Body types and set points and weight. . . . Oh my!

Body shape, muscle length, and bone structure are genetic and predisposed at birth for general population.
There are no "set points" because anyone can extremely increase or decrease there body fat percentages if they really want to. That's why obesity and anorexia exist.
Practically everything we do in life is pretty much going to be correlated to habitual behavior and experience. Yes we can learn some new things and methods, but it will still come down to behavior on whether or not one will institute them or not.
I can teach anyone a program that will enhance their fitness, but if their behavior is that of using yard work as their fitness plan, the plan I give them may go unused.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

From what I've read and heard, the jury's still out on whether "set points" have any scientific validity. I'd rather believe they're not true -- I'm coming from 20 years of obesity and if set points are real, I'm going to have to struggle more than someone who's never been obese to stay at a healthy weight. But if they are, well, I'm SOL. I think body types are a real thing. OP and her sister are a case in point. I think I'm more "dense" than average -- all my life I've been heavier than I looked.

I've seen some people use "set point" and "body type" as an excuse to stay fat, like "I'm just big boned, so I might as well not even try to eat healthy and exercise."

I think we should at least try.

I think once you put on the weight you make fat cells, when you lose the weight the cells empty but don't go away. So it will be easier to gain it back than it was to put it on in the beginning. This may be the set point people think they are experiencing. Also as you get older you don't burn calories as effectively. Exercise makes me less hungry, being busy makes me forget about food and being tired makes me hungry. Maybe you are always tired?

I don't see much mention of activity level. Is she more active or less active than you? Does one of you do a lot of muscle training while the other does more cardio? Or, maybe you both do cardio, but one of you runs while the other rows. These things could have a dramatic effect on overall body shape and composition, not to mention appetite and total calories in/out.

If by "set point" you mean "predisposition to a certain body composition", yes, I'm inclined to accept that as possible.

Mr_Knight wrote: »

golfbrew_matt wrote: »

I don't claim to have the answer for why, but I hope to learn it through this journey.

We're not built for a food-rich environment.

Hard to argue with this.

tigerblue wrote: »

0somuchbetter0 wrote: »

From what I've read and heard, the jury's still out on whether "set points" have any scientific validity. I'd rather believe they're not true -- I'm coming from 20 years of obesity and if set points are real, I'm going to have to struggle more than someone who's never been obese to stay at a healthy weight. But if they are, well, I'm SOL. I think body types are a real thing. OP and her sister are a case in point. I think I'm more "dense" than average -- all my life I've been heavier than I looked.

I've seen some people use "set point" and "body type" as an excuse to stay fat, like "I'm just big boned, so I might as well not even try to eat healthy and exercise."

I think we should at least try.

No doubt our behavior is the bottom line!! If I did not believe that, I would not have been able to lose 43 lbs 5 years ago.

My point, though, is that if I follow my appetite, my weight naturally stabilizes at a BMI that is just barely in the "overweight" category. Where if my sister follows her appetitie she naturally stabilizes in the low normal to slightly underweight BMI.

I have successfully maintained a healthy BMI for 4 years now, but I am constantly slightly hungry. I work out regularly 6 days a week, alternating cardio and weight training. Outside of that, I am at best lightly active some days. I eat a mostly healthy diet, most of the time, but I am not a "food nazi"!

So I truly believe we all have the final say in our body weight and composition by our behavior. But I also believe that we have natural tendencies that each of us has to deal with. Perhaps it is like some people having a harder time not overindulging in alcohol.

I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm just exploring the experiences of others!

I'd be curious to see if there is a difference in the caloric density of your diets. I have recently increased my fruit and vegetable consumption for health reasons, and eating so many low-calorie-density foods has significantly decreased my total caloric intake, even though I am eating a much greater volume of food most of the time.

I find I don't really crave the high-calorie density stuff very much anymore, though I did eat some at Christmas and I enjoyed it. I just didn't feel like eating as much of it as in previous years. I am still following my appetite, but my appetite has changed.

kyta32 wrote: »

Weight is an interrelation between genetics, health, and environment. Western eating can trump genetics, however. Having access to cheap high sugar/fat foods (and exposure to media that glorifies them) does lead to obesity (even in dogs, low socio-economic status and frequent snacks lead to obesity).

There is some evidence for a set point in weight. If an extreme event takes place causing someone to gain or lose weight, they will tend back towards their original weight range over a couple of years. This "set point" (or set range) is not the only factor in weight, however.

It can look like there is no difference between two people of different weights because the difference in calorie use for weight maintenance and gradual weight gain can be tiny. 100 calories a day could show up as fidgeting lightly, eating an extra chocolate bar every other day, an extra banana every day, dancing in the living room for 30 minutes every other day, or one hour cardio exercise twice a week. And that 100 calories a day can make a 10 pound difference in weight over a year.

Except in the case of medical issues, no one is doomed to obesity. Weight gain can be managed with good habits, and the habits don't need to be extreme (just 100 calories a day), just consistent. So yes, some are naturally "lighter" than others, but keeping track of calories in and out can help almost anyone maintain a healthy weight.

Probably a good idea to link to this information.

