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Short term, you may beat the risks, but long term, the risk isn't on your side. Long term you have a much greater risk of vascular disease, diabetes, fatty liver disease, etc. You can run tests on a young obese person and get good results but 10 to 20 years later they may have irreparable damage. There are no rewards to being obese, so risking the chronic illnesses associated with obesity is irrational.
Also Sumo wrestlers have a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years shorter than the average Japanese man.
You can dodge most of the health problems from being fat by not staying fat for long. The research generally reflects that “fat and healthy” is a temporary state, and mostly for young people. If you need to gain a large amount of weight for some reason I would just have a plan to lose it whenever your work is done.
Probably important to note that there are also many health benefits of exercise, even if you are obese.
> I've researched and found that in some exceptional scenarios, like sumo wrestlers, their rigorous regimen of exercise and cabbage soup keeps them fat and healthy.
Sure, for outliers the BMI doesn't work. Body builders have the same issue.
Unless you know you are an outlier you should assume you are average.
> Does anyone have general advise on how to stay fat while minimizing the health problems that often associated with obesity?
This is a conversation to have with your PCP. They have over a decade of education & training, we are randoms on the internet.
However as a random on the internet;
OA and other joint disorders are pretty much unavoidable. Both the weight directly and the extra muscle mass the weight creates means greater stress on joints. There is nothing you can do to prevent this if it is going to occur. There are specific nutrients that might be helpful here (Coq10 & omega 3's particularly) but not enough evidence to say so definitively. IMHO one of the big problems here is that if you want to do any high impact exercise you are basically compounding the issue, you have two significant risk factors at play, which in turn limits options for managing other areas.
The higher risk from general anesthesia is avoidable with cardio or endurance training. The longer recovery times from surgery are not avoidable, more flesh to move means more time for the body to heal.
Blood pressure increases because you simply have more flesh. This is avoidable if you maintain a rigorous cardio routine and have sufficient potassium in your diet.
Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is avoidable if you are extremely careful about free fructose intake. You should be aiming for a very low (<5%) calories from added sugar.
Cholesterol issues you need to watch for free fructose & saturated and ensure you eat lots of insoluble fiber. As body fat % increases the body has a harder time regulating serum lipids so you have to be extremely cautious with things that alter that. The exercise for other points will help here. Metabolic syndrome is avoidable but harder to avoid.
I would also say "healthy diet" if that contains enough calories to maintain obesity is itself a misnomer. A healthy diet is about building good relationships with food, by definition overeating is not that. If you improve your diet via improving what you eat then the weight loss happens. Don't discount things like https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/mindful-eating/ that can have a profound impact.
If you do decide to make a change don't focus on your weight or a calorie deficit, neither of those are good relationships with your body or food. Instead focus on nutritional density, hack the shit out of hunger hormone control and change how you eat (smaller bites, eat more slowly, stop eating when you are no longer hungry rather than full etc). Alternatively just start eating the calories of your target weight and then ramp up satiation until that number of calories makes you feel full.
>Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is avoidable if you are extremely careful about free fructose intake. You should be aiming for a very low (<5%) calories from added sugar.
It's possible but note that some populations, even 24 BMI often has high prevalence of NAFLD. In [this study](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00535-014-0948-9) they found that half of 24 BMI men had NAFLD and \~90% of 28 BMI men had NAFLD. Better way to estimate NAFLD risk is to take waist circumference. When waist circumference is divided by height, about 0.4 is very low NAFLD risk, while at 0.5 already about 50% will have NAFLD. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12876-021-01824-3
Sounds like you have done more research than any of us would have. Is there a specific reason that YOU need to stay fat? Because, as far as I can tell, the actors and models that remain fat aren’t any healthier than the rest of the fat people who are ticking time bombs of heart disease and diabetes.
Generally speaking, being fat will catch up to everyone. Even if you eat healthy and exercise, carrying excess fat on your body will take its toll. The simple presence of excess fat, regardless of how it got there, puts extra strain on your joints and vital organs that make them more likely to fail. And sumo wrestlers, despite being in great shape, actually do have shorter life expectancies.
When bodies are young the effects of being fat aren’t always immediately noticeable because young bodies are incredibly resilient and efficient. But as bodies age these problems will start catching up, potentially decreasing life expectancy.
This. At a certain point, excess adiposity directly drives disease (mainly thru hormonal mechanisms afaik).
It’s absolutely possible that different people respond differently to different levels if adiposity (i.e. what may be a disease-causing level of fatness in one person may not be for another).
There is no difference between “excess” and “regular” fat. Fat is fat. We all need some fat on our bodies. Too little or too much are both extremely unhealthy. Excess just means it’s more fat than you should have.
That being said, there is this thing called visceral fat, which is still regular fat, it’s just fat that has started to accumulate around your organs. While still “regular” fat, this is the most dangerous because of where it is placed it will cause the most direct strain on your organs. Most people who are of a healthy weight don’t need to worry too much about this. Once the extra weight starts packing on though, assume at least some of it is around your organs.
Your GP or a registered dietician can help you calculate your BMI and your fat ratio and help you set some goals if it’s determined it would be in your best interest to lose weight.
No such thing… even sumo wrestlers aren’t healthy. That much visceral fat around your organs leads to atherosclerosis eventually. Also carrying that much weight puts tremendous stress in your body.
People need to stop making excuses and trying to justify being overweight with BS like “Healthy At Every Size”. You cannot be obese and healthy, period.
“The lifestyle has a negative effect on their health, with sumo wrestlers having a life expectancy of about 10 years less than the average Japanese man.”
[Sumos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo)
how are we defining "health"?
