein.
We are the largest population sector, so what we do skews averages.

garlic that doesn't explain the massive rise in child obesity today

I still think it's far more to do with all the junk food available at the drop of a hat, sedentary lifestyles and a growing attitude that as soon as someone feels hungry, they should eat.

Eating an apple seems to make me hungrier, don't know why.

The most obvious factor in elevated levels of childhood obesity must be reduced physical activity. Two hours a week of school PE is pathetic, it used to be a minimum 5 hours and generally more. Out of school, parents are much more nervous about letting kids roam so, unless someone can ferry DC to assorted formal activities, they don't get much of that either.

The other factor I suspect is hormonal. 50 years of the Pill can't have left water supplies unaffected; I believe we're seeing effects in advanced puberty for girls, the more 'feminised' shape of young women's bodies and altered weight-gain patterns.

The amount of so-called 'crap' children eat has not changed since I were a young 'un.

a growing attitude that as soon as someone feels hungry, they should eat

That elicited a grim laugh from me. As a recovered ED sufferer, I had to slowly learn how to feel hungry, respect it, and eat.

Unless you think the human nervous system evolved an overwhelming signalling system for no reason at all, it should be bloody obvious that hungry people should eat!

The advice to switch to low fat eating is one explanation for the rise in obesity since the 80s. By eating low fat, we now eat (and are advised to eat) high carbohydrate diets.

Add to that the proliferation of food/take-away outlets on the high street - most of which are very high carb - then it's a recipe for disaster from a weight point of view.

Carbs make you fat. Fat doesn't make you fat.

And the reason an apple makes you hungry? It's sugar, so your body releases a whole load of insulin to deal with it - sweeps the sugar out of your blood stream, and so your blood sugar levels drop very quickly. That tells your body that you're hungry again. When we're not hungry, our blood sugar levels are stable.

I just think it is helpful to acknowledge that the difficulty of losing weight is not equal for all people...by a long shot. So if you are finding it fucking hard, maybe give yourself a pat on the back for keeping up the effort rather than a kick in the teeth for not doing better...

Don't kick yourself in the teeth! If there is one single truism it's that we are not all the same, and we don't have to compare ourselves with people slimmer than ourselves to make us feel bad, or people bigger than ourselves to make us feel better! Yes, most people could be healthier, and yes, my god British people are getting pretty darn fat overall, but that's an incentive to strive to be healthy! And one person's healthy won't necessarily look the same as someone else's healthy - not all overweight people are unhealthy, and not all slim people have perfect hearts and lower cancer risks.

Was just about to say what BIWI said, but she's beaten me to it. I completely agree that the advice to eat low fat food has a lot to do with the rise in obesity since the 80s. If people ate normal unprocessed food with a balance of good natural food, and ate enough if it, there wouldn't be such a problem. So much food is based around carbs being a huge proportion of the meal.

I do think the culture that's developed around snacking doesnt do us any favours either. I don't snack anymore, DS doesnt either, and we eat bigger meals too, but I've lost 2 stone!

Technotrobic - I am just on the cusp of obese and I don't go near junk food. I find it incredibly hard to lose weight. I have a moderate appetite (eg. I usually leave a little of what I am eating and could never eat three courses if out for a meal). I cannot stand feeling stuffed because I am emetophobic, ditto I rarely drink beyond reason either. I don't snack. I don't drink fizzy drinks. I don't like sugar, so almost never eat cake, biscuits, breakfast cereal, chocolate or sweets. I might have an ice lolly in this heat.

I am one of life's true endomorphs and I share my life with people who eat tons more than me and are tons thinner than me.

And yet there is ALWAYS some smart arse who opines that actually it is simple to lose weight.

Oh yes. The whole 'you just need to ... ' brigade.

It's so much easier for some people to lose weight/stay slim. My DH eats whatever he wants, drinks too much, does no exercise and remains the same weight as when I first met him 27 years ago! His view on dieting tends to the 'you just need to ... ' simply because he has no comprehension of how difficult other people might find it.

My childhood was lavished with toast & dripping, jam butties, suet puddings, pie & chips ... Such foods may look more 'real' through the rose-tinted spectacles of history, but they were cheap filling 'crap'.

Yours may have been 'lavished' with this stuff garlic but I doubt most were and today's food is infinitely more abundant and accessible. There is simply no denying this. It's not rose tinted specs to say that we now live in an era where shortage of food is not a real concern for most. Post war food was in incredibly short supply so families did not gorge as they do now.

The levels of childhood obesity is not down to exercise IMHO as exercise plays only a small part in weight gain. You only have to consider what kids eat today and the calories burned through exercise to see that.

Kids are fat, not because they don't do enough exercise but because it's too easy to eat crisps/chocolate/biscuits/cake/fast food every day.

Most sports will burn between 200-300 cals an hour (above your BMR). How many cookies will it take to put 200-300 cals down your throat?

I don't think there are any universal answers; no right/wrong delineations.

I conk out if I don't have meat daily (ideally 3 times.) Others tell me this can't be true and, as a nutrition bore, I'm aware they are right in theory. But my experience of my body is second to none, and this is true for me. It's also true for other members of my family, and for some fellow CFS/ME sufferers.

I stopped following low-fat advice when I noticed my skin was looking a bit papery & dry. I know people who've been low-fat all their adult life, and have lovely skin. It's an individual thing.

I can handle enormous quantities of alcohol. I get drunk slowly, never "lose control" and it doesn't make me fat. I had a liver & kidney scan recently - all fine. Irritating news to others, I realise, but I take no credit for it - I was made this way. I'm not unique in this, by any means.

I gain muscle very quickly with exercise. Again, this irritates those whose muscles require more effort to tone up, but they may be comforted that I also run quickly to fat, while they stay fit for longer. Also, I can't develop speed no matter how hard I train.

The extract OP linked intrigued me, as the protein/exercise thing seems to fit me exactly! Wonder if the same team looked at alcohol metabolism in people with that gene?

This really resonates with me. I am almost always hungry. I don't seem to have the off switch that tells me I am full. And if after an enormous meal I am full that feeling wears off quite quickly and I could manage a chocolate or two.

I keep my weight within the overweight rather than obese BMI range by yo-yo dieting so that at least some of the time I can feel a bit full.

I also notice within my extended family that some members have the same no full switch appetite and other don't.

What makes you doubt most were, Techno? Do you think I lived in a different 50s-60s than other children? And do you think I was fat?

I didn't, and I wasn't.

The idea that exercise is a calories-in, calories-out equation is simplistic tosh, by the way. A body with good CV fitness and dense lean tissues burns a lot more calories all the time, even while sleeping. Also, some people output more heat than others, even if unfit. Calories are a unit of heat measurement, in case you didn't know.