People that can eat as much as they want...

[TomGreen]

Can someone with a fast metabolism really eat as much as they please without putting on any weight? Or do they have a secret exercise routine they follow?

Is there more to this though? Do you have to be born with it? Can it be achieved later in life?

[EyelessCrow]

Growing up my best friend could eat any and any amount of food and never really gain a pound.

Your metabolism can be tied to the amount of movement you have in the day and your diet. However some people are more naturally prone to higher and more efficient metabolisms.

[Gestopft]

Some people just have naturally higher metabolisms, but people who exercise more also have higher metabolisms. As far as achieving it later in life, metabolism tends to drop as we get older, so you may increase it if you boost your fitness substantially, but don't expect it to stay at that level for long.

[Anium]

I'm fortunate enough to have a crazy high metabolism, i've never had a high % body fat. I eat what I like and do excercise on the side just because I like to stay fit, not because I need it.
I've gone periods during lazy winter months, when I wasn't working and just gaming, / doing whatever the fuck i wanted were i would do no excercise, couch potato type, eat and drink fuck load of everything, apart from fizzy drinks (hate that shit) and I didn't put on a kilo. I have to seriously try so hard to put on weight I would basically need to double my meal portions and I already have 3 big meals a day.
Metabolism is not something which improves later on in life, quite the opposite. You can improve it by regular excercise.

[Deleted]

im 22 and eat quite a bit and don't exercise all that much. most of the exercise i ever got was walking to work and back and walking around at work and never put on any weight, im still too skinny :P i just joined a gym last week though to exercise more and gain some muscle so im not a twig forever.

[Aliessil]

When I was younger I could eat as much as I liked, no problem. Most of the time I did a lot of exercise (played badminton competitively, was a badminton coach, mountain biking), but even during 6mths of being barely able to walk after a hit-and-run knackered my knee for a while, I still had no problem with weight.

That started changing in my late 20s, when I started gaining weight even though I was still doing tons of exercise, and I could never understand why. Then add in family and increasing demands at work, meaning less exercise (though I still did more than most) ...

Now in my 40s I've discovered I don't react well to wheat and sugar* though I never had a problem when I was younger. If I can keep off both I can lose about 3lbs/wk, but a personal pizza (4 slices) and bowl of ice-cream can undo a fortnight's work, even though it's well within my calorie requirements and all the other meals are clean. Add in a lot of international travel where it's hard to control what you eat, and it's a constant battle. I'm getting there though, slowly but surely ...

Anyway, this was more a warning for some of you youngsters - yeah you're fine now; doesn't mean you can rely on things staying that way as you get older.


* that's including pretty much all refined sugars, artificial sweeteners, etc. These days if I need something sweetened I stick to stevia or erithrytol, or small amounts of honey / maple syrup (whenever I can - not easy if you're relying on food from the hotel / restaurant).

[Fahrenheit]

It use to be pretty much every boy under the age of 20 when I was growing up. Anecdotal evidence, but my brother, myself, my best friend, and probably most of the boys in my grade ate like pigs when given the chance and we were all thin with the exception of the one or two fat kids in the grade... seems like more than half of the kids in my wife's class (elementary school teacher) are fat though... I guess too much video games and no sports, not sure.

[Rakaji]

There's a lot of myths surrounding metabolism that are widely accepted due to old (inaccurate or flawed) studies that were published - much like how spinach isn't a significant source of iron. It was a type-o on a can label, and the belief has stuck to this day.

Skinnier people actually have a slower "resting metabolism," meaning they burn fewer calories while at rest, because there's just less of you to burn. Your appetite is directly linked to what your brain is telling you you need to burn for the day, so the larger you get, the more your brain wants to eat, because the amount that you burn off while in a resting state goes up. What really matters is the amount of active functions you perform in a day that burn off the excess that you consume. If you simply keep eating more than what's required for your body to burn off, then you'll continue to gain more weight.

Also you'd be really surprised what drinking more water can do to help you burn off more weight. We're made up mostly of it for a reason, ya know.

[Kuja]

I've never gained weight noticeably from eating. No matter how much I eat or how unhealthy the food is, I stay a bit skinny. I don't even have any workout routines. But it's not a good thing as I would love to gain mass.

[Deleted]

Sure, genetics does play a part, of course. However, a lot of people who can eat as much as they want are simply smaller, and have smaller stomachs, and end up eating less and thinking they ate some huge amount. That's how a lap band surgery works, for example; smaller stomach, full quicker, eat less. They may also generally eat slower; it actually takes a good while for your body and brain to realize you're full, which is why you should eat a bit slower to avoid stuffing yourself.