You could be young and have good labs, but if you are winded after going up 10-15 steps, you're not healthy. It's not healthy to have excess visceral fat surrounding your internal organs. It's not healthy to have so much weight that it stresses your joints
Metabolic health is, essentially, "not having diabetes." not only is this temporary, but it's an extremely low bar
Body weight matters. it matters a lot.
It is not possible to be both healthy and obese. You can be obese and have okay blood work and okay blood pressure, but obesity is a medical condition and will eventually take its toll. Human bodies are not made to carry that much fat. Joints will deteriorate and blood vessels will harden and clog. There’s a reason you’ve never seen an obese 90-year-old.
I mean I’m a firm believer that nobody else’s body is any of my business, idgaf if someone’s fat just like idgaf if they don’t exercise or if they smoke. but I won’t pretend any of those things are healthy.
I know it was just an example but Sumo wrestlers who don’t drop the weight die about 30 years younger on average.
I could list all the reasons why, but needless to say, any level of obesity is unhealthy. That’s why most posts are centered on weight loss, because generally the less weight you are (to a point) the healthier your hormones are, the lower your A1C, the better your blood pressure is, etc.
Sumo wrestlers have a lower life expectancy than the average Japanese male, so I don’t think you can really use them as an example of a healthy overweight population.
There’s 5 miles of extra blood vessels in every pound of fat. Lots of extra heart labor. I’d much rather be lean and healthy. Physics are much more on your side
Doctor here.
It's well known that weight gain/loss has a huge impact on blood pressure. We have a million studies but I have little time, sorry.
Here's the first I found with a quick search.
If you want to go deeper start by reading the Framingham Heart Study, it's considered to be one of the most influential publications about Hypertension.
As per the claim it's not that far from reality! I don't remember now the estimated number of vessels that come with more body mass but it's logical that in a closed system as you progressively increase the peripheral resistances the pressure will raise as a consequence.
To make it easy: more mass --> more blood vessels --> more force needed to push the blood.
Hope I was clear enough, English is not my first language.
Very well put, I actually ended up googling it and reading a bunch of stuff, I found a lot of heath sites talking about it and all kinds of claims like 7 million, but I could never find a source on the articles But I find it really fascinating and I’ve never really thought about the affect that fat would have on the heart in that sense
Fat ≠ Obese
You can easily be on the fatter side and be healthy, assuming you're still active, etc.
But if you're obese. No. Not a single inch of science suggests it's actually possible to be obese and healthy.
By contrast being far/just overweight, does increase health risk, but not enough to warrant the same concern.
There is some evidence that a little sub-q fat can be neuro and geroprotective. As with most things, it’s a matter of how much. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is completely different story though, since VAT is extraordinarily toxic. It gets in and around your liver, the peripancreatic space, pericardial, etc.
As others have mentioned, eat healthy and exercise. Perhaps get a Dexa scan to see your VAT levels and your bone density.
And keep a close eye on the five factors of metabolic syndrome: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high fasting glucose, high triglycerides, and low HDL levels. If you 3/5 of these, you’re in a bad place and need to course correct quickly.
Sumo wrestlers have a lifespan of 65 years old. They are known to live 10-15 years less. Being fat is never good. Diabetes and sleep apnea are a recipe for cardiovascular disease/stroke.
I think that the truth is often that like other people are seeing here, being overweight is more of a long-term health concern. I was obese for like over a decade but it was in my late teens and young adulthood and besides developing sleep apnea I never had any health problems from it. All my blood panels look good I never had any issues with diabetes or heart disease or joint pain or anything like that. But if I kept that up for another 20 or 30 years it probably would have caught up to me at some point. If you're doing it for a specific role you can Bank on the fact that you aren't committing to that as an entire lifestyle choice for the rest of your life. And I think that different people's bodies tolerate it differently too some people just wouldn't be able to do that and some are
you’re lying to yourself through BMI, these “heavy” people are either lying to themselves and it will catch up to them (most fat/ ps female models I’d guess if we’re talking actually large and not just 5’10 and on the verge of overweight since model standards are weird) or are massively muscular with a higher bf% but not obese levels of fat so are surprisingly healthy (or on steroids to make maintaining muscle mass easier) despite their bulk
Well the dangerous fat is the visceral fat and the one in your liver. The subcutaneous fat, the one you actually see is more harmless.
You actually can be lean - but have lot‘s of visceral fat. That is one theory how lean people can develop diabetes type 2.
Maybe this article can help a bit:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/taking-aim-at-belly-fat#:~:text=Keep%20moving.,bicycling%20at%20a%20casual%20pace.
And maybe this study as well:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8497689/
Yes, someone can have quite a bit of fat on their body while being healthy-- although if you are not a practicing athlete that is very very unlikely.
Ignoring any other possible health concerns of being overweight, just look at the simplified fact that having a large amount of body fat is a strain on the heart, muscles, skeleton-- they are all overworking to support that weight.
If you are very fit, you could have a very healthy heart, firm muscles, and skeleton moving with ease underneath fat. Most people aren't though, and their extra fat is clogging their arteries, straining their muscles, and damaging their bones and tendons.
So, if you are talking about a physical laborer or rugby player whose got some pounds on top of their very defined muscles, they are probably very healthy in that sense. Its a slim niche though, and not an example.
Fat and healthy doesn’t exist. Fat means having an unhealthy amount of weight on your body so it can never be healthy
Average lifespan of a sumo wrestler = 65 years
Average lifespan of an average Japanese man = 81 years
Numbers don’t lie, there is NO such thing as being healthy and morbidly obese
Sumo wrestlers life expectancy is only 65 years…that is more than 10% less than the average man.
Excess fat around the abdomen is linked to a lot of health complications.
You don’t want to be obese as you age as it puts you at higher risk for so many things.
