To think it's possible that being overweight could be genetic?

[hooliodancer]

In the last few years I have started to look more and more like my late mum, to the point that I now look in the mirror and see her in my clothes, which is a bit disconcerting.

My body shape has changed radically since perimenopause started. I am now exactly the same shape and size as she was at my age.

The thing is, I exercise like a bastard (4 or 5 times a week), do Pilates, eat healthily 90% of the time, walk when I can. She ate quite badly (1970's diet if you see what I mean plus loads of chocolate bars) drove everywhere and went to one exercise class in her life (keep fit at the village hall in 1977 .She hated it.)

But at the same age we look exactly the same despite totally different lifestyles.

I have struggled with my weight (as she did) all my life. At key weight putting on times (puberty, giving up smoking , now menopause) my body seems to grab all the weight it can!

It makes me want to give up this constant struggle and just accept what I look like now. Despite all the exercise and the seeds and nuts and avocados I'm still a short fat person.

It feels like my body WANTS to be a size 14. I was size 10 until 4 years ago and I haven't changed what I eat or my exercise regime.

Is it all down to genetics?

Appetite may well be genetic. There's definitely a genetic element to the way in which we put on weight, e.g. whether it goes on as muscle, tummy, legs, boobs, whatever. Skeleton width is genetic. But really it all turns on calories out and calories in. Unless you're perhaps a mountain climber, serial, marathon runner or some other very extreme endurance athlete, it's the calories that are key.

That's very true Margaret. I'm "naturally slim" and have never had to watch what I eat, but in practice that's because I actually eat very little. Unless I'm actively counting calories to keep them up or running to a schedule which has specific mealtimes (especially if someone else will prepare those meals for me) I'll only really eat properly once a day and some days I get lazy and just snack. I'm not really very motivated by food, I find cooking boring, and feeling hungry for me is just a small localised ache in my stomach which I can quite easily ignore unless it's got to the point where my blood sugar is low and I get shaky.

When I say ignore BTW I don't mean that it's a willpower thing. I'm not sitting there all day thinking god I'm hungry but I mustn't eat, it's more like when you're aware you need to go to the toilet at some point, but there isn't one around so you hold on quite comfortably and then get distracted doing things and by the time you remember you need to go, you're bursting.

But also I think it's got to be partly learned attitudes from your parents. I have tiny portions of food because that's what my mum served up and I have a hard time making enough when I cook for more people because I just can't believe that this much food isn't impossibly too much. It's better if it's something I can freeze the leftovers but then I feel stressed/disappointed if people eat all of it and there's none left to save. There's a whole mental block thing about "wasting" food (by eating it ) or food being very expensive and valuable so it has to be stretched out which I'm trying to change but it doesn't really seem to go away.

When DH has beans on toast he'll have four slices of bread and a whole 400g can of beans, and sometimes cheese on top as well. I'd have one, maybe two slices of toast and half a can or one of those mini cans. I find the look of four slices of toast with a whole can of beans on it to be an impossibly large portion, even though it's probably normal, or closer to normal than mine.

Yes, that's how I am normally, Bertie, so when I do start to carry extra weight it's because I know I've been indulging - thinking 'ooh, I fancy that' and having cake, etc. (I have a massive sweet tooth) not because I'm hungry but because I want it. So I (I think like a lot of people who are like that) assumed that that was how people get fat - they eat when they're not hungry. But when I was on these drugs hunger was a constant and unignorable presence in my life - it was horrible. Within an hour or two of eating I'd again be so hungry I couldn't think about anything else. I felt sick with hunger a lot, to the point that when I got up in the morning I'd retch until I ate breakfast. I put on two stone in under a year. And the really shit thing about that is that losing weight is much, much harder than maintaining it, so while I've lost some of it (and I am trying to lose more at the moment) I feel like I've 'reset' my body and its natural weight to a certain extent.

Yes I get that when I'm pregnant and occasionally when premenstrual (just because my body likes to troll and pretend I'm pregnant), but never at any other time. Normally I can literally go about three days without eating any meals before I go oh shit, that's why I feel crap. But I don't do that very often because I have to prepare food for DH and DS so that reminds me to eat.

