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Metabolism privilege
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magnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »Seems a pointless debate, given what we know about the actual distribution of resting metabolic rates.
Pointless maybe if this were a reality-based debate looking at what should we do IF this is ever found to be true.
But I guess I don't view it as pointless if we're looking at a discussion about attitudes and ethics that involve people and losing weight, more. Such as, our own beliefs about other people, especially from the perspective of how we think about/treat them if we have known differences. Especially known differences that mean their experience of weight loss may not be the same as our own.
That's more what I was interested in discussing, not 'whether this could ever happen,' if that makes sense?
No, I'm not saying your hypothetical question is a pointless debate. I quoted the part that was specifically a pointless debate:
^That has been studied. It is an empirical question. There just doesn't exist the vast differences in human rest metabolism.but how much it impacts one's ability to gain or lose weight is debated, from what I've seen.
I see a point in arguing using facts, but I don't see a point in arguing actual facts. It is a fact that a statistical sample shows 96% of the human propulation falls withing a 10-16% difference from a mean in calories.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE 4%???????? Compassion.
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But given that we are pretending, what difference does it make? Rather than the hypothetical, I think we can focus on real struggles people have already, as janejellyroll pointed out.
Mostly I was interested in the question because, I suppose, while talking about real struggles is absolutely helpful, sometimes talking about pretend ones makes it easier to talk about certain issues, or to divorce ourselves from certain emotional issues and look at things differently. Like, when a book that wants to bring about discussions about gender issues is about a hypothetical world when men and women have opposite experiences in the society than they do in the real world. It sometimes helps avoid some of our hot buttons so we can talk about some of the interesting parts, I think, you know?Also, exercise is about fitness and health, so someone with a high metabolism still should be working out. And someone with a low metabolism wouldn't need professional help just for that reason, or even need to exercise more. As someone else noted, there's no reason hunger levels wouldn't go along with metabolism (in fact lots and lots of things determine hunger levels, but it's clearly not the same for someone who needs 1500 cals a day to eat 1200 as someone who needs 3000 cals a day).
Exercise is about that, yes, but there's other stuff that's always involved in weight loss, yeah? Like, there could be societal pressures about eating or not eating in social situation, time issues on how long it takes to work off calories and how that impacts other areas of your life (child care, time spent at work), and so on. That can sometimes be part of the discussion as well.This is already the world in which we live, since people are different. All we know is that you need a calorie deficit to lose and what things worked for us. I never assume the things that helped me maintain a calorie deficit would work for others, but I can suggest ideas to think about and mention what helped me, especially if my struggles were with similar things.
Also, we don't know how much others are struggling -- some don't talk as much about their struggles, after all. That someone seems to have lost weight easily doesn't mean they didn't struggle with lots of things while doing it, or didn't struggle for years before it clicked, etc.
Yeah, absolutely, we live in a world where everyone's struggles are different from each other, and we never know what other people experience. But that's why this is interesting to me - what if we did? What if we knew a specific struggle that people had, one way or the other.
Because while it is awesome that you view others and their struggles that way, it's not how everyone does, so I think it's a neat thought experiment to consider the idea. Even if it's just to consider: what would a person's problems be IF this were true. Because sometimes, that might bring up things that are true for others that we might not have thought of otherwise.
But I can see where this type of discussion wouldn't really be all that interesting for you.0 -
This reminds me of when I was starting out and started losing weight and my wife wanted to jump on board but initially was saying things about how unfair it was that I didn't even need to exercise and I could lose weight with 2,000 calories while she could only eat 1300 unless she exercised.
To her the 2,000 number was, OMG...that's so awesome and so much food. For me it was more like, *kitten*...I'm friggin' hungry...only 2,000 calories?
She finally figured out that it was all relative...I was on a 500 calorie cut...she was on a 500 calorie cut. We both had to sacrifice to lose weight and it wasn't really any easier for me to cut 500 calories than it was for her.15 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »This reminds me of when I was starting out and started losing weight and my wife wanted to jump on board but initially was saying things about how unfair it was that I didn't even need to exercise and I could lose weight with 2,000 calories while she could only eat 1300 unless she exercised.
To her the 2,000 number was, OMG...that's so awesome and so much food. For me it was more like, *kitten*...I'm friggin' hungry...only 2,000 calories?
She finally figured out that it was all relative...I was on a 500 calorie cut...she was on a 500 calorie cut. We both had to sacrifice to lose weight and it wasn't really any easier for me to cut 500 calories than it was for her.