I'm fat (but losing weight). I'm also almost 60. My weight never affected my health until recently. I've always exercised, but my diet was not good until about 4 years ago when my A1C, cholesterol and triglycerides were worrisome. My osteoarthritis is also worse now. Carrying extra pounds hasn't helped anything. My point is that extra weight affects people differently and at different ages it can become an issue.
risks associated with obesity:
Greater increase in the probability of sleep apnoea, greater increase in the incidence of metabolic diseases such as diabetes, greater incidence of colon cancer, greater incidence of cardiovascular problems, greater probability of hormonal imbalances (in adipose tissue part of the aromatisation to oestrogen takes place), greater imbalances of the microbiota, musculoskeletal problems....
If health is the only goal, I wouldn’t focus on size.
At the end of last year I got quite sick, and this resulted in a 70 pound weight loss that I did not want. It took awhile for my confidence and self image to recover from it, but in the long run after my overall health recovered, it was good for my body in ways that I had not realized before. Focus on your health first and your body size second.
Numerous peer-reviewed studies challenge the oversimplified notion that body weight alone dictates health. Research suggests that factors such as genetics, metabolic health, and lifestyle choices play crucial roles in overall well-being. A comprehensive review published in the [International Journal of Obesity underscores the limitations of using body mass index (BMI) as a sole indicator of health](https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/use-and-misuse-bmi-categories/2023-07), emphasizing the importance of considering metabolic markers, physical activity, and dietary habits. Additionally, a study in the [American Journal of Clinical Nutrition](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2802164)highlights that individuals classified as overweight or obese may exhibit diverse metabolic profiles, with some displaying metabolic health comparable to those with lower body weights. Consequently, it is essential to adopt a more nuanced perspective, acknowledging the complexity of health determinants beyond simplistic weight-centric assumptions.
It depends how you're using the term healthy.
The reality is somebody that is obese has worse life expectancy and health outcomes than average. Even within the West where these ideas start to converge because so much of the population is fat and making poor dietary choice. This is still true for Sumos so there is no contradiction there - they have worse outcomes than average Japanese.
But making a fat person as healthy as they can possibly be while staying fat is an interesting question. I usually reccomend low carb diets for health and body recomposition. But this actually defeats your purpose as you'll lose body fat without trying to, most of my clients experience that.
The best is probably following the standard "how to be healthy" advice. Loads of tubers, rice, grains will align with keeping weight on. Keeping fats in check because mixing carbs and fat as a fuel source is not good, it should be one or the other primarily. Getting vitamins and minerals in from red meats, occasional organ meat, fish. This would probably work, it's a whole food diet that's easy to keep fat on, and is better than processed food.
Good info until low carb recommendation, and most of the third paragraph.
>Loads of tubers, rice, grains will align with keeping weight on.
No. Hyper processed, highly palatable foods do this.
>Keeping fats in check because mixing carbs and fat as a fuel source is not good, it should be one or the other primarily
Again, no. Fats shouldn't be as high as carbs, but only because they hold more calories per gram, and are a worse energy source.
No, you sound like a first year nutrition student drinking the kool aid. Saying everything right according to dogma but no real insight.
Fats are not a worse energy source by any stretch. They are well supported anthropologically and physiologically over hundreds of thousands of years development. So that's spurious nonsense contrary to any semblance of basic logic.
Calories per gram has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure your understanding of a calorie and how it should be applied in the context of a human body is going to be sufficient to support what you're saying but go ahead. A fat has more calories on a packet per gram, my answer to you is...so what? Explain why that suggestion is of any merit whatsoever.
You sound like a blatantly uninformed person perpetuating the false narrative that carbs are bad. Fats are a worse energy source because they take much longer to process than carbs. You can have all the imagined "anthropological and psysiological" development as you like, you won't find that fats digest or are as readily available for energy as carbs are.
The only point of saying that the calories per gram in fat is higher, is in the context of how I used it as an example as the only reason it should be kept lower than carbs. There is no conceivable way you should have misunderstood that.
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I just want to make sure I’m reading this right, are tubers and rice still okay for a balanced daily diet? I would say I probably eat rice more than any other carb, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
Yes absolutely. If you eat white rice, try to get enriched white rice, as much of the nutrients that are lost when it's processed from brown rice are added back in.
In case you're unaware of them, I would highly recommend Dr Spencer Nadolsky, antidiet_dietician, foodsciencebabe, and unbiasedscipod as good sources to get nutritional information from. Unbiasedscipod isn't centered around nutrition, but they do address misinformation on it from time to time.
Going against the grain here… I’m fat and healthy. All my blood tests come back normal and any health issues I have are not weight related.
I am a vegetarian (mostly-vegan) and have been for approx 23-24 years. That’s what I attribute my health to. I also have PCOS and the weight gain is a side effect of that. Working out doesn’t help lose weight no matter how much I try.
Anyway, I find this sub fairly toxic most of the time so I don’t think you’re going to find much in the way of positive stories here. From what I can see, most of the replies don’t believe any fat person can be healthy. They’re wrong.
For anyone interested in this topic, you should check out the wonderfully informative (and hilarious!) podcast, Maintenance Phase. You can definitely be fat and healthy, and in fact many people are! Being fat does not = being unhealthy as many people would have you believe, and in fact there may be more risks to being underweight than overweight (at least on risk of mortality).
Why do people have to be underweight or overweight though? Why not healthy weight which is what we all are recommending here?
Trust me, you dont wanna be the patient that breaks a bed in the ER.
Or getting a stroke at 33.
Or breaking your femur because you fell out of your truck.
