naturally thin people

ninerbuff

Cliff notes:

People who are "naturally" thin just eat maintenance. The conception by many is that they eat a lot, but it's obviously not more than they burn.

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DawnieB1977

There are some genetic differences in metabolism, but I also think a lot of naturally thin people either eat less than it looks like, or exercise more than you realize. So a "naturally thin" person might have four pieces of pizza at a sitting, but that's about the only thing they eat that day. Or they have four pieces of pizza, and then they commute six miles on their bicycle. It's natural to them, but if you locked them in a room and fed them a high-calorie diet they'd gain weight just like anybody else.

I've got a friend, she's 5'10 and does no exercise, apart from a bit of walking as she doesn't drive. I've never known anyone eat so much! She could easily eat an entire Dominoes large pizza on her own, and then have dessert. I used to work with her and sit with her for lunch every day. I also gave her a lift home sometimes and went in for coffee, and she always had a snack. She'd go out for a 3 course meal and then come home and have a snack. Her dad was exactly the same. She is what I'd call naturally thin and genetically blessed! She was about a UK size 8, a US 4.

She told me when she was a teenager she'd go to McDonald's and buy 2 burgers and fries and often drink a 2 litre bottle of coke. She kept a huge jar of Nutella in her room.

I think some people do have faster metabolisms, or more efficient ones.

BlueButterfly94

One of my best friends is naturally thin and incredible frustrated with it, because he eats SOOOO many calories and doesn't gain a thing. (He wants to gain, mostly in muscle)

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ForecasterJason

THERE IS NO THING AS NATURALLY SKINNY. SORRY. YOUR SKINNY BECAUSE YOU EAT LESS, EXERCISE MORE. ITS SCIENCE, NOT MAGIC.

I don't do a lot of exercise (my overall lifestyle is sedentary and I get about an hour of formal exercise a week). As I mentioned earlier, for me not to be skinny I would have to dramatically increase my calorie intake (which of course without exercise would lead to excessive body fat). I also find it interesting that you say you're not skinny at 6' 135 pounds. If you're actually 6', that is definitely considered much smaller than normal.

Then explain why there are so many people (especially men in their 20's), who can eat and eat and eat and drink beer, not exercise, and cannot gain weight. I mean this is not exactly a rare occurrence.

There are many weight gaining products. Why do you think people buy them? Because they can't gain weight just by eating.

Good point! I had not thought about this from that aspect before.

DamePiglet

One of my best friends is naturally thin and incredible frustrated with it, because he eats SOOOO many calories and doesn't gain a thing. (He wants to gain, mostly in muscle)

Well, go to the local medical school with your friend. They will want to study him if he runs a huge calories surplus and gains no weight.

Hi Steve! :flowerforyou:
Great post.

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MelodyandBarbells

One of my best friends is naturally thin and incredible frustrated with it, because he eats SOOOO many calories and doesn't gain a thing. (He wants to gain, mostly in muscle)

Well, go to the local medical school with your friend. They will want to study him if he runs a huge calories surplus and gains no weight.

Then explain why there are so many people (especially men in their 20's), who can eat and eat and eat and drink beer, not exercise, and cannot gain weight. I mean this is not exactly a rare occurrence.

There are many weight gaining products. Why do you think people buy them? Because they can't gain weight just by eating.

Here they are:

https://www.google.com/search?q=weight+on+gain+weight+supplement&oq=weight+on+gain+weight+supplement&gs_l=serp.3..0i22i30.1909.3381.0.3571.11.11.0.0.0.0.106.964.9j2.11.0....0...1c.1.51.serp..0.11.956.EXFvwLUeIuY

The existence of products for people who wish to be separated from their money proves nothing. Coincidentally, we're also chatting about diet pills on another topic

shaumom

You wanted possible studies that there's more going on than calories consumed vs. calories used? Here you go:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/09/04/218932421/how-a-change-in-gut-microbes-can-affect-weight

It's a study on gut bacteria, which scientists have been discovering may have a pretty big impact on us. In this study, gut bacteria from human twins, where one is thin and one overweight, were collected and then transplanted into mice with no gut bacteria. The results:

"The mice that got microbes from the obese twins gained more weight and accumulated more fat than those who got microbes from the lean twin, even when the mice ate identical diets, the researchers report in a paper in the journal Science.

Next, the scientists let the animals live together. And since eating each other's feces is a common habit among mice, they were soon exposed to each other's gut microbes. After 10 days, the researchers found that the mice with the obese microbes adopted the lean microbes and started to look healthier.

And, finally, the researchers showed that the animals were unable to be colonized by the lean microbes when they were fed diets aimed at simulating a typical unhealthful Western diet high in saturated fats and low in fiber."


