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A comment on Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?. Parent comment

Re:Why do people put on differing amounts of weight? by onion2k on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @04:18PM (#10976154)
If you're gaining weight, it means you're eating more than your body can burn, so you need to eat less.

Or your body is skipping the usable energy stage completely for some foods and storing them as fat directly without it ever having the chance to be used. Then some of the food you eat makes you gain weight regardless of the amount of activity you do - you just run out of energy and get fat.

The mistake you're making is assuming that humans are perfect machines for turning food in to energy, and simple mechanics means extra energy is stored as fat. It's far more complex than that.

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Re:Why do people put on differing amounts of weight? by rdancer on Wednesday January 27, 2016 @01:40AM (#10978628)
If fat were deposited and not burnt under starvation, body would be unable to perform work (law of energy conservation), and organs would fail. Ultimately, starving people would be dying fat.

But we know this is not the case. Starving populations are very skinny.

This is not to say that starvation is healthy, only that starvation is a reliable, affordable, and obvious way to lose weight.

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