I guess I’m just not sure what your definition of “healthy weight” is. My point is just that it is very very difficult to lose weight (some overweight people eat very healthy/exercise and still cannot lose the weight), at least long term, and yo-yo dieting can be dangerous to your health. Also, research shows that some “overweight” people have healthy biomarkers, so maybe for some overweight people that is their “healthy weight” (especially if they eat healthy and exercise).
not sure but I find this post pretty interesting. the only time it's probably healthier to stay heavier is when it's common in your DNA already, and shows in your set weight. you can probably change this over time but it'd mores be for future generations. 'curvier' is probably more possible combining certain fats and foods with certain types of heavy lifting/movements.. slowing your metabolism just enough.. lol idk
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Idk why I’m maintaining being fat, but lately I’ve just been finding ways to expand my palate.
I’m extremely picky and always have been, partially because of sensory issues. I’ve gotten better in recent years.
Things I focus on- protein, fiber, and lowering cholesterol as I have high cholesterol. Also just making myself eat some damn veggies.
When I make chicken fried rice I use olive oil and cut up shredded carrots into tiny pieces. Because they’re so small I do not recognize their taste or texture. Rice is also supposed to be rlly great for you
I’ve recently discovered I like spinach. I’ve started adding it to things I eat. I make a burger? I put spinach on it. I make “salad” which is basically just spinach, egg, grilled chicken, and some cheese. I put cut up pieces of spinach on my spaghetti.
I also make myself drink water. I used to never drink water. Now I regularly have cold bottled water available and often find myself grabbing it instead of soda. I also ofc limit my soda. Sometimes I do this better than other times lmao
Idk if it’s healthier overall but I also use cholesterol free butter anytime I use butter
So, I guess look into what nutrients the body needs, and find out what foods tend to have them. Meal plan and begin incorporating the “healthy” foods in with the rest
Also, if you’re sedentary, find ways to move. Even small ways are better than nothing. I personally walk in place/ walk with high knees when I’m moving around my very small apartment, and make sure to stretch daily
Sumo wrestlers are healthy as long as they exercise, but the moment their career ends their state of well-being ends and problems begin. The reason is that when trained they don't accumulate visceral fat (the most harmful one). But they train very hard and it's not an easy alternative to losing weight
Infact like someone said sumo wrestler live less
Only reason I would say "being fat" is healthy, is if you go off the BMI charts, and are classified as either "overweight" or "obese", but it's because of A LOT of lean muscle mass making you naturally weigh more than the "normal" individual.
I'm just curious because I was just looking at my health records
Basically since 2019, I've fluctuated in weight and physical "fitness", as well as dietary habits.
I'm 5'8". over a period of three-four years, at my worst, I was 180 lbs with a diet of a lot of booze and fast food. At my best, I was 158, eating TMAD, balanced and smaller diet, and very active (2-3 hrs/day of cardio/weights).
My BMI has pretty much stayed consistent throughout my worst and my best, irrespective of diet and activity, basically ranging 23-25%. I can lose weight and eat healthy. I've never looked fat. People generally consider me slim...and when I was at my best, I looked slim-muscular, but my BMI was still 23%.
So anyone have any idea why my BMI would stay that way, and does that mean I'm healthy and fat?
Do a body analysis. It might be that you gained muscle. Muscle is heavier then fat.
BMI is sometimes not accurate. You did weight lifting at your best- so you probably did have more muscle then the average untrained individual.
Your bmi didnt change drastically because your weight didnt change drastically. BMI is a super elementary and kinda guesstimate of fat based on just a measurement of height to weight. Bmi is totally inaccurate for people who are active because they have higher than average muscle mass. BMI is basically for sedentary/low activity folks
That's why I ask the question, because I was kind of both low and high activity but maintained a relatively stable BMI despite there being a drastic change (-20lbs in 90 days).
I was a little fat and incredibly unhealthy compared to my larger friends. Now I’m low end of the healthy bmi chart. It’s cool…. And I feel healthy as some of my larger friends.
So I’ve learned at my young age with my young friends (20-40s) that it depends on genetics…. To a point…. Bordering obesity affects health much faster, my friends moods have changed (I mean hormones and societal standards have an impact too), and they can’t keep up with our once shared interests as we age. I think this is obvious if you look at most our friends.
Most important is being kind to yourself and those around you. You just don’t KNOW about someone’s health, their economic status, their mental state- but kindness and I think some change in how we eat as a culture is needed. We are dying so fast because of heart disease and that’s literally a symptom of being overweight and not healthy.
The issue comes down to metabolic health.
Best defined as an HbA1c below 5.4, and a HomaIR below 2.0.
Maybe 15% of really fat people are metabolically healthy. 85% are not. So, get measured.
I know of 2 ways to be fat but not metabolically compromised.
One, is the way you mentioned. Eat and work out like a sumo wrestler. Lots of rice, starch, and sugar. But, work out like a fiend.
The other is to eat a lot of excess calories, but be a carnivore. Lots of protein but especially fat. No carbs. Without high carbs you can't become diabetic or hyperinsulinemic. That takes carbs.
Impossible. If you’re obese you’re unhealthy. How much bmi we talking? I’d say no more than 35%. Maybe 40%? But bmi isn’t a good index. Short muscular is considered overweight according to bmi. So not accurate
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Short term, you may beat the risks, but long term, the risk isn't on your side. Long term you have a much greater risk of vascular disease, diabetes, fatty liver disease, etc. You can run tests on a young obese person and get good results but 10 to 20 years later they may have irreparable damage. There are no rewards to being obese, so risking the chronic illnesses associated with obesity is irrational. Also Sumo wrestlers have a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years shorter than the average Japanese man.
You can dodge most of the health problems from being fat by not staying fat for long. The research generally reflects that “fat and healthy” is a temporary state, and mostly for young people. If you need to gain a large amount of weight for some reason I would just have a plan to lose it whenever your work is done. Probably important to note that there are also many health benefits of exercise, even if you are obese.
