When I read about people who has lost massive amounts of fat in a short amount of time, it always strikes me that these people have been lean before. That is they've been lean during their teenage years and gained pounds of fat since. Now I'm wondering if there's any difference in fat loss rate for people who has always been fat versus people who's just become fat. Any ideas on this one?

-Freddi

???? To 'just become fat' is ridiculous. THis is a result of bad eating for a good period of time. You arent born fat either, at least i dont think so.

As far as ur other ? goes, it is much easier to lose fat if ur muscular since muslcle raises metabolism.

You couldn't have been borned overweight, Thats not a reason to be fat.. I was once lean and skinny through out my childhood till I got around 12-13yrs old and I gained massive amount of weight and Right now im 229 and im trying to get rid of it all.

There's a very simple, biochemical fact. Eat more calories than you body uses, you'll store fat. Eat less, you'll burn it. People don't realize how little food it takes to become overweight. Poor nutritional choices, poor eating habits (that slow metabolism) are what create overweight individuals. I believe genetics plays a role in how your body responds to exercise, but in very few cases does it govern weight loss aspects.

Another simple, biochemical fact. 3,500 calories equals one pound of fat. Eat 3,500 calories too much, you've just put 1-lb of fat on your frame. Roughly 4-lbs. equals 1-inch on your waist. To anyone who's overweight, I'd challenge them to look at what they actually require to lose weight safely (12 times ideal body weight in calories, where I'm 148-lbs, caloric intake to lose weight should be around 1800 a day). Now, track what you normally eat daily for one week and compare it to your ideal weight loss caloric intake. It is an eye opening experience and a motivator for sure. I did it for one week, and found I'd eaten 1,700 extra calories. Due to slower metabolism from aging and a sedentary lifestyle/job, I was gaining roughly 1~2 lbs/month. That adds up quickly; in two years time, I'd added 30-lbs and found myself at 187-lbs (for 5' 6", that's fat).

Conversely, create a 500 calories per day deficit and you'll lose 1-lb a week. It takes little work/planning to do. Educate yourself on exercise and proper nutrition. There are thousands of resources on the Internet that anyone can use if that person is reasonably intelligent and applies common sense. This is a great place to start.

I know, of course, that no one is born fat. What I mean to say is that I've been fat since I was just a little child (maybe a year old). I've heard somewhere that the body only creates fat-cells up until after puberty and during pregnancy. So the people who gain during these periods of life actually has more such cells. They can always "dry out the fat" from these cells, but they will always have more of them. The body will always try to fill up these cells, so it's a continuos struggle to stay lean. As for people who gain fat after puberty, they don't have as much of these cells and therefore might have an easier time losing fat...
I know this sounds stupid, and I can't say I support the view. I was just wondering if you, who know more than me, have something to say about this.

-Freddi

When I read about people who has lost massive amounts of fat in a short amount of time, it always strikes me that these people have been lean before. That is they've been lean during their teenage years and gained pounds of fat since. Now I'm wondering if there's any difference in fat loss rate for people who has always been fat versus people who's just become fat. Any ideas on this one?

-Freddi

I was a big baby, a big child, and a big teenager. It wasn't until I was 17 that I became motivated to make a change. Unlike what you are saying, I noticed that the weight came off very easy. Dont get me wrong..I was prob over-motivated to lose weight to the point that it was unhealthy for me, but I lost about 40 lbs in around 2 months. Through the past 5 years or so, I have slowly gained back some of that weight, and I find it much harder now to lose the weight than it was the first time around.

I was a big baby, a big child, and a big teenager. It wasn't until I was 17 that I became motivated to make a change. Unlike what you are saying, I noticed that the weight came off very easy. Dont get me wrong..I was prob over-motivated to lose weight to the point that it was unhealthy for me, but I lost about 40 lbs in around 2 months. Through the past 5 years or so, I have slowly gained back some of that weight, and I find it much harder now to lose the weight than it was the first time around.


Well, if find this very interesting! Does anyone know why people experience such things? Can it just be coincidence?

-Freddi

I think there's probably some truth to that.

Although fat is fat, some people have naturally high metabolisms, and tend to be leaner.

I've been lean all my life, but over the years have gained about 25 lbs. of fat, which I just recently lost. I have to say, it was relatively easy for me, because I believe my body naturally wants to be lean.

Some pepole tend to store excess caloires easier than others.

Still, transformations can happen, and metabolisms can be kick started through exercise and proper nutrition.

I think Freddi was simply asking whether it's harder to lose fat if you've been overweight for like 20 years versus being overweight for only something like three years.