Admittedly, this is just preliminary research, but the original research was done on obese and thin mice and mouse gut bacteria, with the same results. I don't know if there are human trials coming, but I would assume they are thinking that way.

To my mind, this poses some interesting questions. Like, for example, could a person increasing their intake of fruits and veggies and lowering their saturated fat help make them thinner because it helps the lean microbes colonize their insides better? How much difference do the calories make compared to the gut microbes?

Interesting stuff.

ninerbuff

One of my best friends is naturally thin and incredible frustrated with it, because he eats SOOOO many calories and doesn't gain a thing. (He wants to gain, mostly in muscle)

Well, go to the local medical school with your friend. They will want to study him if he runs a huge calories surplus and gains no weight.

Then explain why there are so many people (especially men in their 20's), who can eat and eat and eat and drink beer, not exercise, and cannot gain weight. I mean this is not exactly a rare occurrence.

There are many weight gaining products. Why do you think people buy them? Because they can't gain weight just by eating.

Here they are:

https://www.google.com/search?q=weight+on+gain+weight+supplement&oq=weight+on+gain+weight+supplement&gs_l=serp.3..0i22i30.1909.3381.0.3571.11.11.0.0.0.0.106.964.9j2.11.0....0...1c.1.51.serp..0.11.956.EXFvwLUeIuY

Because they are either matching or exceeding what they consume in calories. Math still doesn't fail here when it comes to weight gaining.

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RoxieHart1

There are some genetic differences in metabolism, but I also think a lot of naturally thin people either eat less than it looks like, or exercise more than you realize. So a "naturally thin" person might have four pieces of pizza at a sitting, but that's about the only thing they eat that day. Or they have four pieces of pizza, and then they commute six miles on their bicycle. It's natural to them, but if you locked them in a room and fed them a high-calorie diet they'd gain weight just like anybody else.

This is absolutely false. My family is quite thin and a couple of my siblings and my father struggled to gain weight. They ate very healthy and consumed a lot of calories, under a doctor's guidance. They could not gain weight. We are all adults now and my father is in his 70s. All of them are still quite thin, underweight by charts but for them, very healthy people. My siblings were teased for being so skinny. It was horrible for them. I witnessed them eating healthy, (literally) crying that they couldn't gain weight and no, they didn't exercise/over-exercise.

Please don't assume everyone is a closet bulimic or exercise addict or has an eating disorder of some kind. And certainly don't envy them. They were bullied/teased for something they couldn't help.

PlumpKitten

Bone structures vary hugely between people - and that affects the physical apperrance of thinness.

My naturally thin husband, who is 5-10-5'11", has kneecaps about width of my kneecaps at 5'1".
He could exercise all he wants - he will have extremely skinny legs. Even if he exercises to build them up, he will always have very thin calves.
I can exercise all I want - I will always have curvier, stockier legs.
His wrist is so thin that I -- at 9-10 inches shorter -- can wear some of the watches he had when he was younger, with just a little adjustment.

If you took him -- plus an American friend I have who is the same height, but big-boned and barrel-chested -- and gave them the same level of food and exercise, I bet you the American friend would still look heavier.

There is something similar with Asians, particularly Asian women, who don't grow up with much nutrition. Go to rural Southeast Asia, and you will see many women with extremely fine bone / body structure. They may put on a bit of weight in middle-age, but their frame is clearly very narrow.

Of course, I am not discounting diet and exercise from this.

But to say that everyone is built the same is ridiculous. People come in all shapes and sizes -- and metabolism is a complex thing.

Swiftlet66

You wanted possible studies that there's more going on than calories consumed vs. calories used? Here you go:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/09/04/218932421/how-a-change-in-gut-microbes-can-affect-weight

It's a study on gut bacteria, which scientists have been discovering may have a pretty big impact on us. In this study, gut bacteria from human twins, where one is thin and one overweight, were collected and then transplanted into mice with no gut bacteria. The results:

"The mice that got microbes from the obese twins gained more weight and accumulated more fat than those who got microbes from the lean twin, even when the mice ate identical diets, the researchers report in a paper in the journal Science.

Next, the scientists let the animals live together. And since eating each other's feces is a common habit among mice, they were soon exposed to each other's gut microbes. After 10 days, the researchers found that the mice with the obese microbes adopted the lean microbes and started to look healthier.

And, finally, the researchers showed that the animals were unable to be colonized by the lean microbes when they were fed diets aimed at simulating a typical unhealthful Western diet high in saturated fats and low in fiber."


Admittedly, this is just preliminary research, but the original research was done on obese and thin mice and mouse gut bacteria, with the same results. I don't know if there are human trials coming, but I would assume they are thinking that way.

