Really TV listings Why Are Thin People Not Fat?

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sho3girl
sho3girl Posts: 10,799 Member
in Motivation and Support
Why Are Thin People Not Fat?
A mind and waistband-expanding documentary! A group of students eat twice their normal intake of calories for four weeks. Dr Carel le Roux explores some misconceptions about weight.

Did anyone watch this last night? I only caught the last part where the Doctors concluded that if you are thin get fat then lose weight it's possible. But if you've always been fat you will never be as slim.

This made me rather annoyed last night, especially when the "naturally thin" people basically lost the weight (and inches) within 2 weeks. For someone that's always struggled this isn't helping to motivate me at all .... damn the remote control ......
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Replies

  • PrinnyBomb
    PrinnyBomb Posts: 196 Member
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    I watched it. I was heckling the whole time.

    Basically if you're fat, give up, nothing will change. Utter b*llocks. Yes, our fat cells will never decrease. But I know I didn't imagine losing three stone. Fat child, fat adult, you'll never be thin, blah, blah, blah. If anything it made me more determined to prove them wrong. Will I need lipo at the end? Maybe. But I won't be fat.

    don't give up. We can change or our metabolic rate. It might take us longer :)
  • sho3girl
    sho3girl Posts: 10,799 Member
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    thanks :smile: i only caught the end i've lost over 2 stone and managed to keep it off since Dec 2009 but still have a way to go so will PROVE 'em wrong with you
  • dad106
    dad106 Posts: 4,868 Member
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    I was always thin.. gained 80 pounds, lost 30 and now I'm even thinner then I was before size wise. It also didn't take me 2 weeks.. it took me a whole year to get those 30 pounds off.

    My one friend weighed 245 pounds and she now weighs 165. Looks fabulous.

    Another friend that I have has always been overweight as long as I've known her.. and now she's supposedly lost 25 pounds.. does it look like she's lost anything? No.. she still looks the same as always.

    So it can be done.. but you just have to be dedicated to it, and realize that it won't always go the way that you want. Maybe you won't be a skinny mini, but at least you won't be fat.. right?
  • Bobby_Clerici
    Bobby_Clerici Posts: 1,828 Member
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    NOPE!
    Here we have a bunch of sniveling TV crybabies rationalizing obesity.
    It's a pathetic attempt to pander to our sick society and coddle those who are too lazy to affect change in their fitness.
    Sometimes the so called "experts" are nothing more than excuse generators.
    BELIEVE IT NOT!
  • groovyfirechick
    groovyfirechick Posts: 188
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    that would have really pissed me off! doctors don't know everything!!!
  • militarydreams
    militarydreams Posts: 198 Member
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    :laugh: I call bull on that one. People have different body types yes, my friend finds it hard to build muscle or put on fat and he eats like a beast. I don't doubt that some find it hard the other way around too but it's nothing that some attention and discipline wont fix.

    I've seen people on here who have lost weight with thyroid disorders and pcos. I'm pretty damn sure that there are many that will never put the weight back on, some will but that's a different story.
  • Kara_xxx
    Kara_xxx Posts: 635 Member
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    Am not sure which programme you saw, but I saw one very similar documentary last year and the things that stood out for me was the incredibly hard time some 'naturally slim' people had at overeating...

    It was like torture for them, they felt sick, they hated it... they had natural messages sent from their brains much earlier to send them the appropriate "I am full, this is enough, we don't need any more" signals.

    And I think those signals, or your brain's ability to recognise when you're full, are easily messed up when you overeat continually since childhood. There is a plethora of studies looking at the role of the hypothalamus in regulating hunger and energy expenditure. http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/03/obesity-and-brain

    This does not mean that obese folk can't change, that they are biologically predisposed to remain fat... I think what it does mean though is that it's more like managing a chronic condition, whereas for the skinny students it was more like an acute one-off overweight state that very quickly went back to their body's status quo.
  • paulsmisses
    paulsmisses Posts: 178
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    NOPE!
    Here we have a bunch of sniveling TV crybabies rationalizing obesity.
    It's a pathetic attempt to pander to our sick society and coddle those who are too lazy to affect change in their fitness.
    Sometimes the so called "experts" are nothing more than excuse generators.
    BELIEVE IT NOT!

    love this - it is so true that people constantly make excuses for the state of their lives. trying to convince themslves that they are over weight because of genetics or some other nonsense when the truth is - they eat too much! plain and simple! i know i got fat because i used the excuse of eating for two when i was pregnant with my sons and ate like a pig, now i am paying for it with hours working out and calorie counting! only way to do it!
  • m60kaf
    m60kaf Posts: 421 Member
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    The world is a complicated place with money drivers - nothing to do with fact.

    Your fat you watch a program on fatness sponsored by fat food peddler. What is the conclusion likely to be. I always look to America to think of large corporations shaping popular bollox - but its just as prevalent in the UK, just more subtle.
  • DrJanet98
    DrJanet98 Posts: 138 Member
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    I think what it does mean though is that it's more like managing a chronic condition, whereas for the skinny students it was more like an acute one-off overweight state that very quickly went back to their body's status quo.
    That's pretty similar to what the research shows. We have a sort of 'fat thermostat' by which our bodies try to keep our weight stable. Metabolism can double or halve automatically. Appetite can be hugely stimulated if our bodies think we're starving.