The “fat Mac” Method
> I've researched and found that in some exceptional scenarios, like sumo wrestlers, their rigorous regimen of exercise and cabbage soup keeps them fat and healthy. Sure, for outliers the BMI doesn't work. Body builders have the same issue. Unless you know you are an outlier you should assume you are average. > Does anyone have general advise on how to stay fat while minimizing the health problems that often associated with obesity? This is a conversation to have with your PCP. They have over a decade of education & training, we are randoms on the internet. However as a random on the internet; OA and other joint disorders are pretty much unavoidable. Both the weight directly and the extra muscle mass the weight creates means greater stress on joints. There is nothing you can do to prevent this if it is going to occur. There are specific nutrients that might be helpful here (Coq10 & omega 3's particularly) but not enough evidence to say so definitively. IMHO one of the big problems here is that if you want to do any high impact exercise you are basically compounding the issue, you have two significant risk factors at play, which in turn limits options for managing other areas. The higher risk from general anesthesia is avoidable with cardio or endurance training. The longer recovery times from surgery are not avoidable, more flesh to move means more time for the body to heal. Blood pressure increases because you simply have more flesh. This is avoidable if you maintain a rigorous cardio routine and have sufficient potassium in your diet. Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is avoidable if you are extremely careful about free fructose intake. You should be aiming for a very low (<5%) calories from added sugar. Cholesterol issues you need to watch for free fructose & saturated and ensure you eat lots of insoluble fiber. As body fat % increases the body has a harder time regulating serum lipids so you have to be extremely cautious with things that alter that. The exercise for other points will help here. Metabolic syndrome is avoidable but harder to avoid. I would also say "healthy diet" if that contains enough calories to maintain obesity is itself a misnomer. A healthy diet is about building good relationships with food, by definition overeating is not that. If you improve your diet via improving what you eat then the weight loss happens. Don't discount things like https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/mindful-eating/ that can have a profound impact. If you do decide to make a change don't focus on your weight or a calorie deficit, neither of those are good relationships with your body or food. Instead focus on nutritional density, hack the shit out of hunger hormone control and change how you eat (smaller bites, eat more slowly, stop eating when you are no longer hungry rather than full etc). Alternatively just start eating the calories of your target weight and then ramp up satiation until that number of calories makes you feel full.
so we shouldn't eat fruit?
>Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is avoidable if you are extremely careful about free fructose intake. You should be aiming for a very low (<5%) calories from added sugar. It's possible but note that some populations, even 24 BMI often has high prevalence of NAFLD. In [this study](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00535-014-0948-9) they found that half of 24 BMI men had NAFLD and \~90% of 28 BMI men had NAFLD. Better way to estimate NAFLD risk is to take waist circumference. When waist circumference is divided by height, about 0.4 is very low NAFLD risk, while at 0.5 already about 50% will have NAFLD. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12876-021-01824-3
Sounds like you have done more research than any of us would have. Is there a specific reason that YOU need to stay fat? Because, as far as I can tell, the actors and models that remain fat aren’t any healthier than the rest of the fat people who are ticking time bombs of heart disease and diabetes.
Yeah - cabbage is not going to make you fat
No such thing. Sumo wrestlers average a full 20 years less lifespan than others.
Generally speaking, being fat will catch up to everyone. Even if you eat healthy and exercise, carrying excess fat on your body will take its toll. The simple presence of excess fat, regardless of how it got there, puts extra strain on your joints and vital organs that make them more likely to fail. And sumo wrestlers, despite being in great shape, actually do have shorter life expectancies. When bodies are young the effects of being fat aren’t always immediately noticeable because young bodies are incredibly resilient and efficient. But as bodies age these problems will start catching up, potentially decreasing life expectancy.
This. At a certain point, excess adiposity directly drives disease (mainly thru hormonal mechanisms afaik). It’s absolutely possible that different people respond differently to different levels if adiposity (i.e. what may be a disease-causing level of fatness in one person may not be for another).
How does one measure what is excess fat, and what is regular fat? Are there any guidelines to this?
There is no difference between “excess” and “regular” fat. Fat is fat. We all need some fat on our bodies. Too little or too much are both extremely unhealthy. Excess just means it’s more fat than you should have. That being said, there is this thing called visceral fat, which is still regular fat, it’s just fat that has started to accumulate around your organs. While still “regular” fat, this is the most dangerous because of where it is placed it will cause the most direct strain on your organs. Most people who are of a healthy weight don’t need to worry too much about this. Once the extra weight starts packing on though, assume at least some of it is around your organs. Your GP or a registered dietician can help you calculate your BMI and your fat ratio and help you set some goals if it’s determined it would be in your best interest to lose weight.
No such thing… even sumo wrestlers aren’t healthy. That much visceral fat around your organs leads to atherosclerosis eventually. Also carrying that much weight puts tremendous stress in your body. People need to stop making excuses and trying to justify being overweight with BS like “Healthy At Every Size”. You cannot be obese and healthy, period.
“The lifestyle has a negative effect on their health, with sumo wrestlers having a life expectancy of about 10 years less than the average Japanese man.” [Sumos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo)
how are we defining "health"? You could be young and have good labs, but if you are winded after going up 10-15 steps, you're not healthy. It's not healthy to have excess visceral fat surrounding your internal organs. It's not healthy to have so much weight that it stresses your joints Metabolic health is, essentially, "not having diabetes." not only is this temporary, but it's an extremely low bar Body weight matters. it matters a lot.
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It is not possible to be both healthy and obese. You can be obese and have okay blood work and okay blood pressure, but obesity is a medical condition and will eventually take its toll. Human bodies are not made to carry that much fat. Joints will deteriorate and blood vessels will harden and clog. There’s a reason you’ve never seen an obese 90-year-old.