Exactly. You, being a larger human than your spouse, will get more calories0 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »
No, I'm not saying your hypothetical question is a pointless debate. I quoted the part that was specifically a pointless debate:
I understand now - you were commenting on the the debate about metabolism, that I referenced, being pointless, based on the current evidence, yes?
So sorry, totally misunderstood what you were saying!
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cwolfman13 wrote: »This reminds me of when I was starting out and started losing weight and my wife wanted to jump on board but initially was saying things about how unfair it was that I didn't even need to exercise and I could lose weight with 2,000 calories while she could only eat 1300 unless she exercised.
To her the 2,000 number was, OMG...that's so awesome and so much food. For me it was more like, *kitten*...I'm friggin' hungry...only 2,000 calories?
She finally figured out that it was all relative...I was on a 500 calorie cut...she was on a 500 calorie cut. We both had to sacrifice to lose weight and it wasn't really any easier for me to cut 500 calories than it was for her.
This is exactly what I meant. While a 500 calorie deficit meal plan will look different for you than for your wife, a cut of 500 calories is a cut of 500 calories. It can be challenging, you have to sometimes deal with hunger or not eating everything you want to eat, no matter what your total calorie goal is.5 -
I need to get my woo count up, so I'm going to jump in here.
A little background, I took a spiritual gifts test at church some 20 years ago and scored ZERO in the compassion measurement.
Apparently, I struggle with having low compassion. <-sarcasm.
But seriously, for the vast majority of people, say 90% plus, we have a metabolism that is decidedly normal.
I got fat because I was lazy. Don't woo just yet. Lazy is not confined to just lying on the couch, eating bon-bons and watching daytime TV while collecting a government check.
My form of lazy was not being honest about what I was eating, how much I was eating, how much I weighed and what it was doing to me. I was intellectually lazy.
Making excuses about metabolism doesn't help weight loss.
It's my (unsympathetic view) that most people fall into this camp when it comes to metabolism and weight loss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9AdlhB18o
I do feel for those who truly have a medical issue. However, I think the actual number of people so afflicted is very small relative to the number claiming such an affliction.Would you have more compassion for people with low metabolism or less sympathy for those with high metabolism, when they are struggling? And so on.
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Thanksmagnusthenerd wrote: »Seems a pointless debate, given what we know about the actual distribution of resting metabolic rates.
https://examine.com/nutrition/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/One study[1] noted that one standard deviation of variance for resting metabolic rate (how many calories are burnt by living) was 5-8%; meaning 1 standard deviation of the population (68%) was within 6-8% of the average metabolic rate. Extending this, 2 standard deviations of the population (96%) was within 10-16% of the population average.[1]
Extending this into practical terms and assuming an average expenditure of 2000kcal a day, 68% of the population falls into the range of 1840-2160kcal daily while 96% of the population is in the range of 1680-2320kcal daily. Comparing somebody at or below the 5th percentile with somebody at or above the 95th percentile would yield a difference of possibly 600kcal daily, and the chance of this occurring (comparing the self to a friend) is 0.50%, assuming two completely random persons.
What does vary much more between people is appetite, level of activity, and responses to certain conditions, e.g., some people eat more when stressed while others increase activity, and there is even evidence that some people become more active as they eat less.
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But given that we are pretending, what difference does it make? Rather than the hypothetical, I think we can focus on real struggles people have already, as janejellyroll pointed out.
Mostly I was interested in the question because, I suppose, while talking about real struggles is absolutely helpful, sometimes talking about pretend ones makes it easier to talk about certain issues, or to divorce ourselves from certain emotional issues and look at things differently. Like, when a book that wants to bring about discussions about gender issues is about a hypothetical world when men and women have opposite experiences in the society than they do in the real world. It sometimes helps avoid some of our hot buttons so we can talk about some of the interesting parts, I think, you know?Also, exercise is about fitness and health, so someone with a high metabolism still should be working out. And someone with a low metabolism wouldn't need professional help just for that reason, or even need to exercise more. As someone else noted, there's no reason hunger levels wouldn't go along with metabolism (in fact lots and lots of things determine hunger levels, but it's clearly not the same for someone who needs 1500 cals a day to eat 1200 as someone who needs 3000 cals a day).
Exercise is about that, yes, but there's other stuff that's always involved in weight loss, yeah? Like, there could be societal pressures about eating or not eating in social situation, time issues on how long it takes to work off calories and how that impacts other areas of your life (child care, time spent at work), and so on. That can sometimes be part of the discussion as well.This is already the world in which we live, since people are different. All we know is that you need a calorie deficit to lose and what things worked for us. I never assume the things that helped me maintain a calorie deficit would work for others, but I can suggest ideas to think about and mention what helped me, especially if my struggles were with similar things.
