the 'fat' gene?

[taff]

Anorexia isn't about the food, it's about control.

I dunno about the second child thing, my family are the other way around. Everyone but me is lot bigger, and i'm not exactly svelte.

[its hilly]

OWG..bear in mind that if you are eating less but exercising more you will be gaining muscle instead of fat, and muscle is (in theory) denser and heavier. So initialy you wont see the loss of weight, but should be starting to see your body tone up and change shape. Its fun to stick a tape measure round calves, thighs, waist and upper arms every couple of weeks and see the change. After twelve months of tai-chi x martial arts I weigh a little less, but the fat off my lower back and waist have gone..and the muscle on my arms and wrists are ..wow.
Brengirl I agree completely. I eat a fairly healty diet, but too much of it, as I now am massively less active due to ill health and simply dont burn it off. Cutting portion size has been the hardest thing for me, as it leaves me feeling starving although I've eaten a big meal. The old tip of drinking a full mug of water half an hour before meals has been the best help to make me feel full faster.

[Brengirl]

Anorexia isn't about the food, it's about control.

I dunno about the second child thing, my family are the other way around. Everyone but me is lot bigger, and i'm not exactly svelte.

Point taken but the result of taking control reduces the stomachs capacity.

[SarzWix]

Thank you BK You should never just say 'trust me' without explaining why

[Patchninja]

It seems to me that a lot of people underestimate the quantity of food they're eating. There are those programmes on TV where people always say "well, I don't eat fatty foods, or sweet things" and when you look at their weekly intake, it is appalling. We should be eating something like the size of a pack of cards of meat/fish per meal which is tiny really, especially when you see what people can put way for a Sunday roast, or the size of restaurant portions these days. Then filling up with green veg as well as others. No-one wants to weight their food, but if you did it for a week, you'd get a surprise. (Having lost 13kgs I know only too well).

And thank you, Bramble Killer for that wonderful, informed info.

[Capsid]

Inflammation will cause an immune response. An inflammation caused by a pathogen is an infection.

the fat. Adipose tissue is inflammed as it's full of lipids and it starts leaking stuff out. All that attracts macrophages (the body's response system) and the macrophages start a cascade of signals that attract other macrophages to try and stem the flow.

All this eventually leads to a disorder called the metabolic syndrome including but not limited to insulin resistance, raised triglyceride levels, high blood pressure etc.

Ok, but inflammation refers to an influx of cells which in this case is the macrophage response to a trigger. Are the macrophages responding to the lipids being leaked out of adipose cells? Not sure why macrophages would respond to fat other wise we would all be in a constant state of inflammation.

[Brengirl]

I thank you too BK. Putting it in layman's language the body is stressed. It is in turmoil.
If you can find the answer to this spiral the world will be so so grateful.

[Bramble_killer]

Thank you BK You should never just say 'trust me' without explaining why

Sorry m'am. Won't do it again

Ok, but inflammation refers to an influx of cells which in this case is the macrophage response to a trigger. Are the macrophages responding to the lipids being leaked out of adipose cells? Not sure why macrophages would respond to fat other wise we would all be in a constant state of inflammation.

Macrophages are responding to the lipids. So when an adipocyte (that's the fat cell) gets overladen, the body will have lots of triglycerides (that's the fat stuff) swimming around as it has nowhere to go. The adipocyte will also undergo lipolysis, trying to reduce the volume and metabolising it. The macrophages are expected to respond to the lipids (see http://www.jci.org/articles/view/28898).

However, the adipocytes also secrete adipokines (which are signalling molecules indicating the state of the body) and the signalling cascade will also attract macrophages.

In a normal body, you wouldn't have that much fat circulating around as you are quite efficient in sequestering it.

For more reading, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...3/?tool=pubmed

I thank you too BK. Putting it in layman's language the body is stressed. It is in turmoil.
If you can find the answer to this spiral the world will be so so grateful.

aw, shucks. Thanks. But I'm only a teeny tiny cog working in the world. I am however a fervent supporter of communicating science and I'm learning how to reach out to the general public.