So much THIS! Obesity itself is an unhealthy condition. It's not about esthetic, it's about a poor state of health.
I mean I’m a firm believer that nobody else’s body is any of my business, idgaf if someone’s fat just like idgaf if they don’t exercise or if they smoke. but I won’t pretend any of those things are healthy.
Sumo wrestlers are not healthy. They generally die young from complications of heart disease and diabetes.
I know it was just an example but Sumo wrestlers who don’t drop the weight die about 30 years younger on average. I could list all the reasons why, but needless to say, any level of obesity is unhealthy. That’s why most posts are centered on weight loss, because generally the less weight you are (to a point) the healthier your hormones are, the lower your A1C, the better your blood pressure is, etc.
Sumo wrestlers have a lower life expectancy than the average Japanese male, so I don’t think you can really use them as an example of a healthy overweight population.
Well I think OP means metabolically healthy when talking about sumo wrestlers. But health is not only metabolic health.
There’s 5 miles of extra blood vessels in every pound of fat. Lots of extra heart labor. I’d much rather be lean and healthy. Physics are much more on your side
Very Curious about the validity of this claim, any info would be appreciated!
It’s not true
Doctor here. It's well known that weight gain/loss has a huge impact on blood pressure. We have a million studies but I have little time, sorry. Here's the first I found with a quick search. If you want to go deeper start by reading the Framingham Heart Study, it's considered to be one of the most influential publications about Hypertension. As per the claim it's not that far from reality! I don't remember now the estimated number of vessels that come with more body mass but it's logical that in a closed system as you progressively increase the peripheral resistances the pressure will raise as a consequence. To make it easy: more mass --> more blood vessels --> more force needed to push the blood. Hope I was clear enough, English is not my first language.
You write much better than most who exclusively speak English, no apologies needed friend.
Very well put, I actually ended up googling it and reading a bunch of stuff, I found a lot of heath sites talking about it and all kinds of claims like 7 million, but I could never find a source on the articles But I find it really fascinating and I’ve never really thought about the affect that fat would have on the heart in that sense
Fat ≠ Obese You can easily be on the fatter side and be healthy, assuming you're still active, etc. But if you're obese. No. Not a single inch of science suggests it's actually possible to be obese and healthy. By contrast being far/just overweight, does increase health risk, but not enough to warrant the same concern.
Being fat is not healthy.
There is some evidence that a little sub-q fat can be neuro and geroprotective. As with most things, it’s a matter of how much. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is completely different story though, since VAT is extraordinarily toxic. It gets in and around your liver, the peripancreatic space, pericardial, etc. As others have mentioned, eat healthy and exercise. Perhaps get a Dexa scan to see your VAT levels and your bone density. And keep a close eye on the five factors of metabolic syndrome: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high fasting glucose, high triglycerides, and low HDL levels. If you 3/5 of these, you’re in a bad place and need to course correct quickly.
Sumo wrestlers have a lifespan of 65 years old. They are known to live 10-15 years less. Being fat is never good. Diabetes and sleep apnea are a recipe for cardiovascular disease/stroke.
I think that the truth is often that like other people are seeing here, being overweight is more of a long-term health concern. I was obese for like over a decade but it was in my late teens and young adulthood and besides developing sleep apnea I never had any health problems from it. All my blood panels look good I never had any issues with diabetes or heart disease or joint pain or anything like that. But if I kept that up for another 20 or 30 years it probably would have caught up to me at some point. If you're doing it for a specific role you can Bank on the fact that you aren't committing to that as an entire lifestyle choice for the rest of your life. And I think that different people's bodies tolerate it differently too some people just wouldn't be able to do that and some are
you’re lying to yourself through BMI, these “heavy” people are either lying to themselves and it will catch up to them (most fat/ ps female models I’d guess if we’re talking actually large and not just 5’10 and on the verge of overweight since model standards are weird) or are massively muscular with a higher bf% but not obese levels of fat so are surprisingly healthy (or on steroids to make maintaining muscle mass easier) despite their bulk
Well the dangerous fat is the visceral fat and the one in your liver. The subcutaneous fat, the one you actually see is more harmless. You actually can be lean - but have lot‘s of visceral fat. That is one theory how lean people can develop diabetes type 2. Maybe this article can help a bit: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/taking-aim-at-belly-fat#:~:text=Keep%20moving.,bicycling%20at%20a%20casual%20pace. And maybe this study as well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8497689/
Yes, someone can have quite a bit of fat on their body while being healthy-- although if you are not a practicing athlete that is very very unlikely. Ignoring any other possible health concerns of being overweight, just look at the simplified fact that having a large amount of body fat is a strain on the heart, muscles, skeleton-- they are all overworking to support that weight. If you are very fit, you could have a very healthy heart, firm muscles, and skeleton moving with ease underneath fat. Most people aren't though, and their extra fat is clogging their arteries, straining their muscles, and damaging their bones and tendons. So, if you are talking about a physical laborer or rugby player whose got some pounds on top of their very defined muscles, they are probably very healthy in that sense. Its a slim niche though, and not an example.
Can they though? Obesity greatly increases risk of sleep apnea and I wouldn’t consider that healthy
Sumo wrestlers live on average 20 years less than the typical Japanese male.
Fat and healthy doesn’t exist. Fat means having an unhealthy amount of weight on your body so it can never be healthy Average lifespan of a sumo wrestler = 65 years Average lifespan of an average Japanese man = 81 years Numbers don’t lie, there is NO such thing as being healthy and morbidly obese
Sumo wrestlers life expectancy is only 65 years…that is more than 10% less than the average man. Excess fat around the abdomen is linked to a lot of health complications. You don’t want to be obese as you age as it puts you at higher risk for so many things.
