Is a 'high' metabolism a myth? Advice please!

ashleyjongepier

Idk, My mom was 103-115 lbs at 5'6 for mostly all her life and she ate like a TRUCK, hardly much activity and she never really went past this range of weight. Of course now that shes nearing 50, shes put on some weight, I've tracked her calories though and she eats way more than she should be able to for mat cals yet she stays the same weight.

MFP says 2100 is my mat levels, when its closer to 2500.

I would slowly take away calories, going from 4k to 1200 would be super hard and could lead to binging.

Spliner1969

Everyone's metabolism is different. The OP's metabolism will probably change over time as she ages. But for now, I would try to accurately track what you are eating now (by weight, in grams, and by the MFP entries that are verified), then subtract 500 kcal a day off of that number and start with that. IIFYM.com's calculator is also a good start, it'll allow you to adjust based on your level of daily energy expenditure and by how much you exercise each week. You may find that you can indeed eat 3500 calories a day and lose weight, that'll only work to a point though, then you'll have to adjust because your metabolism will also adjust over time.

Francl27

Spliner1969 wrote: »

Everyone's metabolism is different. The OP's metabolism will probably change over time as she ages. But for now, I would try to accurately track what you are eating now (by weight, in grams, and by the MFP entries that are verified), then subtract 500 kcal a day off of that number and start with that. IIFYM.com's calculator is also a good start, it'll allow you to adjust based on your level of daily energy expenditure and by how much you exercise each week. You may find that you can indeed eat 3500 calories a day and lose weight, that'll only work to a point though, then you'll have to adjust because your metabolism will also adjust over time.

Agreed. Track accurately. I highly doubt you're really eating 4000 calories.

jammer1963 wrote: »

You look pretty young so I'd say even if you were somewhat active but had a higher metabolism, you could eat a lot and still not pack on weight. In high school, I weight 128 pounds and I ate whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted and never gained weight. It wasn't until I turned 30 that I started putting on the pounds. It was like someone turned off the fat burning switch in my body. I didn't get heavy, but I did see my weight increase. Add 30 years and I'm still not heavy. I'm 53, 5'8 and weight 171. I would like to lose about 6 more pounds but the weight is stubbornly hanging on. So to answer your question, I believe in a high metabolism.

It definitely creeps up as you get older. I never really changed my diet once I moved to the US, and I maintained at 200 pounds for years. Then I hit 30 and it started creeping up. At 33 and 213 pounds I realized that I had to stop it and that's when I decided to do something about it.

lakshva

May be bcz OP's body fat % is low combined with acitivity level (for sedentary i still cant fathom) which is keeping metabolism higher. I am not sure just putting a thought!

sunnybeaches105

It's true in the sense that there are variations from person to person, but most of it will be based on muscle mass and activity level. How active were/are you? The people I know with "high metabolisms" never seem to sit down and exercise frequently. They also often don't eat as much as everyone thinks.

Carefully track (weigh everything) your calorie intake over time and see. The numbers spit out on MFP and elsewhere are just estimates. You have to spend time determining your own TDEE.

robininfl

I am thin, have always been thin, and have always felt like I am eating a lot, BUT what I read, and what seems to be true, is that skinny people will eat a whole pizza, sure, or take five of the cookies or eat the whole piece of cake, but then maybe nothing the rest of the day, or will go out to dinner at restaurant but then realize they haven't eaten breakfast or lunch...that the calories sort of adjust themselves through appetite. I've been tracking for awhile to see what I am eating, have not logged some of the stuff (alcoholic drinks, fruit and veg, some feast days) but enough to get a trend and it does look like I don't really eat THAT much.

Even so, I come from a line of thin women who eat, and my brothers and sisters are like that too. It would seem there has to be a genetic component to weight. So yeah I think "a high metabolism" is a thing.

My weight has come up some as I got older but that has been intentional, due to heavier exercise to build muscle, as my goal is to be not so skinny as an older person. I was 125lb at 21 years old and was 125lb at 45, after four kids, that isn't behavior so much as just genetics. Intentional building has got me to 136, considered healthier for 5'9", and ideally I'd like to cut now a little, 2-5 lb but am more focused on athletic goals.

cwolfman13

So if you know you've been eating 4,000 and you know you were gaining about a pound per month...then you don't really need this calculator...you already know the math...just customize your calorie targets to be what you think they should be based on the math.

stevencloser

laurenhollyjohnston1 wrote: »

Purely absolute rubbish. An example of a day would be 2 links 2 bacon 2 potato scone and 2 hash browns with 2 slices of toast and butter for breakfast with a can of coke, a large mcdonalds chicken selects meal for lunch, with a large coke and a takeaway for dinner (say for instance salt and chilli chips, chicken balls and spring rolls) and maybe another litre of full fat fizzy juice. Along with snacks so probably 3 pieces of fruit, a bar of chocolate or 2 and 2 packets of crisps. Thats on an average day. We were in the process of moving house and didnt have a cooker for a while, thats why I started eating that way, but just became a habit!

You've had 2 takeaway meals every single day for a year? And all the other stuff.

amusedmonkey

I doubt you were eating 4000 calories every day. It's a well documented phenomenon that obese people (or people who are feeling they are eating too little) tend to have calorie amnesia where they eat and forget much of what they ate and feel movement is labored so they also overestimate their activity level, leading them to think they have a slow metabolism. Naturally thin people (or people who are feeling they are eating too much), on the other hand, tend to have a "not eating" amnesia, where they only remember their heavy days and don't notice how much they are actually moving.

Faster metabolisms do exist, but I very very highly doubt it that you have double the metabolism of someone your size. There would be a difference of about 20% calories at either extreme of the bell curve, so even as an extreme outlier your sedentary maintenance would not be higher than 2200-2300 tops.

stevencloser

Yeah.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00365513.2010.491125?journalCode=iclb20

People claiming high metabolism think they're eating more and vice versa, but their actual calorie burns aren't that different.


I'm still looking for the one where they checked through a bunch of studies where RMR was measured and found the highest out of 6000 people was for guys at 3200 kcal and for women at 2500.