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Why do people overeat and/or become obese? Is it harder than average for some to lose weight?
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BillMcKay1 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »BillMcKay1 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I just think it's rude and wrong to assume that anyone WOULD do something akin to eating only Twinkies or needs to be informed how to eat healthfully or to assume he or she would not have the common sense to experiment with diet to eat in a more sating way if struggling with hunger. If someone asks for advice on nutrition or how to avoid hunger, I give it, but mostly I think figuring out how to spend your 1500 calories is something YOU are the expert on. I would find it really condescending and offensive if someone else went out of their way to tell me not to eat only Twinkies (or, as often happens here, that I must cut out "white foods" or some nonsense). I know what a healthful diet is, and I expect other adults do too, unless they tell me otherwise. It's not nearly as complicated as we sometimes try to make it.
For most people I think learning the nutrition side or the satiety side is the easy part (I know there are exceptions). For me, at least, the issue is never hunger or not knowing how to eat properly. It's that I like eating, on the one hand, and use food inappropriately, on the other.
See, I don't see that, What I often see on the boards here someone state for them, they find they can achieve their satiety and maintain their caloric goals by not eating "white foods" or cutting out sweets or going low carb or whatever it is they find works for them, and without fail someone shows up to tell them they are wrong and it's all and only CICO blah blah blah. That is the CICO talk I see on here daily I think is very unhelpful.
Yes it's CICO, but they find it easier to achieve CICO balance by not eating those foods, more power to them.
The scenario you lined out literally does not happen ever.
right...I certainly have not seen someone say I'm cutting out sugar and a bunch of people chime in, "why you can eat twinkies all day and lose weight." Never seen that happen.....
but you can lose weight if all you do is eat twinkies...*shruggs*
or even macdonalds...and you can hit macros with McDonalds.3 -
BillMcKay1 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »BillMcKay1 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I just think it's rude and wrong to assume that anyone WOULD do something akin to eating only Twinkies or needs to be informed how to eat healthfully or to assume he or she would not have the common sense to experiment with diet to eat in a more sating way if struggling with hunger. If someone asks for advice on nutrition or how to avoid hunger, I give it, but mostly I think figuring out how to spend your 1500 calories is something YOU are the expert on. I would find it really condescending and offensive if someone else went out of their way to tell me not to eat only Twinkies (or, as often happens here, that I must cut out "white foods" or some nonsense). I know what a healthful diet is, and I expect other adults do too, unless they tell me otherwise. It's not nearly as complicated as we sometimes try to make it.
For most people I think learning the nutrition side or the satiety side is the easy part (I know there are exceptions). For me, at least, the issue is never hunger or not knowing how to eat properly. It's that I like eating, on the one hand, and use food inappropriately, on the other.
See, I don't see that, What I often see on the boards here someone state for them, they find they can achieve their satiety and maintain their caloric goals by not eating "white foods" or cutting out sweets or going low carb or whatever it is they find works for them, and without fail someone shows up to tell them they are wrong and it's all and only CICO blah blah blah. That is the CICO talk I see on here daily I think is very unhelpful.
Yes it's CICO, but they find it easier to achieve CICO balance by not eating those foods, more power to them.
The scenario you lined out literally does not happen ever.
right...I certainly have not seen someone say I'm cutting out sugar and a bunch of people chime in, "why you can eat twinkies all day and lose weight." Never seen that happen.....
Telling someone they don't have to cut out sugar is quite a bit different than "they are wrong and it's all just CICO blah blah blah".
They are wrong if they think they HAVE to cut out sugar to lose weight.3 -
We eat too much because we aren't active enough (mentally and physically). We don't eat enough because we don't take the proper time and don't eat frequently enough.
On the other side, we don't feel like being active because we consume too many toxins and not enough of the nutrients our body needs.
Good questions to ask are, "What is food?" and "What is are the right activities (mental and physical) I need to be doing?"2 -
Can you name the toxins?3
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We eat too much because we aren't active enough (mentally and physically). We don't eat enough because we don't take the proper time and don't eat frequently enough.
On the other side, we don't feel like being active because we consume too many toxins and not enough of the nutrients our body needs.
Good questions to ask are, "What is food?" and "What is are the right activities (mental and physical) I need to be doing?"
