To think that obesity mostly has to do with your genes

[penandpaperlife]

I've been living with my best friend for a year now due to some personal issues with my STBXH, and this has been something I've been wondering about. My best friend eats the exact same thing as me, with the same exact portion size. She also snacks on nuts and/or biscuits throughout the day (we're a freelance team so we spend basically all day together) while I don't.

Why then, is she slim and I'm not?

The only difference in our lifestyle is that she goes for a 15min run every morning. I've read studies and charts though and that seems to only burn about 150kcals. Surely that wouldn't even offset her snacks? I come from a 'fat family', she doesn't. We're both almost 30, if that matters. That leads me to believe that genetics do play a huge part here, contrary to what's often being parroted in the press. Is that possible? Does anyone have any experience with this?

I agree, a bit of both, but many overweight people wouldn't be so if they are properly.

I am slim, but I could very easily be obese. I am only slim due to the amount of exercise I do, and the fact I am constantly watching my weight, cutting down what I eat the moment I go over a certain weight. I don't drink so would only take starting to have that glass or two of wine and night to see the weight come on even if changing nothing else.

You say that you eat exactly the same, but if you started at a different BMI, then all you'll do is stay the same. If you are putting on weight and she isn't, then you are probably not being fully truthful about what you eat and drink.

I firmly believe that whether you are thin or fat has a LOT less to do with your diet than the diet industry will have you believe.

I am thin. My kids are thin. My parents were thin. We all eat quite a lot. I know plenty of people who seem to eat a lot less than me and who despair that they can't lose weight .

Of course diet comes into it, but I think you just have a predisposition towards fattish or slimmish. If you are fattish you could end up obese and could be slim but but would never get really skinny. If you are slimmish you could end up underweight and could become overweight but would never become obese. Just the way you are made, j think.

If you had two dogs, a greyhound and a labrador, you would totally accept that one was fatter, slower and more interested in eating than the other, it's just the way they are.

I think body type can be inherited. I was born with big thighs and they were big while the rest of me was skinny. My daughter was born with the same body shape.

I think genes play a small part in determining your metabolism but the rest is a life style choice hence why people are so much larger today than they ever have been (except in certain parts of history when very rich people got fat because it was a sign of wealth that they could afford so much food.)

They have done several shows on this topic. There was one with a 5 year old boy in liverpool. He was enormous and much to his hospital consultants shock he found out the childs mother and grandmother pushed him everywhere in a wheelchair because he was tired! Both women insisted he only ate healthily and had some sort of disorder. His consultant disagreed and they were having none of it. Whwn cameras filmed his diet the mother was so pius refusing him to have the teeny tiny square of cake he was given for his classmates birthday. She then proceeds to give him a gigantic bowl of weetabix and then a huge portion of roast dinner even a grown man would struggle with and he eats the lot. Yes she gave him healthy food but the quantity he ate was nothing short of disgusting.

Then there was the comparison show where this healthy weight people all were shown to walk around a lot even in their own homes subconsciously excersing a lot and eating smaller ammounts but more often. Then it showed the overweight people who stays stationary for huge ammounts of time, and ate constantly even cooking they would eat and drink (inclusing wine for cooking and fizzy drinks) so to them that didnt count.

Nope. Not for a vast majority anyway.

Most overweight just eat too much and move too little. That's why I'm overweight and I suspect that's the case for most.

Are you a generally sedentary person and your flatmate a fidget? I am a fidget, so used to dance in my room a lot, wander around the house, be pretty much always on the move while my bigger flatmate would move specifically to do something or be still. Even reading a book, I'm usually moving a bit, sometimes walk up and down the kitchen. She noticed this when we lived together - i was basically constantly burning energy, even at a low level.

I do think it's tougher for me than some of my friends who seem to be "naturally" thinner
How do you know though? I would be one of those whose colleagues would say I'm just lucky because they'll see me grazing all day long and having some of the cakes. What they won't see is that I hardly eat I night and do an average of 80kms walking/running a week in addition to other exercise.

It's very easy to assume that slim people eat and burn as much as those who struggle and are just lucky but many don't talk about others don't see that helps them keep the weight down.