I don't think he was looking for a lecture on what fat is. ;)

I too wonder whether people who were overweight as a kid have a harder time slimming down. Being overweight before puberty might have something to do with it. I'll do a little research.

I think Freddi was simply asking whether it's harder to lose fat if you've been overweight for like 20 years versus being overweight for only something like three years.

I don't think he was looking for a lecture on what fat is. ;)

I too wonder whether people who were overweight as a kid have a harder time slimming down. Being overweight before puberty might have something to do with it. I'll do a little research.


As stated in my post above...

I was a fat kid...I found it easy to lose weight when I finally put my mind to it (at age 17).....eventually I gained back some of the weight....I find it much harder now (at age 23) to lose the weight than I did before.

Because you've been overweight most of your life does not change biological facts. They will not have a harder time losing weight. This is a mental barrier; it's a state of mind. If a person has been heavy for most of his life, he knows nothing else. This was my case.

Realize that the mind is a powerful weight loss tool.

I have been overweight since my early teens and got fatter since I left college 5/6 years ago. For most of my adult life, I have been 20 to 40+ lbs overweight. That didn't stop me from losing 40-lbs in three months last year. There's a mental connection, a barrier if you will, that has to be crossed. I too thought genetics damned me to a pot belly forever. I never thought I'd never have a flat stomach, and now I'm there. I never thought I'd see a 29" waist. I'm there. What an obese person needs to understand is that to change, it must be a committed change in lifestyle. You cannot simply try a diet to lose weight. To change your weight permanently, there's a permanent change in lifestyle that has to take place. I think most of us know that here, but there's a difference between knowing something and believing something.

For the last five years, I tried to lose weight. I failed every time. It wasn't until I committed myself to making a change, surrounded myself with the people and tools I needed to make the change, and then implemented my plan that I made the shift.

Belief and faith in one's path is the key. Without it, failure is a possibility (if not assured) every time.

Bluestreak...

I disagree in that I do believe there are many factors as to why people gain weight..one of them being genetic...some people just have a slow metabolism. Everyone has that friend who can eat whatever he wants and still have a sixpack. These people are genetically gifted. Unfortunatley, I am not one of those people. Another factor is your environment. I am italian. My family takes pride in cooking, eating, etc. When you grow up in an Italian household with your grandmother and mother shoving food in ur face, its is damn near impossible to stay thin. Now the combination of a slow metabolism and a bad environment equates to BEING OVERWEIGHT. In my case, I stayed this way until I was mature enough to look in the mirror and say..WTF am I doing. Once I flipped that switch in my head I found it easy to lose weight.

Getting to what Freddi was asking...I gave this a lot of thought as to why I found it easier to lose the initial weight that I did...and I think the answer is that it was just because I shocked my body. I had never dieted before and never made a real attempt at losing weight. Just like a when a person begins to weight train for the first time, gains are incedibile in the beginning. I think this is why weight loss came so easy the first time.

Fat cells tend towards immortality; when you get them, you've got them for life. The only way to remove them then is liposuction. Gaining and losing weight only changes the size of your fat cells.

That said, if you are very overweight, then your fat cells will divide to cope with the extra calories that are being laid down.

The rate of division of your fat cells is higher up to puberty than after, so someone who was a fat kid will have a greater number of fat cells than someone who got past puberty skinny.

Whether or not it is easier to lose weight if you were skinny or fat right after puberty is less clear. Calorie deficit will mean that you have to utilise your calorie stores, hence weightloss. I don't see how this can be different depending upon your number of fat cells. However, if you have 10 squillion fat cells, and you lose weight, these cells, even if they are emptied of their fat stores, will have a greater volume than 2 squillion emptied fat cells (in the guy who was skinnier after puberty). The weight of these cells is not 100% fat, so I believe that there is a price to pay for being very fat, then dropping weight as compared to being a bit overweight then dropping.

Your BF% might be the same, but you will have a thicker layer beneath your skin, and muscle definition could be harder to achieve.

Andrew.

I, too, come from a very Italian household and understand the "Italian" factor. My great-grandparents stepped off the boat from Sicily at Ellis Island in 1919... My family's world revolves around eating - and worse - it's almost wholly carbohydrates in all the pasta I used to eat. I save my cheat meals for when I know I'm going to my mom's house. My grandmother thinks I'm dying of some strange disease because I lost so much weight. Whenever I do eat there, I eat in moderation otherwise I literally feel sick; I can't physically ingest the meal portions I used to. I totally blame my former obesity on that "life revolves around food" mentality that my family propagated in me for most of my life. It was the cause of my misery and I changed my lifestyle to remove it as a factor.

