the advantage of tending to overweight
Feb. 26th, 2007 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eIt is not a simple thing that determines whether someone is thin or overweight. I've always been very skinny and had felt the explanation was simple, but the more I learn, the more I understand how complicated it is.
Of course if you eat less you get thinner. That's inescapeable. But the same amount of food doesn't equal the same end-weight for different people.
Exercise burns off calories, but it is sometimes not obvious how subtle that can be. I read of an experiment years ago where the researchers were trying to find out whether it was true that two sets of people could eat the same thing, and one group would put weight on while the other didn't, regardless of exercise. They looked at people's metabolism as the commonly accused culprit. Surprisingly, they found that one group did put weight on, and the other group didn't, while exercise and metabolism seemed constant. At first they were at a loss to explain it, until one of the researchers noticed that the low weight group jiggled and fidgetted a lot. It seemed they were burning up more energy that way.
More recently other findings indicate that you can control for all external factors, and some people still put on weight while others don't. It turns out that some people have more efficient gut bacteria than the rest of us. If they eat the same volume as others then their more efficient bacteria convert more of the food for them and they more easily get fat. These people have a major advantage over thin people like me. Unfortunately society has turned that into a disadvantage by duping them into eating too much so their great asset becomes a health risk, shortening their lives instead of letting them live more cheaply and efficiently.
Weird huh?
I hate having to eat. I truly wish I could get away with eating just once a day instead of the twice I currently do. It would be very cool to have super-efficient gut bacteria.
Of course if you eat less you get thinner. That's inescapeable. But the same amount of food doesn't equal the same end-weight for different people.
Exercise burns off calories, but it is sometimes not obvious how subtle that can be. I read of an experiment years ago where the researchers were trying to find out whether it was true that two sets of people could eat the same thing, and one group would put weight on while the other didn't, regardless of exercise. They looked at people's metabolism as the commonly accused culprit. Surprisingly, they found that one group did put weight on, and the other group didn't, while exercise and metabolism seemed constant. At first they were at a loss to explain it, until one of the researchers noticed that the low weight group jiggled and fidgetted a lot. It seemed they were burning up more energy that way.
More recently other findings indicate that you can control for all external factors, and some people still put on weight while others don't. It turns out that some people have more efficient gut bacteria than the rest of us. If they eat the same volume as others then their more efficient bacteria convert more of the food for them and they more easily get fat. These people have a major advantage over thin people like me. Unfortunately society has turned that into a disadvantage by duping them into eating too much so their great asset becomes a health risk, shortening their lives instead of letting them live more cheaply and efficiently.
Weird huh?
I hate having to eat. I truly wish I could get away with eating just once a day instead of the twice I currently do. It would be very cool to have super-efficient gut bacteria.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-26 04:54 am (UTC)Interesting. Do you mean you hate the necessity of having to supply your body with external sources of energy and building materials, or that you hate the act of actually eating a meal, or what?
I think it must be my tendency toward oral-fixation, but I like eating. I find the idea of not having the comfort of cooking and eating mildly horrifying myself. I physically enjoy the eating, and the sensation of a warm full tummy. I also enjoy the ritual and the social apsects of food as well. Much as I think the world collectively would be much better of if humans could photosynthesise as an abstraction, I'm a creature firmly attached to my desires and appetites as well. To lose that would be depressing for me...
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 01:51 pm (UTC)I feel the same way about sleeping, washing, shitting too. I would be delighted to be a non-corporeal being who could spend 100% of their time just thinking and learning. Though I just know it would turn around and bite me, because I'd miss not being able to taste mangos or guavas or raspberries. The irony.