We're not talking about typical overeating or typical hunger here. We're talking about what drives some people to continue eating even knowing they need to stop, knowing it's harming themselves but doing it anyway.0 -
The short answer is hormones. Ghrelin, leptin, insulin, testosterone, etc. And one's sensitivity to those hormones (or lack thereof). It becomes easy to over eat if your brain doesn't even get the message you've had way more to eat than you need. There's obviously more to it than this, but hormones have a lot to do with it. It's why young men can so easily stay thin--tons of testosterone.2
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Agree - hormones, and that the sensation of being satisfied does not necessarily equate to the calories needed.
I'm a healthy eater, have been for a long time. I can't eat chocolate, desserts, etc and I very rarely crave chips or anything like that. But I still gain weight, I overeat on vegetables, fruit and nuts. I've just started doing the 21 Day Fix portion control, and the difference in what I thought was a serving, compared to the tub, is huge. So now I'm finally losing weight, not really changed my diet at all (except portion sizes) but I'm hungry all the time. Hungry when I go to bed, hungry when I wake up. Only not hungry for about an hour after I eat (when I feel stuffed) then hungry again.
I've been doing this for 10 days, and I'm not sure how I will be able to keep it up if I continue to feel like this. I can imagine that for someone with a less healthy diet, whose food choices would be even more restricted than mine would be able to do it without being discouraged and bingeing.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »BillMcKay1 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I just think it's rude and wrong to assume that anyone WOULD do something akin to eating only Twinkies or needs to be informed how to eat healthfully or to assume he or she would not have the common sense to experiment with diet to eat in a more sating way if struggling with hunger. If someone asks for advice on nutrition or how to avoid hunger, I give it, but mostly I think figuring out how to spend your 1500 calories is something YOU are the expert on. I would find it really condescending and offensive if someone else went out of their way to tell me not to eat only Twinkies (or, as often happens here, that I must cut out "white foods" or some nonsense). I know what a healthful diet is, and I expect other adults do too, unless they tell me otherwise. It's not nearly as complicated as we sometimes try to make it.
For most people I think learning the nutrition side or the satiety side is the easy part (I know there are exceptions). For me, at least, the issue is never hunger or not knowing how to eat properly. It's that I like eating, on the one hand, and use food inappropriately, on the other.
See, I don't see that, What I often see on the boards here someone state for them, they find they can achieve their satiety and maintain their caloric goals by not eating "white foods" or cutting out sweets or going low carb or whatever it is they find works for them, and without fail someone shows up to tell them they are wrong and it's all and only CICO blah blah blah. That is the CICO talk I see on here daily I think is very unhelpful.
Yes it's CICO, but they find it easier to achieve CICO balance by not eating those foods, more power to them.
The scenario you lined out literally does not happen ever.
It has happened over and over and over. The people who were doing this most bombastically seem to have created another board on which to do it, thank heavens.8 -
tiny_clanger wrote: »Agree - hormones, and that the sensation of being satisfied does not necessarily equate to the calories needed.
I'm a healthy eater, have been for a long time. I can't eat chocolate, desserts, etc and I very rarely crave chips or anything like that. But I still gain weight, I overeat on vegetables, fruit and nuts. I've just started doing the 21 Day Fix portion control, and the difference in what I thought was a serving, compared to the tub, is huge. So now I'm finally losing weight, not really changed my diet at all (except portion sizes) but I'm hungry all the time. Hungry when I go to bed, hungry when I wake up. Only not hungry for about an hour after I eat (when I feel stuffed) then hungry again.
I've been doing this for 10 days, and I'm not sure how I will be able to keep it up if I continue to feel like this. I can imagine that for someone with a less healthy diet, whose food choices would be even more restricted than mine would be able to do it without being discouraged and bingeing.
This is what we were just talking about with satiety - have you played around with your macros at all? Are you tracking fiber? Is your calorie goal appropriate? When I'm cutting calories, I'm a little uncomfortable for the first few days, but not frustratingly hungry the way I was before I got adequate fiber and protein. I definitely understand why people give up on weight loss when they're hungry all the time. It's miserable.5 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
But anyway, this is somewhat off the point I was trying to make. Often people complain (and it sounded as if you were) that people say "for weight loss calories are what matter" without also advising someone to eat a healthful diet or not to eat only Twinkies or the like. IMO, that's usually unnecessary and can be rude/condescending. I mean, you have no reason to think I lack knowledge of a healthful diet or don't eat one now -- why would you (hypothetically) tell me that I'd do better if I didn't eat only Twinkies. No one sensible (well, other than someone doing a demonstration or experiment) would eat only Twinkies, so you would be implicitly saying you assume I'm not sensible. I prefer to act as if other adults are smart enough to figure out something so simple as how to eat properly unless they ask for advice or thoughts.
