While the concept of a “fast metabolism” might be oversimplified, individual variations in metabolic rate are real and significant. Metabolism encompasses all the processes your body uses to convert food into energy and maintain vital functions. Factors like genetics, age, muscle mass, and hormone levels can influence how efficiently someone burns calories. For instance, people with more muscle mass generally have a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR) because muscle tissue requires more energy to maintain than fat tissue.
Moreover, hormonal differences, such as thyroid function, can significantly impact metabolism. While lifestyle factors like diet and physical activity play crucial roles in managing weight, metabolic rate can affect how easily someone gains or loses weight. So, while it’s important to focus on overall lifestyle, dismissing metabolic differences as insignificant overlooks a key aspect of how our bodies process energy.
Someone with a fast metabolism or fast BMR burns a lot of calories even while at rest. If you have a slow metabolism or slow BMR, your body needs fewer calories to keep it going.
A fast metabolism does not necessarily lead to thinness. In fact, studies show that people with overweight/obesity often have fast metabolisms. Their bodies need more energy to keep basic body functions going.
It would be also good to add that thyroid disorders may lead to weight gain by means of metabolism change according to this source as well—it’s not just a matter of appetite.
Like 99.9999% of health, nuance is important and blanket statements like “fast metabolism has been disproven” are just… unhelpful.
“In humans, the coefficient of variation in the components of total daily energy expenditure is around 5-8% for resting metabolic rate.”
That is nothing. That means the most extreme examples of this would be 200-300kcal. It’s often just used as an excuse for a bad diet. And people believing in this myth is hindering them in making informed decisions.
i encourage you to advocate for informed lifestyle choices, but if you mean that the coefficient of variation is 5-8% for resting metabolic rate, just say that, and don’t just open with “it isn’t even a thing in reality.”
In my personal experience people judge it to be more like 25-100%. But I stand by 200kcal being nothing. It’s not a make it or break it kind of difference. 200kcal more doesn’t make someone obese or even fat. If you over eat by 200kcal a day it will take a long time to get fat and you will have years to intervene with a slight change that will fix it.
And that would only be in the most extreme case. For most people we are talking about much less than 200kcal. If you have actually only a differnce of let’s say 50kcal from the median and cite that as a reason for being over or underweight it’s just wrong. But I have seen people use it as a reason so many times.
Just to add to this, nutritional labels (in the US at least) can have up to a 20% margin of error, which is a much more significant source of uncertainty.
I like to imagine this as just a shitpost tool where you can just paste any text anyone types to get a screenshot like this and instantly invalidate their argument
Or maybe that’s what this already is and I just WHOOSHed myself
While the concept of a “fast metabolism” might be oversimplified, individual variations in metabolic rate are real and significant. Metabolism encompasses all the processes your body uses to convert food into energy and maintain vital functions. Factors like genetics, age, muscle mass, and hormone levels can influence how efficiently someone burns calories. For instance, people with more muscle mass generally have a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR) because muscle tissue requires more energy to maintain than fat tissue.
Moreover, hormonal differences, such as thyroid function, can significantly impact metabolism. While lifestyle factors like diet and physical activity play crucial roles in managing weight, metabolic rate can affect how easily someone gains or loses weight. So, while it’s important to focus on overall lifestyle, dismissing metabolic differences as insignificant overlooks a key aspect of how our bodies process energy.
The effects are not significant. They barely make a dent in what you can eat. Thyroid and other illnesses impacts appetite though.
This is getting closer to the correct nuance. Per Cleveland Clinic:
It would be also good to add that thyroid disorders may lead to weight gain by means of metabolism change according to this source as well—it’s not just a matter of appetite.
Like 99.9999% of health, nuance is important and blanket statements like “fast metabolism has been disproven” are just… unhelpful.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15534426/
“In humans, the coefficient of variation in the components of total daily energy expenditure is around 5-8% for resting metabolic rate.”
That is nothing. That means the most extreme examples of this would be 200-300kcal. It’s often just used as an excuse for a bad diet. And people believing in this myth is hindering them in making informed decisions.
5-8% is not nothing and it’s crazy that you would say that. (for reference, 200kcal is half of a nutrisystem frozen meal or an entire icecream sandwich.)
i encourage you to advocate for informed lifestyle choices, but if you mean that the coefficient of variation is 5-8% for resting metabolic rate, just say that, and don’t just open with “it isn’t even a thing in reality.”
In my personal experience people judge it to be more like 25-100%. But I stand by 200kcal being nothing. It’s not a make it or break it kind of difference. 200kcal more doesn’t make someone obese or even fat. If you over eat by 200kcal a day it will take a long time to get fat and you will have years to intervene with a slight change that will fix it. And that would only be in the most extreme case. For most people we are talking about much less than 200kcal. If you have actually only a differnce of let’s say 50kcal from the median and cite that as a reason for being over or underweight it’s just wrong. But I have seen people use it as a reason so many times.
Just to add to this, nutritional labels (in the US at least) can have up to a 20% margin of error, which is a much more significant source of uncertainty.
ChatGPT?
I like to imagine this as just a shitpost tool where you can just paste any text anyone types to get a screenshot like this and instantly invalidate their argument
Or maybe that’s what this already is and I just WHOOSHed myself