[Jax]

I completely agree with (cant remember who) but when someone said about not realising the portion sizes. I have lost most of my weight now and although I have somewhat restricted my diet I am still eating things that theoretically (sp?) should make me put on weight. When I started paying attention to what I am eating I realised that the average portion of cereal is actually 3 or 4 times what we should be having. Part of the trouble I suppose is that the bowls are soooo big that a portion like tiny inside it.

[Hilary B]

Up to being 40 I could eat pretty much whatever I wanted and stayed a trim, slim, size 12. 40 to 50 I had to start watching what I ate as I noticed a susceptibility to gain weight if I overindulged. Since hitting 50 and beyond, I have to seriously restrict what I eat in order not to gain weight ('fraid I'm mostly losing the battle but hey-ho). Just thought I'd put that in out of interest to illustrate that the body changes with age, well mine does!

I started being less slim when I was expecting my second child. Up to then, from as far back as I can remember, I was more likely to be underweight than overweight.
As a child I didn't LIKE carb-rich food (some I still don't) but I got the lectures about eating what was on the plate. Once my metabolism shifted, my weight started to rise, and now I can't find an effective way of shifting it.
Yeah, sure there isn't "a single fat gene". Not many things are controlled by a single gene, but metabolic rate surely has a genetic component, so does appetite (and probably likes and dislikes in food), all of which affect weight indirectly. Even the ease with which one can say no to something you like may have some genetic influence.
It's very easy to talk about eating less and doing more, but those who don't have a weight problem (or who are successfully managing their weight problem) are either unaware of, or denying, the differences in difficulty which different people experience in following this rule!

[Brengirl]

In the bigger picture I too have an eating disorder. I am 5'4" of large frame and weigh give or take 10st. 6. My weight has never really varied but I now only eat one meal a day. I cannot explain how this came about but I truly do not feel hungry until about 5pm I realise that I may be doing my body harm but I cannot change.

[annacruachan]

Bramble Killer:
Thank you for taking the time to make this intelligible for us. I would be particularly interested in your research into the changes caused by a shift to a high fat diet.

HilaryB:
I do agree that we need to be aware that no one method works for everyone. Add to that restrictions caused by illness or disability, allergies and family circumstances and it proves to be more of an obstacle course than some are prepared to admit.

[Two_Sheds]

It seems to me that a lot of people underestimate the quantity of food they're eating.

... yes, and also underestimate how many calories are in the food they're eating. You only need to eat the equivalent of 2 biscuits a day more than your body needs to put on a stone a year (roughly)

To burn off a piece of cake, say 300 cals - you'd need to run, fairly fast, for half an hour (roughly)

You need fewer calories as you get older (a child needs roughly the same calories as an adult woman, about 2000 a day). I'm short & slightly built so I only need about 1400 cals a day to maintain a healthy weight: that's not much, and there's no room for snacks & sweets. I also exercise every day; if I drove a car instead of using my legs to get around, I'd get fatter or have to cut my food even more.

A lot of calories are hidden in drinks (squash, fizzy pop, booze)

Muscle burns more calories, so a lean muscular person can eat more than a fat person even if they aren't exercising. As you get older you lose muscle year on year, so you should reduce your calorie intake accordingly.

The more you eat, the more you want to eat: overeating is a really hard habit to break

[taff]

About the losing weight thing and how difficult it is....

I think these days that we're far too prone to over-exagerrating the difficulty in doing it. We blame magazines, and dieting constantly, and fat cells and a bit of everything really.

I think it is as simple as eating less and excercising more, this from a lifelong moaner of how difficult it is, it took a simple statement from my partner for meto really think about it. I used to have this mental fog about losing weight, and I would say, no, it isn't that simple, it's to do with image/time/money/magazines/comfort eating/food representing somethin it's not.

But it is simple. Food is fuel, nothing more or less. I truly think women make it more difficult that it actually is becasue of all the other stuff associated with it.

[Two_Sheds]

Food is fuel, nothing more or less.

That's how I treat it, just as fuel: but for a lot of people food is a comfort, a reward, a crutch, and that message is continually reinforced from a very young age (if you're good you can have sweets etc).