That said, of course if someone asks (as people constantly do) "can I eat all junk food and lose" I will say "yes, but it's not great nutritionally or for health, for that of course you should eat a healthful, balanced diet." Most posts I see on that topic are similar to my answer, also.
I would say that the wide gulf between the guidelines of the USDA, WHO and other organizations, and what the average American actually eats, suggests that the majority of people don't know how to eat a healthful diet. Also, the people who think potatoes or sugar (or any one food) "make" them fat, really just proves the point that people don't understand nutrition at all.
I think there is a middle ground between "eat whatever you want" and "don't eat Twinkies all day, dummy". I would personally be much happier to see advice like "as long as you are meeting your nutrient requirements, it's fine to eat treats in moderation" (preferably something less awkward, but hopefully my meaning is clear)
I realize no one *means* that people can literally eat anything they want without consequences; I'm more worried about what people *hear*. Especially maybe a young stressed out person who uses nutrient poor "junk" food to cope and has decades to go before they will seriously start thinking about health and their own mortality. Losing all the weight you want while still eating a nutrient poor diet is going to seem attractive to some people. I maintained a healthy BMI for years on a low nutrient diet, and frankly, thought I was doing it "right".
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lexbubbles wrote: »
The depo-provera hormonal birth control injection can have an effect with a quarter of depo users gaining more than 5% of their bodyweight within 6 months over non-depo control groups (and those that gained continued gaining) when this wasn't seen in folk on other kinds of BC. Even other hormonal options, like the implant. But the implant is slow-release long-period and the depo is more short-term and aggressive so that might be why, I'm not sure (I was on it for a while before they put me in menopause and did indeed experience fairly rapid and aggressive weight gain that I managed to get rid of once I stopped having the shot)
But also relative levels (to each other) of estrogen and progesterone have an impact on metabolism and fat storage so if you're out of whack, or taking medication that makes it out of whack it can have a weight-gain effect in and of itself.
This wasn't entirely what you asked, I apologise, but yes hormones can have an impact on weight gain/loss (although I don't know about cravings and trigger foods being impacted. Maybe? I mean, pregnancy cravings are a thing, but whether that's because hormones I have no idea)
I like the posts and agree with most of the posts you have posted on this thread @lexbubbles
For me, the difficulty of course is with calculating MY CICO- no not with education as I am highly educated and know the concepts of calories and the deficit.
For me the issue is figuring out what my deficit should be and how much I burn with my health issues, I have two issues that affect my metabolism and they both have to deal with hormonal issues that affect my metabolism. One is hypothyroidism- where my thyroid is underactive therefore my metabolism is lower than others or not working properly, and PCOS- which also comes with (in my case) insulin resistance. With PCOS my estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone levels are all out of whack- and that too affects my "cravings" personally, I don't know if others have experienced this with PCOS but I do. I have very bad cravings for carbs- even if I eat adequate amounts of carbs with vegetables, I still crave the bread, potatoes, tortillas, beans, sugar, candy, etc high carb foods. These two issues have made it very hard for me to discover what my macros should be- I have tried LCHF- which many of the PCOS'ers in the PCOS forums have had success with, I have tried just doing CICO- and lowering my calories to what a normal person would if they didn't have these two issues and just sticking to macros that MFP gave me to lose 2lbs a week (given I am on meds for both my issues, I thought this would work,It didn't). I had finally found my macros that worked for me and managed to lose 70lbs, and am now struggling once again to get back to those macros, re-fight my carb cravings and get back off the 30lbs I gained back over the holidays.
Why did I become obese? Yes I am still obese but have been at this for a while and educating myself every day on what will and does work for me as far as weight loss. But I became obese for some of the many reasons people have shared here. Childhood issues where all "family time" and "happy memories" surrounded food, self esteem issues in adulthood steming from my childhood but all of these can be and have been dealt with, and are still being dealt with. My brother in fact was obese for most of our childhood- why? Because he got attention that way- all of our family would remark on how amazing it was that he could eat that much. And it wasn't an omg- how can you eat that much.... it was almost a praise of- wow! That boy can eat! As if it were a healthy and absolutely good thing- NOT. Both he and I still struggle with weight control issues.