The jury's out on set points, it doesn't make sense that we couldn't achieve our ideal weight. For me I've been really fighting to lose the last 5 lbs for a year and feel my body is at its happy place...but I also know that should I want to really lose more I just need a higher deficit, I'm just eating too much! I'm just not caring enough about those final pounds to make the effort lol

Your habits for your activity level, as well as calories in/calories out, and if you use food for recreation or emotional coping will all play a part. Also muscle composition from your lifestyle. But, it's also a factor that you could have a different body type. Storing fat in different places. My mother has a straight body type and skinny legs. One of my aunts has a small waist and curvy figure with boobs, hips, thighs. I also am tiny, but with a small rib cage/waist and curvy body structure (hips/butt/thighs).

I believe that many things impact our weight, some we have little control over and some we have a lot of control over. For example, some people find hunger intolerable, while others cope and even enjoy the feeling of hunger. These differences can have a meaningful impact on body weight.

Here's a PMC article that discusses the theory of set point, settling point and other models. You can read the full text here.

Abstract
"The close correspondence between energy intake and expenditure over prolonged time periods, coupled with an apparent protection of the level of body adiposity in the face of perturbations of energy balance, has led to the idea that body fatness is regulated via mechanisms that control intake and energy expenditure.

Two models have dominated the discussion of how this regulation might take place. The set point model is rooted in physiology, genetics and molecular biology, and suggests that there is an active feedback mechanism linking adipose tissue (stored energy) to intake and expenditure via a set point, presumably encoded in the brain. This model is consistent with many of the biological aspects of energy balance, but struggles to explain the many significant environmental and social influences on obesity, food intake and physical activity. More importantly, the set point model does not effectively explain the ‘obesity epidemic’ – the large increase in body weight and adiposity of a large proportion of individuals in many countries since the 1980s.

An alternative model, called the settling point model, is based on the idea that there is passive feedback between the size of the body stores and aspects of expenditure. This model accommodates many of the social and environmental characteristics of energy balance, but struggles to explain some of the biological and genetic aspects. The shortcomings of these two models reflect their failure to address the gene-by-environment interactions that dominate the regulation of body weight.

We discuss two additional models – the general intake model and the dual intervention point model – that address this issue and might offer better ways to understand how body fatness is controlled."

neanderthin wrote: »

kyta32 wrote: »

Weight is an interrelation between genetics, health, and environment. Western eating can trump genetics, however. Having access to cheap high sugar/fat foods (and exposure to media that glorifies them) does lead to obesity (even in dogs, low socio-economic status and frequent snacks lead to obesity).

There is some evidence for a set point in weight. If an extreme event takes place causing someone to gain or lose weight, they will tend back towards their original weight range over a couple of years. This "set point" (or set range) is not the only factor in weight, however.

It can look like there is no difference between two people of different weights because the difference in calorie use for weight maintenance and gradual weight gain can be tiny. 100 calories a day could show up as fidgeting lightly, eating an extra chocolate bar every other day, an extra banana every day, dancing in the living room for 30 minutes every other day, or one hour cardio exercise twice a week. And that 100 calories a day can make a 10 pound difference in weight over a year.

Except in the case of medical issues, no one is doomed to obesity. Weight gain can be managed with good habits, and the habits don't need to be extreme (just 100 calories a day), just consistent. So yes, some are naturally "lighter" than others, but keeping track of calories in and out can help almost anyone maintain a healthy weight.

Probably a good idea to link to this information.

Not sure what you mean. This is the article I based my post on:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990627/...

Not a study, a review of set point/range literature. Interesting though. If you want I can try to link individual studies to each point...The thing about 100 calories a day is just math - 100 X 365 = 36,500; 36,500/3500 (calories used to burn 1 pound fat) = 10.4 pounds fat lost/year for dancing about 1/2 hour every other day in your living room http://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/calories-burned/dancing-general-54

tigerblue wrote: »

kommodevaran wrote: »

Height and bone structure is predetermined. Fat mass is determined by calorie intake and expenditure. Calorie intake is regulated by appetite, habits and access. Calorie expenditure is regulated by habits, perceived pleasure from moving and opportunity.

Absolutely!

So, is appetite pre-set by genetics? Or habits? That is kind of what I am investigating.

Nurture v Nature. You aren't the first to wonder about percentage of those.

kommodevaran wrote: »

Height and bone structure is predetermined.

Both height and weight are affected by environmental context. The more we know learn about epigentics, the less likely it is seems that either is "predetermined".

My personal experience has been that my body's tended to settle at a few different points for years at a time, and it mostly depended on my lifestyle. In terms of age ranges, weights, and activities:

Teens: 115
Early 20s: ~130
During/after medication: gained and yoyo'd a lot - 150-198
Late 20s-early 30s: Post-medication, with an office job and walking/transit as activity and lots of eating out and drinking on weekends (I didn't count, but would guess about 2500-3000 calories a day): 170s
Early-30s: active weight loss - calorie restriction (to ~2000 cals on average) and moderate to vigorous activity 3-5 days a week, less consuming while out: 50 lb loss
30s: Maintained easily at 124 +/- 2 lbs (weirdly precise) for four years, with same activity as above and only casual calorie counting (~2000-2300, on average)
Mid-late 30s: injury - ate the way I did when I maintained at 124 but was almost completely sedentary - gained 15 lbs, which I'm trying to lose now

I've always had a big appetite compared to other women my age/height, and I lost and maintained on more than a lot of women do (but not more than active women), which makes me think my metabolism might be on the high side - I think someone else eating and doing what I did might have weighed more.