Kevin's Watch

Okay bear with me.

Let's say you're Andy, a 180 pound guy and choose to carry out all your daily activities wearing a weighted suit that weighed in at 40 pounds...

You'd pretty quickly get both strong and fit, right?

So... how about your identical twin Bart, who carries out exactly the same daily activities as Andy, but who weighs in at 220 pounds because he's carrying 40 pounds of subdermal fat?

And to complete the circle, you're not twins at all... you're triplets. Chas weighs 180 pounds as well, so isn't overweight. However he's lazy and chooses not to wear any weighted suit, but still performs the exact same daily activities as Andy and Bart.

Surely Andy and Bart become fitter than Chas, presuming all parties perform the same daily activities and have the same calorific intake? And what's more, when Andy gets tired of wearing his 40 pound keep-fit suit, Bart will carry on getting fitter than him, no? Isn't that just Newtonian physics? After all, a joule's a joule?

If 40 lbs of fat did not do a lot more damage to the heart and other organs than a 40 lb weighted suit does, you might have a case.

Okay... but let's presume that all 40 pounds of fat is subdermal and not present around the heart or other organs, or in the circulatory system... and then?

If they're doing the same activities, eating the same food, and are the same genetically, then over time their bodies would change. And in which way depends on the parameters.

Depending on the caloric intake and activity levels, the fat guy would lose weight or the thin guy would gain it, or both. The guy in the weighted suit might gain weight too, but slower because of the extra activity.

The weighted clothes could help build muscle, but also could damage joints. As could the extra body weight.

You're assuming they stay the same over time while also supposing that they change over time because of their differences, which is contradictory. In reality, the fat and thin guy would wind up eventually pretty similar, while the one using weights would be different from them.

Makes sense.

Also, I think, the fat guy is not going to find it easier to lift 20kg just because his muscles are used to hauling around more weight. It's still 20kg more than his muscles are used to, just like it would be for the skinny guy.

--A

Hang on a second here...

So, to recap, we have identical triplets... Andy - the 180lb guy with his weighted 40lb bodysuit, Bart - the 220lb guy and Chas - the 180lb guy with no bodysuit, right?

Let's presume that all three perform exactly the same daily activities throughout, and let's presume that all three eat the exact amount of calories to preserve their current weight (which I suppose means that Andy and Bart will consume more calories per day than Chas, since their bodies are doing more work).

Okay, after 6 months, Andy takes off his weighted 40lb bodysuit and the very same day drops his calorie intake to one that preserves the weight of a 180lb guy. Presumably his calorie intake drops to be the same as Chas's, since they both now weigh 180lbs. However - Andy must now be fitter than Chas, since the former's spent 6 months wearing a weighted suit... Andy will definitely be stronger than Chas and quite possibly a little more aerobically able. That's fitter by anyone's definition. So underneath his weighted bodysuit, the day before he shucks it off, Andy has already become fitter than Chas.

However, the very same day that Andy does this, Bart goes in for radical liposuction and 40lbs of subdermal fat is removed. He too instantly drops his calorie intake to one that preserves the weight of a 180lb guy...

All three triplets now weigh 180lbs, but surely Bart is now every bit as fit (as strong/as aerobically able) as Andy... and therefore fitter than Chas? So presumably, underneath his 40lbs of subdermal fat, the day before he has it sucked out, Bart has also already become fitter than Chas.

Okay now let's erase Andy from existence... let's presume he never existed. We are left with a pair of twins. But Bart, the guy who's 40lbs overweight, is fitter than Chas, as per the above reasoning. Ergo, the fat guy is fitter than the thin guy. Why is this not true?

Avatar wrote:Also, I think, the fat guy is not going to find it easier to lift 20kg just because his muscles are used to hauling around more weight. It's still 20kg more than his muscles are used to, just like it would be for the skinny guy.

And Av... I read the above three times. Contradiction, anyone? It's not like anyone needed to increase my confusion...

Your original premise did not involve the fat guy suddenly getting not-fat. You just moved the goalposts to prove your own point.

No I really haven't... I've extrapolated to prove the original premise.

My point is that Andy has become fitter than Chas BEFORE he takes off his weighted suit. Exactly similarly, Bart has also got fitter than Chas BEFORE he has the liposuction.

Ergo, the overweight Bart is fitter than the healthy weight Chas. No goalpost movement there.

He is only fitter so long as he is suddenly not fat. While fat, he is not fit.

On that basis, you're telling me that Andy, while wearing his weighted bodysuit, isn't fit either. What's the difference between a 40lb weighted bodysuit and 40lbs of subdermal fat?

I need Peter here... he's unscientific yet logical enough to understand where I'm coming from...

The difference is that he can remove it. "Fit" is probably the wrong word; it's possible the overweight person is stronger, physically, but not fit.

Committed triathletes wear wrist and ankle weights while training... special forces train with forced marches and runs in full kit with 80lb rucksacks... there'll definitely be aerobic advantages to activities performed while carrying extra "weight".

I still maintain that Bart, within his cocoon of fat, MUST be fitter than Chas. Not just stronger, but more aerobically capable as well.

What ...Who....? Did somebody mention my name?