I also agree with @lexbubbles in the depo shot issue- I was at a healthy weight as a teenager (a result of not eating very much which leads me to believe I should have been diagnosed with PCOS at a much younger age given my odd cycles and weight issues even then) but when I got the depo shot I gained 60lbs in just 3 months. And that along with my 3 babies- I have been struggling to take it and more excess off ever since.
And I for one, completely believe that food addiction is a thing. In my lifetime I have been through and seen some very bad things just from where I was raised and what was available there.
I have used and done some things that most "experts" say are highly addictive in my younger teenage years that I have been able to drop cold turkey and never do again. Smoking is one of these things- many many many people struggle with smoking and are unable to stop the addiction to nicotine- but I was able to stop smoking- no problem. Even stop vaping with nicotine- no problem. I have done other more highly addictive things for several of my teenage years- and was able to stop them- even things that made me feel much better (or gave me a bigger dopamine release) than food ever has. But food for me personally has been a much more difficult thing to stop and to control. I don't know why this is- and I am sure there will be many opinions about it- but I find it difficult for some to try to say food addiction is not a thing only because they have not experienced it.
Edited to take out the ^^^ this as my post took longer to type and by the time it posted it was no longer under what I read4 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »There have been some very insightful posts here.
From what I've gathered, some people feel a stronger pull towards food than others, which seems to stem from psychological roots. For these ones, it can be harder to control CI when food is often on the mind, when childhood experiences numbed their hunger/satiety signals, or when eating is a way to self-soothe, or something else entirely.
I think some probably feel a stronger pull just physically too, in the absence of actual hunger. I know the reverse is true, as I've known people who simply don't care about food (obviously they would if they experienced actual hunger, but with food abundant they seem uninterested in it).
I also think some people are probably more prone to certain kind of habitual attachments. Some people seem to feel very firm about being hungry or not, eating at particular times, so on, whereas others of us seem much more habit based. I know the schedule I eat on doesn't matter much to me, but I want to eat when I'm in the habit of eating, and when I build up a habit or association it can feel very hard to change and I'll constantly want to eat when I'm used to doing so. Change the habit and that goes away.
I agree with this too- it kinda goes along with the end of my post that some feel (me) a stronger pull towards food. I have experienced this as well in my life. I have friends even that "forget to eat" their words. And while I have done this I can't imagine doing it all the time like they seem to.1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »So fruits and veg, plain roasted potatoes, plain pasta are issues?
Most who claim to have issues with carbs don't have issues with these foods. They have issues with some (not all) highly palatable foods that are partly carbs, partly fat. The fat is typically an important part -- most popular trigger foods are either carbs, fat, salt or carbs (including sugar) and fat. Also, the withdrawal thing makes no sense if one is still eating carbs -- how much did you reduce?
...
I don't see any actual physical differences between the foods people claim to be addicted to and foods they are fine with (for example, basically the same macros or even ingredients as others in many cases), which is why I think using the term addiction makes no sense. It's like claiming to be addicted to pinot but not cabernet.
I agree with this. Most of the times when people say they can't stop eating "carbs", they mean pizza, pasta (usually with olive oil or cream sauce or both), cookies, cakes, and other rich desserts. All of these things have significant amounts of fat in them.
I had to cut fat recently for gallbladder issues, and that meant all those rich desserts were out. Now I eat a diet that is about 65-70% carbs, and I really don't crave much of anything. Sure, if I see cake, I'll want it, but the foods I can eat now, including the carbs, don't cause me any trouble. I even eat pure maple syrup on my oatmeal, and add white sugar to desserts sometimes. I like it, but I don't crave it. I still eat some fat, too. And I use cocoa powder. I am fine with all of these things, it's the insanely tasty and rewarding result of combining them that makes them an issue for me.
I spend time on low fat forums as well as MFP, and I hear almost the exact same things that the low carb adherents say - once the high fat foods (same list as above) are removed from the diet, the appetite "normalizes" and cravings tend to go away.