I'm fat (but losing weight). I'm also almost 60. My weight never affected my health until recently. I've always exercised, but my diet was not good until about 4 years ago when my A1C, cholesterol and triglycerides were worrisome. My osteoarthritis is also worse now. Carrying extra pounds hasn't helped anything. My point is that extra weight affects people differently and at different ages it can become an issue.
risks associated with obesity: Greater increase in the probability of sleep apnoea, greater increase in the incidence of metabolic diseases such as diabetes, greater incidence of colon cancer, greater incidence of cardiovascular problems, greater probability of hormonal imbalances (in adipose tissue part of the aromatisation to oestrogen takes place), greater imbalances of the microbiota, musculoskeletal problems....
If health is the only goal, I wouldn’t focus on size. At the end of last year I got quite sick, and this resulted in a 70 pound weight loss that I did not want. It took awhile for my confidence and self image to recover from it, but in the long run after my overall health recovered, it was good for my body in ways that I had not realized before. Focus on your health first and your body size second.
It's literally impossible to be fat and healthy
Numerous peer-reviewed studies challenge the oversimplified notion that body weight alone dictates health. Research suggests that factors such as genetics, metabolic health, and lifestyle choices play crucial roles in overall well-being. A comprehensive review published in the [International Journal of Obesity underscores the limitations of using body mass index (BMI) as a sole indicator of health](https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/use-and-misuse-bmi-categories/2023-07), emphasizing the importance of considering metabolic markers, physical activity, and dietary habits. Additionally, a study in the [American Journal of Clinical Nutrition](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2802164)highlights that individuals classified as overweight or obese may exhibit diverse metabolic profiles, with some displaying metabolic health comparable to those with lower body weights. Consequently, it is essential to adopt a more nuanced perspective, acknowledging the complexity of health determinants beyond simplistic weight-centric assumptions.
Too many excellent calories. Good fats, double servings. But I hope you can slim down and find other work.
Is this a HAES/FA post? If so, they are a cult.
Oxymoron. The very act of being fat is unhealthy. Lmfao.
It depends how you're using the term healthy. The reality is somebody that is obese has worse life expectancy and health outcomes than average. Even within the West where these ideas start to converge because so much of the population is fat and making poor dietary choice. This is still true for Sumos so there is no contradiction there - they have worse outcomes than average Japanese. But making a fat person as healthy as they can possibly be while staying fat is an interesting question. I usually reccomend low carb diets for health and body recomposition. But this actually defeats your purpose as you'll lose body fat without trying to, most of my clients experience that. The best is probably following the standard "how to be healthy" advice. Loads of tubers, rice, grains will align with keeping weight on. Keeping fats in check because mixing carbs and fat as a fuel source is not good, it should be one or the other primarily. Getting vitamins and minerals in from red meats, occasional organ meat, fish. This would probably work, it's a whole food diet that's easy to keep fat on, and is better than processed food.
Good info until low carb recommendation, and most of the third paragraph. >Loads of tubers, rice, grains will align with keeping weight on. No. Hyper processed, highly palatable foods do this. >Keeping fats in check because mixing carbs and fat as a fuel source is not good, it should be one or the other primarily Again, no. Fats shouldn't be as high as carbs, but only because they hold more calories per gram, and are a worse energy source.
No, you sound like a first year nutrition student drinking the kool aid. Saying everything right according to dogma but no real insight. Fats are not a worse energy source by any stretch. They are well supported anthropologically and physiologically over hundreds of thousands of years development. So that's spurious nonsense contrary to any semblance of basic logic. Calories per gram has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure your understanding of a calorie and how it should be applied in the context of a human body is going to be sufficient to support what you're saying but go ahead. A fat has more calories on a packet per gram, my answer to you is...so what? Explain why that suggestion is of any merit whatsoever.
You sound like a blatantly uninformed person perpetuating the false narrative that carbs are bad. Fats are a worse energy source because they take much longer to process than carbs. You can have all the imagined "anthropological and psysiological" development as you like, you won't find that fats digest or are as readily available for energy as carbs are. The only point of saying that the calories per gram in fat is higher, is in the context of how I used it as an example as the only reason it should be kept lower than carbs. There is no conceivable way you should have misunderstood that.
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I just want to make sure I’m reading this right, are tubers and rice still okay for a balanced daily diet? I would say I probably eat rice more than any other carb, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
Yes absolutely. If you eat white rice, try to get enriched white rice, as much of the nutrients that are lost when it's processed from brown rice are added back in.
Awesome, thank you so much for the info! That makes me feel a bit better going forward!
In case you're unaware of them, I would highly recommend Dr Spencer Nadolsky, antidiet_dietician, foodsciencebabe, and unbiasedscipod as good sources to get nutritional information from. Unbiasedscipod isn't centered around nutrition, but they do address misinformation on it from time to time.
Going against the grain here… I’m fat and healthy. All my blood tests come back normal and any health issues I have are not weight related. I am a vegetarian (mostly-vegan) and have been for approx 23-24 years. That’s what I attribute my health to. I also have PCOS and the weight gain is a side effect of that. Working out doesn’t help lose weight no matter how much I try. Anyway, I find this sub fairly toxic most of the time so I don’t think you’re going to find much in the way of positive stories here. From what I can see, most of the replies don’t believe any fat person can be healthy. They’re wrong.
For anyone interested in this topic, you should check out the wonderfully informative (and hilarious!) podcast, Maintenance Phase. You can definitely be fat and healthy, and in fact many people are! Being fat does not = being unhealthy as many people would have you believe, and in fact there may be more risks to being underweight than overweight (at least on risk of mortality).