To my mind, this poses some interesting questions. Like, for example, could a person increasing their intake of fruits and veggies and lowering their saturated fat help make them thinner because it helps the lean microbes colonize their insides better? How much difference do the calories make compared to the gut microbes?

Interesting stuff.

Hey this is very interesting stuff!! Thanks for posting. My nutrition professor told me the same thing and that he suspects our gut might have a lot more to do with our health than we realized.

ETA: My older brother while growing up, despite eating a diet high in junk food and calories, remained very tiny and thin. It was only until he started to actually physically bulk through lifting that he gained weight (mostly because of added muscles). My older sister too eats quite a bit for her size but then again, she works at her job 7 days a week and is constantly on her toes. We are Vietnamese, btw.

bangbangchoochootrain

I definitely believe that. Take two girls on my volleyball team, both the same height at 6'1", ate the same amount, did the same strength and workout training thanks to being on the same school and club teams. One was so thing if you didn't see her lift you would assume she would snap when trying to pick up milk. The other looked "healthy", although was still probably around a 4 so fairly small. They both ate like horses. However the girl who was thinner had a younger sister who was shorter and also naturally thin, although not as thin as the older sister.

Another friend's whole female chunk of the family (i.e not husband) are naturally thin. My friend is thinner than the rest of the family thanks to ADHD medication which can throw off her eating and the fact that she is a picky eater, and yet she still barely to fit into her mom's high school cheerleading outfit. She can eat a lot of really unhealthy food, in fact its the healthy stuff she doesn't particularly enjoy.

I'm not saying these people were eating over their maintenance and not gaining weight, I'm just saying that their maintenance was higher than say, mine, due to genetics. Whether that means that their bodies are less or more efficient, or that they just keep higher amounts of lean muscle than me, they were thinner.

I will say that this is pretty rare. When I got to college I realized a lot of people who were "naturally skinny" actually spent a good chunk of time running or working out in some respect, and also ate way healthier than I did. I would never know this if I didn't eat with them during the week, because when we go out we ate the same, or I even ate less, but at the time I didn't exercise or eat healthy at home.

ninerbuff

There are some genetic differences in metabolism, but I also think a lot of naturally thin people either eat less than it looks like, or exercise more than you realize. So a "naturally thin" person might have four pieces of pizza at a sitting, but that's about the only thing they eat that day. Or they have four pieces of pizza, and then they commute six miles on their bicycle. It's natural to them, but if you locked them in a room and fed them a high-calorie diet they'd gain weight just like anybody else.

This is absolutely false. My family is quite thin and a couple of my siblings and my father struggled to gain weight. They ate very healthy and consumed a lot of calories, under a doctor's guidance. They could not gain weight. We are all adults now and my father is in his 70s. All of them are still quite thin, underweight by charts but for them, very healthy people. My siblings were teased for being so skinny. It was horrible for them. I witnessed them eating healthy, (literally) crying that they couldn't gain weight and no, they didn't exercise/over-exercise.

Please don't assume everyone is a closet bulimic or exercise addict or has an eating disorder of some kind. And certainly don't envy them. They were bullied/teased for something they couldn't help.

Not absolutely false. Look back at most anybody 20 years removed from highschool and they don't resemble anything like their teen selves. People gain weight because they consume more than they burn. This isn't disputed by any journal of medicine or science.

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Trechechus

Yes. People who work hard

Stilllosing26

We must get all of your "naturally skinny" friends/family to Johns Hopkins Medical School IMMEDIATELY! The testing has to begin soon because they could be superhuman! They are deying the laws of calories in vs calories out! If you eat more than you burn, overtime, you will 100%, definitely gain weight. If not, you arent absorbing any of your foods nutrients, and you are very ill and need to seek immediate medical attention. Do you watch over your friends and family on video surveillance 24/7? They could be lying to you... I could EASILY pretend like it was impossible for me to gain weight no matter how hard I tried. I would eat a TON in front of you, and then fast(like many people actually do). Go tell your doctor that you have a friend that cant gain weight. That doctor will put your friend on a meal plan, and if followed, your friend will gain weight. It ALWAYS happens. People think they are eating so much! But they are either not eating as much as they are saying, or they are exercising a lot. It's science, it's fact, it's not worth arguing over because it is proven.... Why are people so defensive about this? Like.... You eat a ton, you don't exercise, and you end up on MFP, where we are.