    That's why I think a slow-and-steady approach is best, it gives our bodies time to readjust. Crash diets are especially prone to yo-yo rebounds.

    There's a great book that summarizes all the research into weight and obesity over more than a century called "Rethinking Thin" by Gina Kolata. I read that one to learn the biology I'm up against, and then "Thin For Life" to remind myself real people overcome that biology all the time! :-)
  • weightloss12345678
    weightloss12345678 Posts: 377 Member
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    DO NOT LET THIS DISCOURAGE YOU!!!
  • jcstanton
    jcstanton Posts: 1,849 Member
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    :laugh: I call bull on that one. People have different body types yes, my friend finds it hard to build muscle or put on fat and he eats like a beast. I don't doubt that some find it hard the other way around too but it's nothing that some attention and discipline wont fix.

    I've seen people on here who have lost weight with thyroid disorders and pcos. I'm pretty damn sure that there are many that will never put the weight back on, some will but that's a different story.

    I'm one of the latter. I've lost nearly 50lbs over the last year, and, though I've had some setbacks here and there, I'm still just as dedicated and determined to lose the weight as I was when I started. I remember what it was like to be thin and athletic, and I'm not stopping til I get back there. I've got too much at stake to give up now, and I refuse to let ANYONE tell me that it can't be done. I've known too many people who have done it to believe that it's impossible.
  • sho3girl
    sho3girl Posts: 10,799 Member
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    DO NOT LET THIS DISCOURAGE YOU!!!

    :smile: thanks it made me more angry than anything else. Wil keep on eating less/moving more and proving them WRONG!!!
  • jcstanton
    jcstanton Posts: 1,849 Member
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    The world is a complicated place with money drivers - nothing to do with fact.

    Your fat you watch a program on fatness sponsored by fat food peddler. What is the conclusion likely to be. I always look to America to think of large corporations shaping popular bollox - but its just as prevalent in the UK, just more subtle.

    ^^^Yup! There's people all over the world out to make a buck off the gullibility of others. Some do it legally...they're called corporate advertisers. Others do it illegally, they're called con artists. For me, there is no distinction. You can't trust what someone says just because they're an "expert" and/or they have a few extra letters after their name.
  • stephyy4632
    stephyy4632 Posts: 947 Member
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    I weighed around 185 at the end of the first college period ( started school around 160 also my graduating highschool weight)

    currently I`m 167pounds after now having two kids and have a smaller jean size than I did at the end of High school. At the end of this summer I`m hoping to be under 160 and the smallest weight I`ve ever been in my adult life :)
  • mhankosk
    mhankosk Posts: 535 Member
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    NOPE!
    Here we have a bunch of sniveling TV crybabies rationalizing obesity.
    It's a pathetic attempt to pander to our sick society and coddle those who are too lazy to affect change in their fitness.
    Sometimes the so called "experts" are nothing more than excuse generators.
    BELIEVE IT NOT!

    ♥♥♥
  • sullykat
    sullykat Posts: 461 Member
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    I'd be interested in the age of the people "studied". My husband was tiny growing up; had a 27" waist up until he hit about 35. He then started gaining weight and now he has a rather round belly. He's been trying to get if off since i met him, but he just keeps gaining. His sister… though she is still very slim, is 40 and has gained some weight and is having a hard time getting it off too. Sounds like the film was trying to shock people. I have never been slim, never; when i was 13 I wore a size 14. Now is the first time in my life that I am a slimmer size and have a "normal" body fat %, so there you have it. My family have just blown their findings out of the water.
  • BerryH
    BerryH Posts: 4,698 Member
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    I only caught the last part where the Doctors concluded that if you are thin get fat then lose weight it's possible. But if you've always been fat you will never be as slim.
    These "doctors" need to study the MFP Success Stories :flowerforyou:
  • sho3girl
    sho3girl Posts: 10,799 Member
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    I only caught the last part where the Doctors concluded that if you are thin get fat then lose weight it's possible. But if you've always been fat you will never be as slim.
    These "doctors" need to study the MFP Success Stories :flowerforyou:

    I hope to BE one of them too :smile:
  • casperuk
    casperuk Posts: 195 Member
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    So from a 4 week study of a limited amount of people they conclude fat is fat and you need to just be fat. We might as well all pack up everyone, the TV Quack has sorted it out. Where's the cream cakes?

    Alternatively, its bull****.

    Yes it may take some people more effort to keep weight off, and yes its easy to think "Bloody hell she never puts weight on no matter what she eats" but so what, if you dont want to try then stop, just let your body find its natural level and stay there, My natural level all things being equal is way higher than I care to be.

    There comes a point when you drop an object that the speed caused by gravity and the pressure caused by the air meeting it cancel each other out and it will not fall any faster. Its called temrminal velocity. I believe that (without taking depression etc into account) there is a point where the food we eat is cancelled out by the amount of calories we need to just live + the exercise we do on top. For some its very low, for me its quite high because I'm very lazy. Its an effort to change that, but if it was easy we wouldnt be on here in the first place. Losing tens of lbs wouldnt be the achievement it undoubtedly is.

    There is a certain irony that the TV which exists to make money from advertising and making us sit on our arses for as long as possible is preaching about what is healthy and what isn't.

    You're all doing great, bollocks to what some quack on tv says for money to suit the programme makers agenda.

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