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MakePeasNotWar wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
But anyway, this is somewhat off the point I was trying to make. Often people complain (and it sounded as if you were) that people say "for weight loss calories are what matter" without also advising someone to eat a healthful diet or not to eat only Twinkies or the like. IMO, that's usually unnecessary and can be rude/condescending. I mean, you have no reason to think I lack knowledge of a healthful diet or don't eat one now -- why would you (hypothetically) tell me that I'd do better if I didn't eat only Twinkies. No one sensible (well, other than someone doing a demonstration or experiment) would eat only Twinkies, so you would be implicitly saying you assume I'm not sensible. I prefer to act as if other adults are smart enough to figure out something so simple as how to eat properly unless they ask for advice or thoughts.
That said, of course if someone asks (as people constantly do) "can I eat all junk food and lose" I will say "yes, but it's not great nutritionally or for health, for that of course you should eat a healthful, balanced diet." Most posts I see on that topic are similar to my answer, also.
I would say that the wide gulf between the guidelines of the USDA, WHO and other organizations, and what the average American actually eats, suggests that the majority of people don't know how to eat a healthful diet. Also, the people who think potatoes or sugar (or any one food) "make" them fat, really just proves the point that people don't understand nutrition at all.
There's some truth to this, but I have a couple of alternative thoughts.
First, I don't really believe people don't know what a good diet looks like if they think about it. I do think that a lot of people don't want to eat a healthful diet, because they think they don't like vegetables, especially, or because they are TOO restrictive as to what they define as healthful (all stereotypical diet food -- personally I rarely ate skinless, boneless chicken breast when losing, although I do love and eat lots of fish). The number of "I'm picky and won't eat vegetables" posts on MFP from adults has been mind-boggling and eye-opening for me. Similarly a surprising number of people claim to ONLY like "junk food" (which seems to mean to them sweets, pizza, and fast food, mostly). And lots of people just don't know how to cook or dislike doing it, so live on cheap purchased stuff.
Second, even if it's possible people are shockingly uneducated on nutrition, I think it's politer to assume until they ask that they are knowledgeable enough, as I would find it terribly offensive for someone to assume I was too stupid or ignorant to know how to eat a nutritious diet, without any more evidence than that I wanted to lose weight. I feel this way about most things -- evidence shows that Americans on average are shockingly uninformed about current affairs, events in other countries, and how our government works, but I will give people the basic respect of assuming they know stuff like who the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is and not condescendingly inform them as if I believed I was more informed than them unless they asked me or made it clear they had no idea what I was talking about. (I really hate being informed of something I think is obvious and general knowledge, makes me wonder why the person I am talking to thinks I wouldn't know that, so I am sensitive to this. It is important to me to treat others as informed and intelligent as much as possible.)I think there is a middle ground between "eat whatever you want" and "don't eat Twinkies all day, dummy". I would personally be much happier to see advice like "as long as you are meeting your nutrient requirements, it's fine to eat treats in moderation" (preferably something less awkward, but hopefully my meaning is clear)
Yeah, when the question is asked that's what I say and I think what most say.I realize no one *means* that people can literally eat anything they want without consequences; I'm more worried about what people *hear*. Especially maybe a young stressed out person who uses nutrient poor "junk" food to cope and has decades to go before they will seriously start thinking about health and their own mortality. Losing all the weight you want while still eating a nutrient poor diet is going to seem attractive to some people. I maintained a healthy BMI for years on a low nutrient diet, and frankly, thought I was doing it "right".
I just don't think anyone could possibly misunderstand the advice without really trying to, and if someone decides not to eat vegetables ever (or to try and do 1200 on mostly sweets), that's a personal choice and the person will probably figure it out over time or just isn't ready.
I've told the story a few times of someone I know who lost 100 lbs starting from a basically all fast food diet (the one person I've known who eats like that, she knew it was messed up, there were reasons). When she finally decided to lose she wasn't read to change her diet, so just reduced calories and improved her health and weight that way. After doing that for a while she got to a point where she was ready to start doing some cooking and eating some healthier stuff (she wasn't getting the salads) and did. I think for a lot of people it's a process and they do what they feel like they can. Me lecturing them on how they should be eating isn't useful -- figuring out an eating plan that works for you is really a pretty individual thing. (This is why diet evangelism always annoys me too.)3 -
BillMcKay1 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I just think it's rude and wrong to assume that anyone WOULD do something akin to eating only Twinkies or needs to be informed how to eat healthfully or to assume he or she would not have the common sense to experiment with diet to eat in a more sating way if struggling with hunger. If someone asks for advice on nutrition or how to avoid hunger, I give it, but mostly I think figuring out how to spend your 1500 calories is something YOU are the expert on. I would find it really condescending and offensive if someone else went out of their way to tell me not to eat only Twinkies (or, as often happens here, that I must cut out "white foods" or some nonsense). I know what a healthful diet is, and I expect other adults do too, unless they tell me otherwise. It's not nearly as complicated as we sometimes try to make it.
