Interesting show on the physiology of the obese

[Lyrica]

on the natgeo channel tonight called the "Science of Obesity". Basis is a simple formula-consume more calories than you expend, you gain weight. It also says an obese man at 40 has only consumed 25 calories more daily? throughout the years than a normal weight person. Also discusses how rapid weight loss increases hormones that increase hunger to return the body to its setpoint in weight and this is a big factor why weight loss can't be maintained easily.

[AskTheTrainer]

Originally Posted by Lyrica

on the natgeo channel tonight called the "Science of Obesity". Basis is a simple formula-consume more calories than you expend, you gain weight. It also says an obese man at 40 has only consumed 25 calories more daily? throughout the years than a normal weight person. Also discusses how rapid weight loss increases hormones that increase hunger to return the body to its setpoint in weight and this is a big factor why weight loss can't be maintained easily.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...-3082/Overview

As long as Dr. Brady Barr isn't yelling in the background should be interesting

I have nat-geo on 24/7 in the background and that guy (Animal Doctor) always gets my attention by screaming, lol

[Snarlla]

Thanks for posting this. I'm not a trainer, but very interested in obesity research. I set it up to tivo and watched it the other day.

It also says an obese man at 40 has only consumed 25 calories more daily? throughout the years than a normal weight person.

I thought when they mentioned this in the program it was a little misleading. I think it was actually a 40 year old man 100 lbs overweight had only consumed an average of 25 cals daily over what he burned. That's a bit different than '25 cals over what the normal person consumes' right? I mean say you have a 5'11" man at 180 lbs who is fairly sedendary. He's going to need in the range of 2100 calories to maintain (according to some random calorie calculator I found online). OTOH, a 40 year old man at the same height and with the same lifestyle, but at 350 lbs. can eat appx 3000 calories and maintain. So while the 350 lb man would continue to gain weight if he ate an excess of 3000 calories a day, he's still eating about 1000 more calories a day than the slimmer man to maintain. If that makes sense...

The way they explained it in the program almost made it sound like you could get obese by eating an extra apple every 3 days (the example they used in the program).

The stuff about the sumo wrestlers was very interesting! Also the part about Cushing's Disease. That boggles my mind a bit. How does that work? Someone can operate at an extreme caloric deficit, but still gain massive amounts of weight just because of cortisol!?! That just blows my mind.