I'm sure genes play their part. I have followed exactly the same path as my DM, extremely slim till my forties, then "middle age spread" happened. I carry my weight in the same places too. However if I'm honest I'm a lot less active than I used to be.

But activity is hugely important. Pacing, if it's habitual, will burn a lot of calories. Unfortunately I think fat gained is difficult to shift permanently. Once the fat cells are created, they are there to stay.

Two more things. All the people I know who struggle with their weight eat fast, and eat chocolate.

I think eating and exercise habits are very hereditary but obesity is entirely down to how many calories you consume and how little you move. Her 15 min run probably uses about 200 calories. If she does that everyday, all else being equal (which it almost certainly isn't) that's 20 Lbs over a year, over a lifetime...? Plus it would be a very unusual regular runner who never does more than 15 min.

I am thin. My kids are thin. My parents were thin. We all eat quite a lot

There was also a programme called the Secrets of Slim People where they followed the 'eat loads but never put on weight' people for five days and there was woman who genuinely did eat a lot that couldn't be explained, but every single other one just didn't eat very much - all well under 2000 calories per day, they either forgot to eat, had small portions, didn't snack, didn't drink calories, stopped when they were full etc etc.

They felt that they ate a lot, as in they weren't hungry, but when it was measured, it really wasn't too much for them.

No, not at all. Where you put your additional weight on might be, like bum or thighs etc, but being over weight is not due to your genetics.

Sounds more like you would like to hear it is, so you have a excuse?

With regards to the 15 minutes, you have no idea how much that does!!! Trust me! I’ve been in isolation for 3 weeks, my diet is exactly the same, my life is the same too as I work from home and never liked going out anyway due to anxiety, so nothing has changed for me yet I have put on 6 pound in 3 weeks!!!! 6 lb!!! This is all because I’m no longer doing the 10 minute, twice a day walk to the school- can you believe a short walk not being done makes you put on that much weight I’ve started exercising now.

They felt that they ate a lot, as in they weren't hungry, but when it was measured, it really wasn't too much for them
Just as some people claim not to eat a lot but when everything is counted carefully, it turns out they do.

I had a friend who claimed over and over that she wasn't eating much at all, and her weight gain had to be physical. Then she was referred to a weight loss clinic where she had to write everything she ate. Sure enough, she was on about 2500 calories a day. It was a real eye opener for her and she admitted that she was mentally making herself forget the small unhealthy portions of food.

She cut down on her portion sizes, stopped the snacking -that she really really wasn't doing!- and sure enough, in 6 months, she'd lost 3 stones.

I think it's easy to consume calories without realising it. Drinks are often to blame.

A latte, or a coke. Even that smidge of sugar in your tea. Diet drinks are terrible for balancing your sugar levels and fat storage.

Drinking water over other drinks is the best switch you can make.

I've not read the whole thread but you probably just need less calories than her. If you're maintaining your weight (not fluctuating) then what you're eating now is probably around what you're burning. So it's simple maths - you need to eat less and burn more. Try eating 100-200 cals less a day and joining her for her run. If that doesn't work after a month run further or eat less. You'll soon find your weight loss calorie intake goal.

With physical genetics my family is apple shaped and prone to big tummies. My nana, mum, auntie, cousins and I all have it. It's kinda cute that theres a similar shape and we all know it came from my nana. However, my mum, auntie and cousins all eat way too much and are overweight/obese and gain weight easily. I actively put the effort in to keep my portions sizes down, eat healthily and exercise. I really struggle to lose weight off my stomach which I think is the genetic side, (I'm a size 10/12 but my tummy sticks right out) but I'm definitely a healthy weight which is down to my decisions

150 burnt every day adds up too.
150 x 365 = 54,750for the year

Diet drinks are terrible for balancing your sugar levels and fat storage.

This reminded me, my friends with weight struggles are all Diet Coke drinkers.

I don't understand the science of the above statement, would you be able to clarify? I think my Diet Coke drinking friends (including one diabetic) might be interested.

