Why does youre body try and SCREW YOU?!

[IronSlingah]

From what ive read on this forum along with stuff i already know from biology classes it seems to me that youre body is hard wired to prevent you from loosing weight at all costs. I was 235 with 25% bodyfat about 10 months ago now im 205 with 15% but getting lower is becoming a HUGE pain in the ass. Im trying to get to under 10% at 185lbs. If you take too much protien youre body pisses it away but it holds on to fat like its gold and if you dont eat and try and loose weight youre body shuts down its metabolic rate and starts eating away at muscle wtf? Can anyone explain why the body holds on to fat more than muscle?

 

[OceanDude]

Hey Iron, I'm all in agreement here. It seems that evolution kind of messed up in that regard - or "It" knows something about our future that we don't. Hmmm, maybe the animals are going to get their revenge someday in the future and reclaim all that fat back into the food chain. Or, all these earthquakes happening around the world are an indication that all that oil we been drilling is a tectonic plate lubrication system that we messing up. With the dinosaurs gone that leaves humankind as the natural source for it's replenishment...

 

[Mudge]

Through genetics (evolution, family tree, etc), your body has a certain homeostasis. This is for whatever reason(s) what your body has come to believe is the right way to be, so breaking what your bodies nature is, is not going to be easy (of course this rule varies widely).

If it were so simple as plugging yourself into a serial port and laying out what you consider the perfect, ideal human body, then life would be much different. "Eat what I want, when I want, as much as I want, and yet still turn this Hershey's bar into protein and make it build muscle."

Some people are skinny, some muscular, some fat, and most of us are somewhat of a mix of these body types (endo, meso, ectomorphic). If nature could be so perfect on its own to program an aligator to run 75 miles an hour and not tire so quickly as it does when it runs quickly, be impervious to bullets or all kinds of attacks, and be able to go for months without eating, well heck it would be quite the monster wouldn't it - but nature is trial and error, and you just end up with whatever you get from your "grab bag."

Picture the adaptation of a marathoner versus a 340 pound "freak" bodybuilder. Nature will not allow, at least as of yet, a 340 pound bodybuilder to run a 4 minute mile for 26 straight miles, its outside of our abilities as of now. They also said though that the 4 minute mile itself was impossible to break, and science "proved" it too. Each one of them reaches a point where they are good at doing one thing, and not much of the other, just as they have a hard time improving further at what they enjoy doing after a certain point.

The body can adjust hormonal levels, metabolism, all based on your input as well as genetics.

 

[trinsdad]

The body seems to have a set point. It does not like to go beyond it it doesnt like to go under it.

The body also become less efficiant at pure fat metabolism as it gets leaner than when obese. Seems thats why the closer you get the harder it becomes.

 

[Mex]

As I understand it, we have a tendency to get thick because Fat is a great, effective way to store energy. 1 pound of fat, last I heard, held about 3500 calories. So that's a pretty good bang for your buck.

Thus, when we were living in caves, and we didn't have a McDonalds available, fat storage was an efficient way of making sure we survived on our stored energy, till we got lucky and hunted the next bronto-burguer.

In fact, I've read more about it, and it seems that the current abundance of food (mainly in the western world) is a fairly new phenomenon, particularly in the US. That's why there are more obese kids every day - we have not evolved fast enough to process all that available food. Through millions of years, we've evolved to store energy as efficiently as possible. Now, in a few decades, we want to change that, and I don't think it's possible.

In any case, if you're interested in all that evolutionary theory stuff, you should try reading some of Richard Dawkins' books, like The Blind Watchmaker. Basically, he explains that nature doesn't really know what it's doing, and every now and then, she throws a few mutations here and there, kind of experimenting. Thus, the strong survive, the weak do not.

 

[ZECH]

It all comes down to diet. Post your diet and we can start to change it as needed.

 

[Mudge]

Originally posted by Mex
1 pound of fat, last I heard, held about 3500 calories. So that's a pretty good bang for your buck.

Sure, it wouldn't be used of it sucked totally. The problem is it takes more energy to break into fat stores than to break down muscle, so the body is resistant to getting into the fat stores due to the cost of energy it requires.

Basically, he explains that nature doesn't really know what it's doing, and every now and then, she throws a few mutations here and there, kind of experimenting. Thus, the strong survive, the weak do not.

Otherwise known as, natural selection.

 

[Twin Peak]

Simple, evolution. Okay, so its not so simple. Essentially, over thousands of years, your body has been programmed for one thing: survival. Fat is an energy store, in times of need. Any reduction in calories, and your body believes it is in a state of need: that it is starving. It does not yet realize that we live in a world of supermarkets, and fast food restaurants, and that food is plenty.

So when you reduce calories, it worries about survival. Leptin levels drop, and you are fucked, basically.

Its worse when you are overly muscular. Muscle burns an inordinate amount of energy, and when calories are restricted, your body wants to shed that muscle.

To reach highly conditioned levels you need to defy mother nature.

For further detail, you might be interested in reading an article entitled "The Par Side: Bio-revolutionary Taoism
by Par Deus" which can be found:

http://www.avantlabs.com/main.html

Go to "current issue", and then "contents" then the article.

 

[Mudge]

Originally posted by Twin Peak
Its worse when you are overly muscular. Muscle burns an inordinate amount of energy, and when calories are restricted, your body wants to shed that muscle.

Energy obtainable at less buy-in cost, and wasted muscle at that. This is common sense folks.

http://www.avantlabs.com/page.php?pageID=150&issueID=14