The answer is that studies were done, and it turns out people don’t have fast and slow metabolisms. It’s an urban myth (at least that’s what I’ve heard). Instead there is a psychological difference – so some people don’t realise (subconsciously and for no good reason – it’s not them being silly or anything) how little or how much they’re eating or are exercising more/less and not realising etc… It’s a very complicated problem and there’s research into it.
That depends for example on the amount of muscles a person has. The more muscles you have the faster will your metabolism be as muscles burn energy all the time, even when you are sleeping. So people with less muscles will have a slower metabolism.
It also depends on your genes I guess and of course on how much exercise you do.
But actually very little people have an extremely slow metabolism (so that they have an excuse for being overweight …) 😉
Most overweight people just eat too much and the wrong things and don’t exercise enough – and then of course they have the disadvantage that they probably don’t have too many muscles …
just that everyone is slightly different! However; you metabolism changes as you get older; and at different rates, so suddenly some people who found they could eat anything they wanted when they were younger can’t do that any more.
Dean – that’s interesting; I’ll have to look it up!
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Dean commented on :
Yeah, I heard this from a couple of biologists (or at least weight gain and loss has no clear link to metabolism)… I’d trust Luisa over me though!