I do have actual memory/concentration problems which is probably one other reason why I don't eat properly.

I think there must be an element of genetics at play. Some people do find it a lot harder to lose weight than others. That said, I think the way we are brought up to view food and our eating habits as children is a huge factor too.

Some people truly believe they eat similarly to their slimmer friends or colleagues but if they actually look more closely may realise that's not the case. I remember a few years back being joined in the work canteen one lunchtime by a colleague. We were chatting away and she was complaining generally about her weight and commented that it was so unfair that she gains weight yet, according to her, didn't eat very differently to me. She pointed out that we were both eating a salad sandwich, chocolate and a soft drink.

Now I'll admit I wasn't eating the healthiest lunch ever but I'd brought a cheese salad sandwich from home - multi seeded bread, slice of cheese, lots of salad veg. She had gone to the deli for a sandwich which was white batch bread and (from what I could see) lettuce, thick slices of ham, and potato salad. My chocolate was one of those little wafer things from a multi pack, hers was a full size bar and my soft drink was sugar free while hers was full sugar.

She was a perfectly intelligent woman but she seemed to genuinely only see slight differences between our lunches when in reality hers must have contained 3 or 4 times the calories mine did. That was the first time I properly realised that a persons perception re what they ate could be so different to the reality and I've seen it so many times since.

Surely it is pretty well known now that a whole host of factors are at play?
Genes, development and maternal health/diet in utero, health and effects on the gut biome from things like courses of antibiotics in early childhood, effects on the metabolism caused by eating habits in childhood, plus mental health issues. It's now even looking as though being born by C section can have an impact on your gut biome.

None of those things make obesity a foregone conclusion, because changing your diet is still the thing that counts most, but they make it harder to avoid. But it is naïve to say that the only cause of obesity is calories in, calories out. Because even if you ignore the psychological side of things, 300 calories of Skittles aren't going to have the same effect on your digestion, appetite and eating habits for the rest of the day as 300 calories of kale or chicken.

I think the role genetics plays is minor. I know families where there are differences in sizes and it can all be explained by lifestyle factors. Thinking about my own weight - sometimes it varies, not through any intentional effort, but there's always a rational explanation (e.g. too busy to snack).

The nuts and avocados might have something to do with the excess calorie intake.

Genetics might not physically determine your weight, but genetics and upbringing surely have a great deal to do with how good you are at managing your weight.

Thanks whoever mentioned Traci Mann upthread. I'd never heard of her and just watched a couple of her talks. Very intetesting, especially on the subject of why weight loss has little to do with willpower.

It's like most things - genetics plays a part, but so does lifestyle, wealth, area we are born in and grow up in, type of job we have, how active we are, that will also have an impact.

I believe that genetics set a particular body type but that will usually fall within a healthy weight (according to say BMI which is a huge scale for each height).

My friend is a very petite build, size 6 at most, she eats loads, drinks wine or cider every day and never exercises. Occasionally her clothes are a bit tight after xmas or something but that's it. Her mum and sisters are the same.

I exercise more, never drink in the week then avoid wine/beer as much as possible. I am not fat and relatively happy with my weight but my build means I am a 10-12, with excessive healthy eating (very low cards, no alcohol) I can be a small size 10 but as a rule don't want to limit myself that much.

I don't believe that genetics make you a size 16 plus (depending on height/medical conditions of course) or much over a healthy BMI. That is down to lifestyle IMO.

Both could be true -- probably are true.
Genetics are a factor in how they interact with our environment.

Gut microflora, sedentary lifestyle & jobs, quality of foods we eat, too much food everywhere all the time, emotional attitudes we form towards eating & food, tendency to unconsciously follow social cues: our genetics must interact with these factors.

So What? You can't change your genes (yet). You CAN do things to change the other factors.

dontcallme ** I don't think I'd ever be really fat though as my body stops calling for food after a certain point. Now that is luck and genetics, surely?

Not everyone eats only in response to hunger. If they did, much of the current obesity crisis would not have happened. Some of us eat in response to all sorts of emotions, including boredom, fear, anxiety as well as in celebration or for a treat. It would be great if we could eat only until hunger is satisfied but many dont.

