naturally thin people

I know I should know better than to continue with this but I’m on a break from work and I have time on my hands, so….

Wrong and as an educated man you should know better than to use straw men.

Although irrelevant to the discussion, I’m a woman. I don’t believe I used straw man. You told a poster that his dr was an idiot for saying that genetics can play a role in weight maintenance or something similar. I told you that you were incorrect and that genetics most certainly can play a role for some people. I provided a few classic ‘textbook’ examples, you discounted them and so it went on.

How was it straw man?

My claim is that GUYTON'S is a superior source for the needs of the VAST MAJORITY of overweight people who use this board as a source of information as a way to lose weight.

Guytons focuses on one discipline, physiology. Physiology alone does not fully explain human health, including weight management. Guytons may be a start and one perspective, but it is by no means the only one.

My background should have nothing to do with it. I can make up credentials in order try to impress someone. People do it on the internet every day.

You could have made yours up in an attempt to impress me and those on the board.

Yes, my absolute frustration with your inability to accept anything beyond your limited “Guytons” blurb led me to say more about my education and professional role than I would have preferred. My point was to explain from first hand experience that health professionals are educated in a range of areas including, but by no means limited to, physiology.

Nevertheless, correct, I could have made it up, although not for the intention of trying to impress. There are plenty of smart/educated people on MFP who impress me without any prior knowledge of 'their credentials".

But you CAN'T make up what is in Guyton and Hall.

Show me it in Guyton's and I will believe it.

So basically you are saying that knowledge from any other discipline that is not in Guytons is under question.

How can you expect to gain any credibility when you talk this way?

The perception of hunger and satiety are complex, but it is obvious (in Guyton's) that the stomach and the level of blood nutrients play a significant role.

Yes, extremely complex. For example, the serotonin and dopamine systems are involved, which have receptors in various brain regions including the reward pathway. Individual (dare I say genetic?) differences in certain receptors are seen in some people with disordered eating. This is just one example to illustrate the complexity and the impact of individual variability.

But it is JUST as obvious that some people can deal with "hunger" and not immediately rush off to eat, or suffer an anxiety reaction when they can't.

Yes, but is this learned behaviour, or is it influenced by individual variability…something biological?

And it is just as obvious in the normal healthy person that they have enough calories on board to last for days. "Hunger" does NOT mean that the body needs more calories.

People can adapt over time to almost any condition, and hunger is one of them. "Naturally" thin people have.

Why should people have to experience hunger to lose/maintain weight? Some people find hunger almost intolerable.

How do you know that “Naturally” thin people experience hunger like someone who is overweight? Perhaps there is something in their biology (ie. not learned) that causes them to have a blunted hunger response.

Once you review Guyton's, read Dr. Hagan's "Breakfast is the least important meal of the day." Absolutely spot on, and the only way to lose weight and keep it off. And it is FREE.

Learned behavior.

I don’t feel the need to review Guytons. I have a pretty good handle on physiology from other well known bench-marked physiology textbooks I studied during my undergrad years. I also studied other areas to give me a hopefully well-rounded perspective on human health. I am not trying to impress, just responding to your suggestion that I review Guytons.

I have never heard of Hagan’s book and I’m already cynical about it from the title alone. Many people maintain a healthy weight or lose weight consuming breakfast every day. Some people would find giving up breakfast extremely difficult to adhere to for any length of time, resulting in a weight loss plan that is not sustainable.

I do not believe in a one-size fits all approach, as you do. I believe that everyone is an individual and needs to find his or her own way to manage energy balance.

You even acknowledge individual variation with regards to hunger response. You argue that it is learned, I argue that in some people it is due to individual biology that is not learned.

This illustrates the problem.

I harp on Guyton's because whatever your approach to weight loss is, the physiology should be consistent with Guyton's, which is the bible of physiology.

Your body follows the principles in Guyton's whether you believe in what Guyton's says or not.

Guyton's represents the combined results of generations of thousands dedicated professional people who sought to solve the same problems you are facing about the human body and how it works, carefully evaluating and testing theories and finding out which ones work and which ones don't.

The ones that WORK and have been proven are in Guyton's.

So everyone should START with Guyton's.

Or else you might be replicating mistakes that people have made before you.

Certainly, if you have been on a weight loss program and it is not working, or you are not satisfied with it, then you should stop and reassess things.

If it is working, fine. But is it something you can keep up your entire life?

If you haven't looked closely at how the human body works, or have been getting your information scattershot on the internet or the Dr. Oz show, then you owe it to yourself to check out Guyton's.

Guyton's is a medical textbook, but written in as understandable fashion as it can be, and takes time to examine modern topics of interest.

It should be in your library.

Parts are free online.

As far as hunger goes, people don't realize that the brain changes when the stimuli it is exposed to changes. Neural circuitry re-wires. That's how we learn. That's how we get used to things.

There is a huge psych overlay to the sensation of hunger.

Talk to any "naturally" thin person you know and ask he or she about how they deal with hunger and an empty stomach. I will almost guarantee that they will all say that they are not driven by hunger, and that if they miss a meal it is no big deal.

And their genetics and metabolic setup is just like everyone else.

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.

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.