Also, we don't know how much others are struggling -- some don't talk as much about their struggles, after all. That someone seems to have lost weight easily doesn't mean they didn't struggle with lots of things while doing it, or didn't struggle for years before it clicked, etc.
Yeah, absolutely, we live in a world where everyone's struggles are different from each other, and we never know what other people experience. But that's why this is interesting to me - what if we did? What if we knew a specific struggle that people had, one way or the other.
Because while it is awesome that you view others and their struggles that way, it's not how everyone does, so I think it's a neat thought experiment to consider the idea. Even if it's just to consider: what would a person's problems be IF this were true. Because sometimes, that might bring up things that are true for others that we might not have thought of otherwise.
But I can see where this type of discussion wouldn't really be all that interesting for you.
Several people in this thread have brought up really good points, but I’m not sure how useful it is to debate a hypothetical situation that doesn’t and won’t exist? To me, it’s kind of like asking someone in a job interview what they would do in a hypothetical, made up situation. People have ideas about how they MIGHT react, but how they actually react will probably be quite different. It’s more useful to ask “tell me about a time when you...”3 -
The assumption in this scenario is that struggle correlates with failure. Reviewing human behavior and history I would argue the opposite.
Struggle corresponds with success, but like everything there is a golden mean. The vast majority of the successful (regardless of the subject) are so as an output of resistance.
So while it may be nice to sit and think that one would be more successful in the world if reality were not as it were...allow me to suggest that the problem isn't with reality.3 -
cmriverside wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »Seems a pointless debate, given what we know about the actual distribution of resting metabolic rates.
Pointless maybe if this were a reality-based debate looking at what should we do IF this is ever found to be true.
But I guess I don't view it as pointless if we're looking at a discussion about attitudes and ethics that involve people and losing weight, more. Such as, our own beliefs about other people, especially from the perspective of how we think about/treat them if we have known differences. Especially known differences that mean their experience of weight loss may not be the same as our own.
That's more what I was interested in discussing, not 'whether this could ever happen,' if that makes sense?
No, I'm not saying your hypothetical question is a pointless debate. I quoted the part that was specifically a pointless debate:
^That has been studied. It is an empirical question. There just doesn't exist the vast differences in human rest metabolism.but how much it impacts one's ability to gain or lose weight is debated, from what I've seen.
I see a point in arguing using facts, but I don't see a point in arguing actual facts. It is a fact that a statistical sample shows 96% of the human population falls withing a 10-16% difference from a mean in calories.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE 4%???????? Compassion.
This is where I'll step in and point out the degree of error in instrumentation vastly exceeds 4%.
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cmriverside wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »Seems a pointless debate, given what we know about the actual distribution of resting metabolic rates.
Pointless maybe if this were a reality-based debate looking at what should we do IF this is ever found to be true.
But I guess I don't view it as pointless if we're looking at a discussion about attitudes and ethics that involve people and losing weight, more. Such as, our own beliefs about other people, especially from the perspective of how we think about/treat them if we have known differences. Especially known differences that mean their experience of weight loss may not be the same as our own.
That's more what I was interested in discussing, not 'whether this could ever happen,' if that makes sense?
No, I'm not saying your hypothetical question is a pointless debate. I quoted the part that was specifically a pointless debate:
^That has been studied. It is an empirical question. There just doesn't exist the vast differences in human rest metabolism.but how much it impacts one's ability to gain or lose weight is debated, from what I've seen.
I see a point in arguing using facts, but I don't see a point in arguing actual facts. It is a fact that a statistical sample shows 96% of the human population falls withing a 10-16% difference from a mean in calories.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE 4%???????? Compassion.
This is where I'll step in and point out the degree of error in instrumentation vastly exceeds 4%.
I was not serious. Anyway, if we took the 4% and subtracted the 10-16%, what would we get? Exactly. I just think this whole thread is silly, but leave it to MFP to argue over a hypothetical non-issue.
Carry on. I'll be over here with @witchaywoman81 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »For someone whose body somehow uses more calories per day, reaching a deficit may be as challenging for them as it would be for me. Hunger, cravings, tempting foods, the desire to sit on the couch instead of going for a walk, these are equal opportunity challenges. Someone who needs to eat 2,000 calories a day to lose a pound per week may find that to be as challenging -- or even more challenging -- as someone who needs to eat 1,500 calories a day to lose a pound per week.
I think this really needs to be stressed. We often assume that someone who burns more calories has an easier time with their deficit, because it's still more food. But if someone's body burns 2500 cals per day, it NEEDS 2500 cals per day, and that 500 calorie deficit is still a 500 calorie deficit and will be felt.