Yabu to think a 25 min run every day wont make a difference

Sorry, 15 min

Of course body shape differs. My dh is naturally slender with long slim legs and arms. I am naturally short and pear shaped with sturdy limbs and a large bust. Two of my children clearly inherited my genes and are more robust in build, whilst two inherited their father's slender build.

What can change is how "fat" we are within the build. My dh now in his late 40s got rather overweight and had a beer belly. My sturdy kids are slim but their thigh dimensions are bigger than my slim kids'. My skinny eldest teen has put on weight recently and now has a bit of a squidgy tummy.

I will never, no matter how thin I get, look like a model. I am short with very sturdy legs and big boobs. However when I was 20 I was a slimmer version of the same shape. I work hard on my diet to prevent myself from becoming unhealthily obese and yes it is harder for me than my naturally slender daughter and husband. DH has not been able to eat so much chocolate on lockdown and has lost almost a stone. I have been on a strict keto diet (doctor's orders) since the beginning of March and have lost just 7lb.

I would also recommend Tim Spector's Diet Myth Book. Fab book

I’m sure some people put weight on more easily than others, and there are certainly people who can eat masses and stay slim, because of how their metabolism works.

But no, I don’t think it’s all down to genes. When I first visited the US in the mid 1970s I was amazed (like many others at the time) to see so many hugely fat people - something you just didn’t see in the U.K. then. The odd person, yes, but nothing like so many.

It was so quickly obvious why - food on sale everywhere, vast plates and portions of it, food everywhere you looked (a lot of it fatty junk) and people eating - not just inside, but walking about eating, too. Fries came in almost bucket-size portions.

On our very first morning in the US we had breakfast at a place where on the next table a hugely fat boy of maybe 12 was tucking into a vast plate of food, including a pile of pancakes a few inches high with a massive lump of butter on top.

The U.K. has now gone at least partly the same way with so much relatively cheap junk food available in so many places, as well as in supermarkets - that just wasn’t the case here back in the 70s. And I doubt that people’s genes have changed - many are just eating more, and satisfying, relatively cheap food is so widely available.

By contrast, in the late 90s on a visit to Prague, an American tourist we met marvelled at the fact that the people were so slim when the food largely on offer was (to her) ‘unhealthy’ - a lot of it being meat, fried potatoes, dumplings, etc., few vegetables.

Answer, presumably, because portions were moderate, there was very little fast food available, so people presumably cooked mostly from scratch - and relatively few then had cars, so they walked a lot.
How all that may have changed now, I don’t know.

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I think that’s true @dumbie. I generally drink 2 lattes a day and have cut that to normal coffee with a splash of milk instead. Trying to up water intake too

I think it's genetic. My family are on the large side, immediate & extended. The women tend to be overweight or very curvy, tall and with a decent set of boobs!
I'm small, very slim (I don't like the word skinny!) with tiny boobs.

I'm the only person in my family who had a 'different' start in life. My parents had me when they were young and living away from the uk. They experienced food shortages and milk was often hard to get. I was medically assessed when we returned to the country, I was 3 and was described as 'malnourished' and with borderline scurvy!!
My poor mum was devastated and has always been convinced that it's the reason I'm so different physically from everyone else?

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall did a very interesting miniseries which included the term 'obesegenic' to describe society.

Yes, calories in, calories out, blah blah blah. But your environment and lifestyle can determine how easy it is to achieve that.

I gained most of my weight when I was working hugely stressful long hours, and when the only manageable way to get to work was driving, resulting in me walking about 400 steps a day most weekdays. Convenience food tends to be more fattening, as does comfort food. Plus my dad's family tend to be on the heavier side (back through generations of farmers, so very physically active people).

I've lost the weight now I've moved to a naice suburb, walk to work, and have a high disposable income to afford a personal trainer and have more time to cook.

But before lockdown I was on the edge again - long days, no time to cook or exercise, stress caused comfort eating. I am now rich enough to mitigate those effects in other ways, but it was a terrifying reminder of the circumstances in which I got fat in the first place.

I do think that people with better genes for weight management and better life circumstances can be horrendously smug against those who have the deck stacked against them.