For most people I think learning the nutrition side or the satiety side is the easy part (I know there are exceptions). For me, at least, the issue is never hunger or not knowing how to eat properly. It's that I like eating, on the one hand, and use food inappropriately, on the other.
See, I don't see that, What I often see on the boards here someone state for them, they find they can achieve their satiety and maintain their caloric goals by not eating "white foods" or cutting out sweets or going low carb or whatever it is they find works for them, and without fail someone shows up to tell them they are wrong and it's all and only CICO blah blah blah. That is the CICO talk I see on here daily I think is very unhelpful.
Yes it's CICO, but they find it easier to achieve CICO balance by not eating those foods, more power to them.
{{Thank you }}4 -
I don't see anyone here saying that anyone should eat foods they prefer not to eat or ignore things like satiety. That seems like a strawman. If someone said "I do better eating low carb, because I'm less hungry," I'd say great. But I have been in numerous threads where OP asks a question and posters drop in and say "you should keep carbs under 50 g (or 100 or whatever)" or "cut out processed foods" (always from people who actually eat processed foods, of course) or "no white foods" or "cut out processed sugar."
(Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm reading the "thank you" as a statement that Bill is standing up against something going on here that I don't see at all and would never do, personally. I tell people they don't NEED to do certain things to lose, but only when they seem to think it's necessary ("I know I should not eat this but sometimes I slip"). If someone says "I'm trying this modification to my diet," their business.)
But again, this all stems from Bill's apparent misreading of my post, as I was responding to his suggestion that it's somehow bad to say "calories are what matter for weight loss" without presuming to advice someone on how to eat. I think assuming -- without a specific question -- that someone else is clueless about nutrition and needs my advice is rude and condescending.3 -
The short answer is hormones. Ghrelin, leptin, insulin, testosterone, etc. And one's sensitivity to those hormones (or lack thereof). It becomes easy to over eat if your brain doesn't even get the message you've had way more to eat than you need. There's obviously more to it than this, but hormones have a lot to do with it. It's why young men can so easily stay thin--tons of testosterone.
@rontafoya
Honest question, I am truly curious, not trying to be snarky or rude, and maybe you know the answer maybe you don't but if you do I would be interested to know- you state "It's why young men can so easily stay thin -- tons of testosterone.
If testosterone is what makes young men thin- why does it make young(er) women over weight for those of us with PCOS?
In PCOS we have high testosterone- yes some as high as young men- which complicates things for us and makes many of us (no not all of us) but many of us over weight and struggle to lose weight.
This may be a post for the PCOS forums but since the original was posted here I thought I would reply here.1 -
The short answer is hormones. Ghrelin, leptin, insulin, testosterone, etc. And one's sensitivity to those hormones (or lack thereof). It becomes easy to over eat if your brain doesn't even get the message you've had way more to eat than you need. There's obviously more to it than this, but hormones have a lot to do with it. It's why young men can so easily stay thin--tons of testosterone.
@rontafoya
Honest question, I am truly curious, not trying to be snarky or rude, and maybe you know the answer maybe you don't but if you do I would be interested to know- you state "It's why young men can so easily stay thin -- tons of testosterone.
If testosterone is what makes young men thin- why does it make young(er) women over weight for those of us with PCOS?
In PCOS we have high testosterone- yes some as high as young men- which complicates things for us and makes many of us (no not all of us) but many of us over weight and struggle to lose weight.
This may be a post for the PCOS forums but since the original was posted here I thought I would reply here.
Testosterone impacts men and women differently, although it isn't actually (directly) the high T levels in PCOS that cause weight gain.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/315045-high-testosterone-in-women-weight-gain/1 -
Men have much higher muscle mass and strength. Burns more energy. Women's systems don't handle extra testosterone well at all!0
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