Given the [completely impossible it must be said] situation that TheFallen describes, where the fat is *in no place* found other than below the skin surface [ie not in or around the heart, in the arteries, veins or capillaries, or surounding the viscera or causing fatty changes to occur in the liver] then it can be regarded as performing exactly the same function as the 'weighted belts' described and as such there are indeed numbers of places where such tecniques are used to increase fitness. Athletes training in weighted belts has been mentioned I think; the use of 'pack drill' by armed forces, and mountaineer's in training which may then be discarded in the 'real event'. Typically in the training of National Hunt horses in the UK, the horses are weighted in training so that when actually racing the weight may be removed and performance improved thereby; this equates to Bart's radical liposuction in essence. So - given the completely unrealistic [sorry TheFallen] premise of excess fat in no way invading other areas of the body [as described above] there *may* be some logic in the argument

But.....a few points to considder. It is nut by any means unknown for 'fit' athletes to drop dead unexpectedly at the peak of their measured fitness due to having placed demands on their heart that were beyond the physiological limits that should have been placed on their particular organ. A german centinarian I heard interviewed [an explorer and mountaineer in his youth] was asked how he achieved his long years. "Two things", he replied, "Eat yoghurt every day and *never strain yourself*" - and that is the point. There is a reason the UK royal family all live into their hundreds - they never place their bodies under physical strain. Like a car, if a body is thrashed [by running about with weighted belts or lifting weights beyond normal capacity] it will wear out faster than if it is treated gently - and the heart is no more than the engine of the car in this sense. And one final point - I read recently that 99% [or a very high figure at least] of all human illness is attributable to the condition of the inside of your blood vessels not just arteries but viens, capillaries and lymphatic vessels as well]. Given this and the alas very real nature of fat to invade all areas of the body [intro, intra, and extra-cellular] I'm thinking that by and large, keeping your fat proportion lower rather than higher is probably the best idea.

peter wrote:So - given the completely unrealistic [sorry TheFallen] premise of excess fat in no way invading other areas of the body [as described above] there *may* be some logic in the argument

Well, I never claimed that my original premise was anything more than hypothetical... but I feel mildly gleeful that I'm not the only one who sees some logic within it.

peter wrote:There is a reason the UK royal family all live into their hundreds - they never place their bodies under physical strain.

Really? I thought it was because they are the Annunaki, blood-drinking, flesh-eating, shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptilian humanoids from another dimension with only one objective in their cold-blooded little heads: to enslave the human race? Link to forbidden knowledge here. Have you guys not read the Illuminatus! trilogy? Won't somebody think of the children?

peter wrote:I'm thinking that by and large, keeping your fat proportion lower rather than higher is probably the best idea.

I rather suspect you may be correct

You've just turned fat into a weighted suit. It doesn't harm the body the way normal fat does. It comes off as easily as the weighted suit does. It does not do any damage to the system to lose that much fat instantly. They're just two guys with the exact same circumstances.

Look, I'm not honestly saying that it's in ANY way better to be fat. I freely acknowledge that obesity is the single biggest health problem affecting the Western world. I'm also well aware that there is of course no such thing as "subdermal only" fat.

Having said that, although the downsides massively outweigh any potential upsides - if the latter exist at all - there must be at least some correlation between wearing a weighted suit and carrying too much weight. Some increase in at least strength must accrue, meaning that a guy who carried 40 pounds of excess weight and then lost it through normal means would be in some way naturally fitter than a guy who maintained a healthy weight throughout.

NOT that this would outweigh all the major disadvantages and risks that Chubbo would have while fat...

But you're not talking about a guy who carried 40 pounds of excess weight and then lost it through normal means. You're talking about a guy who had fat only in specific parts of his body, that didn't have, and that was removed without, any possible negative effects on his health. I imagine some people do get that lucky. And, for sure, they're better off after they lose it than they were when they had it, whether or not they're as healthy as someone who was never fat. But you're trying to make it out to be the same as having a weighted suit, and it's not. I do know what you mean, but we just can't compare it the way you want to.

Well - it's better to be fat and alive rather than thin and dead thats for sure [and thin people *do* quite often die before they should as well], but by and large it's just best to be where your body puts you given an approximately correct daily calory intake [ie 3 reasonably healthy meals and a limited daily sugar intake] and a bit of exercise each day. Just wish *I* could live like that!

[Interesting re the Lizard thing TheFallen - David Ike [the man behind all that] recently gave a lecture in a large London venue where he spoke in an extempory fashion for 11 hours without notes or backup. If you ever see him speak it's amazing how together the guy comes across - well worth a watch on youtube some time.]

Just a few things..

..it is so that, in a narrow range, active heavy folk are fitter than sedentary thin ones.

BUT your fat guy and weighted guy can't eat the same. Weighted guy just needs to do the work to carry. Fat guy has to eat enough to carry AND feed and maintain 40 lbs. of fat cells. Carrying weight and BEING weight are fundamentally different.

Also, science is beginning to admit that while a calorie is a calorie in pure physics in the end, it is not true in the body. One calorie of fat=1 cal of protein=1 calorie of sugar if you burn them trying to boil water. But the biology/chemistry in the body does totally different things with them. And the fact of different processes alters the calculations in the short and medium terms...say between birth and death.
I don't know why it's such a problem to convince people that all calories are equal is false in context of the body. They readily accept that for both earth and moon energy in from the sun=energy out to space YET one has an atmosphere (among other things) so the flow...in temperature, for instance, is different.

TheFallen wrote:

Avatar wrote:Also, I think, the fat guy is not going to find it easier to lift 20kg just because his muscles are used to hauling around more weight. It's still 20kg more than his muscles are used to, just like it would be for the skinny guy.

And Av... I read the above three times. Contradiction, anyone? It's not like anyone needed to increase my confusion...

Uh-uh.

The fat guy's muscles are used to dragging round 150kg, say. The skinny guy, only 60kg.

Give them each a 20kg weight, and now the fat guy's muscles have to haul 170kg, and the skinny guy's 80kg.

It's the same additional burden for each of them. The same amount more than they are used to.

The fact that what they are used to is different does not change the extra amount. They have different baselines.

--A