When you're bigger physically, you obviously need more calories even when you're idle, and hence you need to eat more. This is exacerbated if you do sports, for example. So, you end up expending a lot more calories than some smaller guy who doesn't do any sports whatsoever. So, where the smaller guy can eat two peas and be happy, the big guy who does sports needs to eat a horse to keep his body going. Now, the thing about stomachs is that they stretch; if you stuff yourself, especially when you need a lot of food, you end up with a stomach that keeps stretching. This leads to you being able to eat more, and often people do.

These and a plethora of other things combined are the complex reason behind why some people do get fat, and these things are often forgotten by oh so many people who just love to shit on fat people. When you're some scrawny shit, well under 6' in height, well under 200lb in weight, and especially if you're some PC nerd who never really expends any energy on anything, it can feel really damn easy for you to keep in shape, which then can lead to you thinking that it should be just as easy for everyone else as well.

Albeit somewhat off-topic, or at least on a tangent, this is a good story, by the way: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/05/he...t2fit-lessons/

A personal trainer, who was basically bad at his job because he had no empathy towards or understanding of the people he was trying to whip into shape, decided to gain weight to see what the problem really was. He gained more than 70 pounds, then lost all of it, and did all of this during one year. Here's a quote from him:

The biggest thing [I learned] is that it's not just about the physical. It's not just about the meal plan and the workouts and those things. The key is the mental and the emotional issues. I realized those issues are real.

But, going back on metabolism and people who can eat as much as they want, I'd say the people who can eat as much as they want are for the most part quite small, and don't really need energy for anything, and hence they've always been satisfied by very little food.

[Deleted]

Most of the time people who claim to have a fast metabolism and "I can eat everything I want and not gain weight" hugely overestimate the amount they eat, and the actual kcal in that food.

[Deleted]

im 22 and eat quite a bit and don't exercise all that much. most of the exercise i ever got was walking to work and back and walking around at work and never put on any weight, im still too skinny :P i just joined a gym last week though to exercise more and gain some muscle so im not a twig forever.

22? You're still a kid, kid. When you're 40+ and can keep thin, then i'll congratulate you. Until then you still have kids cheat code to fitness.

[Spectral]

Metabolic conditions that cause people to genuinely be able to consume huge amounts of food without gaining weight are quite rare. The majority of the time, "I can eat whatever I want and not gain weight" just means that they don't want to eat enough food to gain weight. There's some really, really bizarre ideas about how big the SDev for metabolic rates are; these ideas are perpetuated by people massively misestimating how much food they actually consume (in either direction).

[Wildtree]

Can someone with a fast metabolism really eat as much as they please without putting on any weight? Or do they have a secret exercise routine they follow?

Yes they can, I am one of them...
I can eat mass amounts of stuff that would get other people fat, and it won't do anything to me.

[Spectral]

22? You're still a kid, kid. When you're 40+ and can keep thin, then i'll congratulate you. Until then you still have kids cheat code to fitness.

There's some diminishment in metabolic rate over time, but the biggest problem is people changing their habits for the worse. I'm 29 now, and I'm ~30 pounds lighter than I was when I was 17-21. Turns out being conscious of what you eat and running 60 miles/week tends to lead to weight loss.

[Deleted]

There's some diminishment in metabolic rate over time, but the biggest problem is people changing their habits for the worse. I'm 29 now, and I'm ~30 pounds lighter than I was when I was 17-21. Turns out being conscious of what you eat and running 60 miles/week tends to lead to weight loss.

You're just echoing what he said; people change their habits as they get older, and often there's a plethora of reasons for them doing so. You changed your habits towards the better, so you earned his congratulations. Typically, people don't, though.

[Spectral]

You're just echoing what he said; people change their habits as they get older, and often there's a plethora of reasons for them doing so. You changed your habits towards the better, so you earned his congratulations. Typically, people don't, though.

Perhaps I misread him - I thought he was saying that there's a huge diminishment in metabolism rather than that people just develop bad habits as they age and then blame their bad habits on age.

[Deleted]

Perhaps I misread him - I thought he was saying that there's a huge diminishment in metabolism rather than that people just develop bad habits as they age and then blame their bad habits on age.

Well, it could be that's what he was literally saying - depends on what he means by this "kids' cheat code."

Anyway, I meant you echoed what he said, even though it might've not been what he meant, in that as people get older they typically let themselves go. Not everyone, of course. Some young people get in shape as they get older. But, typically it's the other way around, and the reasons for that are quite varied.

[Mormolyce]

I suspect it relates to the amount of nervous energy you burn off rather than some magical metabolism.

Like, I'm constantly fidgeting if I have to sit down.

[Deleted]

Can someone with a fast metabolism really eat as much as they please without putting on any weight? Or do they have a secret exercise routine they follow?

Is there more to this though? Do you have to be born with it? Can it be achieved later in life?

My girlfriend can eat how much she want, she does not gain a pound. And she does not excercise.