I think you're missing my point (because I expressed it poorly). I do understand what you're saying and I do believe that there are those genetically gifted folks who can eat like crazy and not gain a pound. I know several folks who can eat like horses yet have that psuedo-magic ability to keep the weight off. Yet not a single one of them have defined muscularity. I don't think any of them are even cardiovasularly fit; they simply have high metabolisms that allow for vast amounts to be ingested while keeping body fat low.

And yes, there are those with slower metabolisms. Bottom line is, as we all know, it's possible to ramp up metabolism through diet and exercise. Sure, genetics provides a template for you, but you're not bound to it. Your genetics is your starting point, and it's the baseline that a person will revert to if you remove fitness from your life at some point. I think I proved that genetics can be overcome. I don't think there's a single male in my family who has less than 30% body fat. That fact didn't stop me from becoming what I wanted. I'm still not there, but I know by 7/1/2004, I will be.

in reply to one of the posts above, 1 lb of fat DOES NOT equal 3500 cals. If it was as simple as this, it would be much easier to explain weight loss/weight gain. Calories are not made equal, so there is a much bigger picture here. However, this ballpark figure DOES apply when ppl who are a bit highly overweight start working out, and can help guide them. As im sure ppl here will verify, the lower ur bf becomes, the more complicated losing even more fat becomes.

I think what CL117 says makes sense for me from a logical point of view. The fact that one can experience massive muscle gains during the first few weeks or months of weight training implies that the body is shocked by the strain put on the body. Why should this not be applicable to the bodyfat also? And thus the frist real attempt at loosing fat leads to great and fast progress... Speaking for myself, who has been kind of chubby all my life, I've tried to loose weight since the age of 12. It must be said that this was not what I consider a "real" attempt at fat loss, just plain "not eating right before going to bed" and eating fruit... If I try to apply CL117's idea to my experience, I would say that when I started eating clean and "really" trying to loose weight my body maybe didn't get the same "shock effect" as him because I've sort of always been on a diet... I don't know if this is possible?...
As for the initial question of this thread I think Andrew M came up with a satisfying answer for me... I thought I'd heard something like that somewhere... Thanks! :tu:

-Freddi

However, this ballpark figure DOES apply when ppl who are a bit highly overweight start working out, and can help guide them.

Precisely why I stated it. And since we have been speaking in terms of people who've been chronically overweight (as I was) within this thread, it is a helpful rule-of-thumb to adhere to.

I'll take a different tack on this than everyone else has so far. I think if you've been fat your whole life then odds are that you have a genetic predisposition.
Everyone knows a lean friend that eats whatever they want and stays lean. Bodybuilders always talk about "good genetics" for the stars of their sport. I think it is a big factor.
Of course you can always lose weight and look better with motivation, but I absolutely agree that it's harder for someone whose genetics tend toward overwieght than for someone whose genetics are programmed for leanness and muscularity.
Like any sport, its a factor. I can practice football and become a good quarterback, but I'm pretty sure a Manning is going to be better than me with the same training. Just don't let it discourage you. It's about becoming the best you can become. You probably don't have the potential to win bodybuilding championships but that doesn't mean you can't wow everyone at the beach.

Bunman... I totally agree...when I made my transformation (40lbs in under 2 months) I had to starve myself to lose weight. I ran about 5 miles a day and ate about 3 meals a day consisting of plain tuna and lettuce. Obviously I dont reccomend this anyone at all...it was very unhealthy and has probably hindered my metabolism to this day. But ever since that two month crash diet, I have made it a point to learn as much as I can about bodybulding and dieting. For the past 5 years I have tried to maintain a healthy diet and bobybuilding routine the right way. Slowly, I have gained back a portion of the weight that I had lost. I know I am doing things right, but the fat just doesnt seem to go away anymore. I have conluded that this is caused by 1 of 2 things:

1) My unhealthy crash diet has totally screwed up my already horrible metabolism to the point where I must seek medical attention to correct my problem.

2) I am genetically predispositioned to be a certain build..and the only way to change that predispoition is to put my body under severe stress (such as the crash diet I went on 5years ago).

More than likely its a combo of the two.

You probably don't have the potential to win bodybuilding championships but that doesn't mean you can't wow everyone at the beach.

I think I can live with that! :D

I'm going to continue working hard to get there. Somehow the thought that my genetics are not the bodybuilder-type gets me motivated... It's strange, I know... :p

-Freddi