Food manufacturers have an interest in making foods which stimulate appetite, think of soft drinks which unlike water, actually leave the drinker thirstier than they were before.

hoolidancer Have you looked at a low carb way of eating? Come over to the low carb bootcamp threads for some inspiration. There are so many of us, who have found this way if eating very beneficial, so much so that the associated weight loss is just a pleasant bonus. Would be good to see you there.

You may find this interesting

www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/

In our house, 2 DSs have my father and my body shape - short, chunky strong, muscly thighs and upper arms and a tendency to fatness. 1 DS has DH's body shape - v short but slight with v little arm muscle. They eat the same. The 2 who are chunkier exercise more. Extra pounds after Christmas just melt off DH and small DS but the rest of us have to work at it. Weird since shorter, thinner DS should technically find it harder to lose weight.

I think it does make quite a bit of difference. I am the same shape and size with the same features as my mum.
Dh and all his family are big. I watch what they all eat and I honestly believe none of them warrant being as big as they are.
Ds2 is still at primary, but he is pure muscle and has a natural 6 pack, whilst eating like a horse. football coaches and rugby coaches have commented on his physique.
Ds1 is a bit jealous of how it comes so naturally to ds2.

Of course genetics plays a part, but not as much as what you eat and how much you exercise.

My sister and I both have the same body shape - tall mesomorphs, arms and legs always slim but a tendency to put weight on around the middle. My sister is three inches taller than me. She weighs three stone more.

We're both genetically lucky in the sense that we can eat more than smaller, rounder endomorph friends and exercise really impacts our weight. However, the difference between us is easily explained. I run three times a week and lift weights. My sister doesn't. She succumbs to our learned sweet tooth (yes, we grew up in the 70s and 80s too!) more than I do.

I think it does play a part - my diet was truly terrible until about the age of 21 (think multiple chocolate bars a day, packets of crisps, plenty of alcohol added in from age 17-21, and this was all on top of 3 normal meals a day) and yet I was always slim. Just lucky, I guess!

Although I have always been quite anxious, so I do sometimes wonder if I burn calories through anxiety!

Conker "Although I have always been quite anxious, so I do sometimes wonder if I burn calories through anxiety!"

you do. firstly that's why I lost weight recovering from my injury.

secondly before I was diagnosed with anxiety, I was literally eating my way through the problem, and could eat a full big size of crisps and a load of ice cream after dinner. The weight was dropping off because my anxiety-related hormones were in overdrive. "Forgetting" to eat is simply not something that happens to me, mum, or sister. Dad will frequently forget to eat but he lines up exactly to the "normalised" calories in, calories out model. After retirement, he got in the habit of consuming as much sugar as mum does and his blood sugar rocketed while hers (and mine) remain fine.

I appreciate OP said "genes" but does that actually include "inherited hormonal patterns" - maybe it does.

It really is as simple as calories in v calories out. If you take in more calories (eating) than you use up, you will gain weight. If you use up more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. Everybody has a different metabolism, they burn calories faster/slower. This is individual, but you have to adjust for your body. If you want to lose weight, get used to feeling hungry. If you have the willpower to resist eating when you are feeling hungry, and eat fewer calories than you use, you will lose weight. It is simple in theory, but can be hard in practice.

Obesity, from what I've read is a combination of genetics and behaviour. If you are genetically predisposed to obesity, this doesn't mean that you can't lose weight or that you would necessarily survive a famine, but perhaps you'd stand a better chance than someone with a different genetic makeup

I would love to know who all these slim people are who devour massive amounts of food. I've genuinely never met any.

I think genetics plays a role in your body shape, as in your actual shape under all the layers of fat. Might even play a part in where your body stores excess fat. I don't think it has any bearing or wether you'll be fat or slim.

I think some fat people would be quite shocked to see how much a typical slim person eats over the course of a full week. I get very at diets that advertise 3 meals a day + mid morning, afternoon and evening snacks. That just seems like a huge amount of food and pretty pointless really- if you want to be slim surely the point is to start eating like (most) slim people do.. which is more than likely much less frequently than 6(!!!) times a day.