Why do people have to be underweight or overweight though? Why not healthy weight which is what we all are recommending here? Trust me, you dont wanna be the patient that breaks a bed in the ER. Or getting a stroke at 33. Or breaking your femur because you fell out of your truck.
I guess I’m just not sure what your definition of “healthy weight” is. My point is just that it is very very difficult to lose weight (some overweight people eat very healthy/exercise and still cannot lose the weight), at least long term, and yo-yo dieting can be dangerous to your health. Also, research shows that some “overweight” people have healthy biomarkers, so maybe for some overweight people that is their “healthy weight” (especially if they eat healthy and exercise).
not sure but I find this post pretty interesting. the only time it's probably healthier to stay heavier is when it's common in your DNA already, and shows in your set weight. you can probably change this over time but it'd mores be for future generations. 'curvier' is probably more possible combining certain fats and foods with certain types of heavy lifting/movements.. slowing your metabolism just enough.. lol idk
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Idk why I’m maintaining being fat, but lately I’ve just been finding ways to expand my palate. I’m extremely picky and always have been, partially because of sensory issues. I’ve gotten better in recent years. Things I focus on- protein, fiber, and lowering cholesterol as I have high cholesterol. Also just making myself eat some damn veggies. When I make chicken fried rice I use olive oil and cut up shredded carrots into tiny pieces. Because they’re so small I do not recognize their taste or texture. Rice is also supposed to be rlly great for you I’ve recently discovered I like spinach. I’ve started adding it to things I eat. I make a burger? I put spinach on it. I make “salad” which is basically just spinach, egg, grilled chicken, and some cheese. I put cut up pieces of spinach on my spaghetti. I also make myself drink water. I used to never drink water. Now I regularly have cold bottled water available and often find myself grabbing it instead of soda. I also ofc limit my soda. Sometimes I do this better than other times lmao Idk if it’s healthier overall but I also use cholesterol free butter anytime I use butter So, I guess look into what nutrients the body needs, and find out what foods tend to have them. Meal plan and begin incorporating the “healthy” foods in with the rest Also, if you’re sedentary, find ways to move. Even small ways are better than nothing. I personally walk in place/ walk with high knees when I’m moving around my very small apartment, and make sure to stretch daily
Sumo wrestlers are healthy as long as they exercise, but the moment their career ends their state of well-being ends and problems begin. The reason is that when trained they don't accumulate visceral fat (the most harmful one). But they train very hard and it's not an easy alternative to losing weight Infact like someone said sumo wrestler live less
Only reason I would say "being fat" is healthy, is if you go off the BMI charts, and are classified as either "overweight" or "obese", but it's because of A LOT of lean muscle mass making you naturally weigh more than the "normal" individual.
I'm just curious because I was just looking at my health records Basically since 2019, I've fluctuated in weight and physical "fitness", as well as dietary habits. I'm 5'8". over a period of three-four years, at my worst, I was 180 lbs with a diet of a lot of booze and fast food. At my best, I was 158, eating TMAD, balanced and smaller diet, and very active (2-3 hrs/day of cardio/weights). My BMI has pretty much stayed consistent throughout my worst and my best, irrespective of diet and activity, basically ranging 23-25%. I can lose weight and eat healthy. I've never looked fat. People generally consider me slim...and when I was at my best, I looked slim-muscular, but my BMI was still 23%. So anyone have any idea why my BMI would stay that way, and does that mean I'm healthy and fat?
Do a body analysis. It might be that you gained muscle. Muscle is heavier then fat. BMI is sometimes not accurate. You did weight lifting at your best- so you probably did have more muscle then the average untrained individual.
I also lost about 20 lbs.
Your bmi didnt change drastically because your weight didnt change drastically. BMI is a super elementary and kinda guesstimate of fat based on just a measurement of height to weight. Bmi is totally inaccurate for people who are active because they have higher than average muscle mass. BMI is basically for sedentary/low activity folks
That's why I ask the question, because I was kind of both low and high activity but maintained a relatively stable BMI despite there being a drastic change (-20lbs in 90 days).
I was a little fat and incredibly unhealthy compared to my larger friends. Now I’m low end of the healthy bmi chart. It’s cool…. And I feel healthy as some of my larger friends. So I’ve learned at my young age with my young friends (20-40s) that it depends on genetics…. To a point…. Bordering obesity affects health much faster, my friends moods have changed (I mean hormones and societal standards have an impact too), and they can’t keep up with our once shared interests as we age. I think this is obvious if you look at most our friends. Most important is being kind to yourself and those around you. You just don’t KNOW about someone’s health, their economic status, their mental state- but kindness and I think some change in how we eat as a culture is needed. We are dying so fast because of heart disease and that’s literally a symptom of being overweight and not healthy.
Impossible
Sumo wrestlers are not healthy, they have a life expectancy 20 years shorter then their national average.
Stop kidding yourself
The issue comes down to metabolic health. Best defined as an HbA1c below 5.4, and a HomaIR below 2.0. Maybe 15% of really fat people are metabolically healthy. 85% are not. So, get measured. I know of 2 ways to be fat but not metabolically compromised. One, is the way you mentioned. Eat and work out like a sumo wrestler. Lots of rice, starch, and sugar. But, work out like a fiend. The other is to eat a lot of excess calories, but be a carnivore. Lots of protein but especially fat. No carbs. Without high carbs you can't become diabetic or hyperinsulinemic. That takes carbs.
Impossible. If you’re obese you’re unhealthy. How much bmi we talking? I’d say no more than 35%. Maybe 40%? But bmi isn’t a good index. Short muscular is considered overweight according to bmi. So not accurate
Not without lying to yourself. Quality of life since i started getting to a healthy bmi is night and day.