I think for small sedentary women, the extra problem with a reasonable deficit might be twofold: 1. It requires more effort and allows for less wiggle room to cover your nutritional bases on such a small amount of food and 2. A psychological issue of seeing those small calorie numbers and feeling deprived by comparison.
Being someone who has maintained on anything from 2300 calories/day when injured and barely able to walk to 3000+ calories/day training for an ultramarathon, my experience has reflected the above thoughts. It was easier mentally due to it being a higher volume of food and being able to fit in more enjoyable, higher calorie foods, but overall real hunger cues were similar. The hardest part was the sudden transition. I think some of the challenge too lies in being someone who is eating less than those around them.2 -
This is an entirely theoretical question. :-)
Everyone's heard of high metabolism vs. low metabolism, but how much it impacts one's ability to gain or lose weight is debated, from what I've seen.
For the purposes of this question, let's pretend it exists. Not only exists, but has a huge impact. So a person could have, essentially, 'metabolism privilege.' It's like people with a low metabolism are playing the game of 'losing weight' at the high difficulty setting, and people with a high metabolism are playing the game on the 'easy' setting.
So pretending that is true - I'm not saying it is, just for the purposes of this discussion - would knowing this alter how you think about losing weight with other people? And if so, how?
Like, would you trust people's dieting advice more if you knew they had the same metabolism as you did? Would you have more compassion for people with low metabolism or less sympathy for those with high metabolism, when they are struggling? And so on.
You also seem to be assuming that high metabolism is "good" while low metabolism is "bad". If they existed and had a huge effect all low metabolism would mean would be that you needed less food so your food bills should be lower. Why is that a bad thing?
Even in this scenario you could have high metabolism people who eat to much and are fat and low metabolism people who eat the right amount for them and are slim and fit. The issue isn't metabolism, even if metabolism varied. The issue isn't making the conscious effort to eat the amount that is right for your bodies needs.5 -
This is an entirely theoretical question. :-)
Everyone's heard of high metabolism vs. low metabolism, but how much it impacts one's ability to gain or lose weight is debated, from what I've seen.
For the purposes of this question, let's pretend it exists. Not only exists, but has a huge impact. So a person could have, essentially, 'metabolism privilege.' It's like people with a low metabolism are playing the game of 'losing weight' at the high difficulty setting, and people with a high metabolism are playing the game on the 'easy' setting.
So pretending that is true - I'm not saying it is, just for the purposes of this discussion - would knowing this alter how you think about losing weight with other people? And if so, how?
Like, would you trust people's dieting advice more if you knew they had the same metabolism as you did? Would you have more compassion for people with low metabolism or less sympathy for those with high metabolism, when they are struggling? And so on.
I think it's a fair hypothetical question to ask, however, I don't think it would change my approach very much. We all have subtle differences in everything that we do which often means that our path towards health will be different, in some ways, than others. This does not contradict the chemical science of weightloss, but that different approaches can be used to bring about the results of that science. There are practicalities in play that may make a method "work" for some while failing for others. It doesn't mean that anybody is particularly "privileged". It just means they have different paths.0 -
If you look at the introduce yourself and getting started thread and see all the people looking for their weight loss twin (same current/starting weight, same height, same goal weight) to go on "the journey" with them, it seems like an awful lot of people already who are more accepting of advice from people who likely have a similar BMR, so I'm guessing if we had an easy single metabolism "number," there would be a lot of people looking for their metabolism twins.
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »If you look at the introduce yourself and getting started thread and see all the people looking for their weight loss twin (same current/starting weight, same height, same goal weight) to go on "the journey" with them, it seems like an awful lot of people already who are more accepting of advice from people who likely have a similar BMR, so I'm guessing if we had an easy single metabolism "number," there would be a lot of people looking for their metabolism twins.
Good point, and the thousands of threads asking, "Women, how many calories do you eat?" Like every 5'3" woman can lose weight on exactly the same calories. It's a nuanced thing and people don't get that. My calorie needs and yours are different. Heck, mine are different day to day. It's a long game and just like with anything in life, I have to adjust and adapt. Even on any given day it can be harder or easier for me to stay within my goals depending on all kinds of factors. I am certain it's the same for most - if not every - person.
That's why it doesn't make any sense for me to try to empathize with or to even understand *your* level of hard. It's a moving target for me to stay on top of my own game and I have enough to worry about.
Eyes on your own plate. (OP)3
but I appreciate you explaining a little more what you were thinking about! 
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