What does it mean when diet ISN'T the silver bullet? page 5

[DeeDub]

...mesomorphs...Ectomorphs...endomorphs...

It doesn't take much imagination to see how a tribe would benefit from having a mix of all three body types.

Horses for courses.

[yodiewan]

I like the ideas that have been discussed in this thread. I used to think that lower body fat meant greater health, but I don't think that's strictly true any more. Certainly not for females, but even for males. I'm a case in point. I'm fairly sure my body fat percentage is in the single digits. But my LDL-P is over 2000. Which means I'm probably going to have a heart attack if I don't change something.

I wanted to add that I have basically the opposite experience of the OP. I LOSE weight if I don't exercise. I was pretty thin growing up (5'11" 145 lbs.) When I started weight training, I gained about 10 lbs over the course of a year. Then I started lifting even heavier and eating even more and gained about 10 more pounds. The few times that I have taken a break from weight training for two weeks or so, I've lost weight.

[Owly]

If you look at photos of surviving HG cultures, most of the women don't look like Crossfitters. Even a lot of the top competitors don't necessarily look like the CF hottie poster girls. Certainly not all the women from my gym who went to regionals did, and you also have top consider that certain body types excel at certain sports and some components of CF favor very lean, strong people since it's easier for someone like that to get good at some of the bodyweight things like muscle-ups. Women gymnasts don't look like women sprinters either.

We come in a lot of shapes and sizes. The much-vaunted Inuit diet does not produce Inuit women who look like supermodels or Annie Thorsdotter. They are healthy and strong but also short and solid.

[Owly]

I like the ideas that have been discussed in this thread. I used to think that lower body fat meant greater health, but I don't think that's strictly true any more. Certainly not for females, but even for males. I'm a case in point. I'm fairly sure my body fat percentage is in the single digits. But my LDL-P is over 2000. Which means I'm probably going to have a heart attack if I don't change something.

I wanted to add that I have basically the opposite experience of the OP. I LOSE weight if I don't exercise. I was pretty thin growing up (5'11" 145 lbs.) When I started weight training, I gained about 10 lbs over the course of a year. Then I started lifting even heavier and eating even more and gained about 10 more pounds. The few times that I have taken a break from weight training for two weeks or so, I've lost weight.

You and my partner are in the same category. He looks like a mesomorph type now, but underneath that he's an ecto who ate and lifted a ton and has aged enough to be able to keep a little more weight on. Photos of him as a teen and young man show a very fit but skinny guy.

I have to say, it makes me jealous as hell!

[JBailey]

I wonder if it's worth the effort to try to get lower body fat than what your body comes to at homeostasis. I've been going back and forth on whether I should hire a personal trainer to teach me old school weightlifting. But if I have to work too hard to get my body to change, only to end up quitting and having it go right back to where I am at now, maybe I could save the money and time and just accept that I'm strong, fit and healthy even if I don't look like a barbie doll or a cross-fit poster child. There is so much conflicting advice in the world. You can look like X if you just do This! You can have HEALTH and longevity if you do Y but you might not look like X. It's hard to know what to do. And it's doubly hard when every now and then you get these annoying people who say leanness is the outward sign of health and if you are still fat then you obviously aren't healthy but those people are almost always young men who have no clue about anything.

That's where I'm at. I'm pretty fit. I can buck hay and walk all day, but I haven't been under 130 in years. When I weighed the least I was totally stressed out and eating terribly. I don't want that again.

I remember an interview with Margaret Cho about her TV show. The producers told her to drop some weight, and she did, but bailed because for here keeping that 10lbs off was a full time job and just not worth it.

[LowCarbMaster]

Working out fasted in keto helped me break my stall of what I thought was my homeostasis. I have done it for personal reasons. I need to compete in boxing and I have to make weight. I definitely don't think a six pack is necessary for health though!

[sbhikes]

So I admit I have a vice which is watching Survivor on TV. Last night they voted out this guy who seemed oddly weak for having such huge muscles. I don't think a 6-pack and bulging biceps are everything.