the advantage of tending to overweight

[miriam_e]

It 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.

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:) Thanks.