Stilllosing26

In removing calories in vs calories out from the picture, I think it's clear that there are people who have a genetic tendency to be thin. These people are called ectomorphs, and a lot of that has to do with bone structure. You won't see too many people who have large bones but are very thin. A lot of thin people may be eating around maintenance calories, but their weight is below the typical weight for someone else of their height. Several people have already posted anecdotal accounts of this, and I can speak from personal experience. To gain weight up to the average weight, they would have to greatly exceed their TDEE, whereas someone else may already be at that weight eating at maintenance.

So wrong.

Show me a study that supports this.

Better still, download a copy of Guyton's Textbook of Medicine and show me where that is.

Maybe we have different definitions of "thin". By thin, I don't necessarily mean people who are at a normal weight, but rather those who tend to be skinny/scrawny. I am currently 25-35 pounds below the normal weight for a guy my height, and my weight has remained steady for years. I don't have any known medical issues causing my low weight. Let me ask you this: Why is this the case? Considering that I'm consistently eating around maintenance calories, why I am not at least 25 pounds heavier? I would literally have to stuff myself all day (or do extensive weight training) to suddenly push my weight up that far. In other words, it's simply not 'natural' for me to be at the ideal/average weight for my height.

There may not be any scientific studies that prove that genetics has a role in these cases, but it's not like scientists who everything there is to know. What other explanation can there be that explains how this tends to run in families? As some people have pointed out in this thread, it's not that all thin people have good food habits.

You are thin because you don't have the eating habits that EVERYONE ON MFP USED TO HAVE! If you did you would be fat. simple as that. You are skinny because you are burning the energy being provided by your food. You aren't magic. Sorry to disappoint you. You could eat like 6 slices of pizza, some cake, and a two liter bottle of coke, but if you aren't going over your TDEE, then you won't gain weight. It doesn't matter what kind of food you eat!

CLA1134

I'm sure this got waaaaay off topic but I just wanted to chime in here on the OP. My family and I recently did DNA tests (for genealogical reasons). We also got the health results, which aren't a huge deal, but had some interesting stuff.

The thing I found most interesting is both my mom and sister, whom I consider naturally thin, are of the 20% that do not have to work hard to lose weight. While I (sadly) am of the 80% that has trouble with weight loss. They eat like total crap and never work out for health reasons or lack of time. So it's not an issue of a healthier lifestyle or more activity. They are literally genetically predisposed to be thinner. They would have to try really hard to gain any significant amount of weight.

nxd10

My sons, who are 16 and 27. Me, when I was that age.

But they eat VERY healthy food and they are very active. They also have great self control and very good self-awareness of their fullness and stop eating immediately as soon as they aren't hungry.

Worked for me until I was 40.

ForecasterJason

We must get all of your "naturally skinny" friends/family to Johns Hopkins Medical School IMMEDIATELY! The testing has to begin soon because they could be superhuman! They are deying the laws of calories in vs calories out! If you eat more than you burn, overtime, you will 100%, definitely gain weight. If not, you arent absorbing any of your foods nutrients, and you are very ill and need to seek immediate medical attention. Do you watch over your friends and family on video surveillance 24/7? They could be lying to you... I could EASILY pretend like it was impossible for me to gain weight no matter how hard I tried. I would eat a TON in front of you, and then fast(like many people actually do). Go tell your doctor that you have a friend that cant gain weight. That doctor will put your friend on a meal plan, and if followed, your friend will gain weight. It ALWAYS happens. People think they are eating so much! But they are either not eating as much as they are saying, or they are exercising a lot. It's science, it's fact, it's not worth arguing over because it is proven.... Why are people so defensive about this? Like.... You eat a ton, you don't exercise, and you end up on MFP, where we are.

My point isn't that very thin people who eat a lot are exceeding their TDEE. It's that their TDEE may be a good bit higher than someone else of the same height/weight with a similar activity role. Hence, this is why there are enough anecdotal accounts of thin people who seem to "eat a lot and not gain weight". I'm not suggesting that they are denying the calories in vs out equation, but rather they have to eat a lot more than someone else to stay in caloric balance.

You are thin because you don't have the eating habits that EVERYONE ON MFP USED TO HAVE! If you did you would be fat. simple as that. You are skinny because you are burning the energy being provided by your food. You aren't magic. Sorry to disappoint you. You could eat like 6 slices of pizza, some cake, and a two liter bottle of coke, but if you aren't going over your TDEE, then you won't gain weight. It doesn't matter what kind of food you eat!

I understand that. But I'm sure most people could eat a flawless diet in terms of amount and nutrition and would still not be as thin as I am (and the other accounts of very thin people). Sure, almost anyone (excluding medical factors) can have a normal weight/body fat percentage if they work at it. But there's a big difference between simply having a normal weight/body fat and being very scrawny. This is where I'm saying genetics comes into play.