[hotnfresh]

Anecdata: I ate 3500-4000 calories a day of mostly junk in high school and college. I lifted weights some. I (barely) “had a six-pack”. No sports, only incidental cardio.

Around age 21 or so, I decided to try to drop a couple pounds and make it a really cut six-pack. I ate a strict 1400 calorie diet (packaged food to make it easy, no cheating at all) for about three months. I started running a couple times a week. I’d reckoned this would only take a month or so. Found the calorie deficit pretty easy, actually. Three months in, the scale showed one pound of loss.

Discouraged, I returned to my old eating habits.

I immediately gained about 15lb. Had to drop soda completely to stabilize it (i didn’t drink much alcohol then). Slowly got worse through my 20s. By 30, not turning into a blimp required a careful diet. No more 4k+ calories of pizza, soda, and potato chips without (visible) consequence.

My metabolism 100% for-sure changed in my 20s, a ton, not gradually. But I may have killed it, and perhaps I would have been able to keep doing what I was doing another couple decades otherwise (I would bet zero dollars on it, but hey, I guess the science disagrees, I just find it literally incredible)

[hombre_fatal]

I don't buy your anecdote.

Those are the figures people always estimate. Always the same story: 4000 calories when they were skinny, and now they can't lose weight on 1500 calories when their maintenance intake is 2600.

Then you make them log their food for a week and they are eating 3000 calories when they swore they ate no more than 2000. In my 20s I worked at a personal trainer in a gym that made people log their food and 100% of people said the same thing you just did.

If you couldn't lose weight on 1400 calories then where exactly was the energy coming from? Cue the "starvation mode" meme where people claim their body becomes so efficient that it only needs 1400 calories to maintain their 270lb body.

[hotnfresh]

> 4000 calories when they were skinny, and now they can't lose weight on 1500 calories when their maintenance intake is 2600.

4000 is a conservative estimate. Four pop tarts, an entire large pizza (all you can eat buffets FTW), two liters of soda, and an entire large bag of chips was, like… a totally normal day for me. There’s probably also be some cookies or hostess donuts in there, too.

> If you couldn't lose weight on 1400 calories then where exactly was the energy coming from?

No clue, but I didn’t cheat once and ate fixed meals of pre-measured calories every day. So.

[SoftTalker]

Teens are growing until early 20s that’s why they can and do eat so much. When you stop growing you enter into your adult metabolism.

I started gaining weight/fat in my mid 20s and had to adjust my eating habits from what was normal in the preceding 8-10 years

[hotnfresh]

Sure, hgh+T is a hell of a combo, but TFA claims a gradual change from teen metabolism in one’s 20s. I experienced a switch-flip that cut north of a thousand calories of apparent metabolism in a matter of months.

[paulpauper]

but the article says it's gradual. gaining 20+ lbs in a year not gradual.

[paulpauper]

same here but at a later age

this seems to agree with a lot of people's personal accounts. A switch is flipped in which the body for whatever reasons starts hording energy. maybe it is stress from family life or work related... who knows...The weight comes on so fast... it's nuts how much weight some people gain starting at 25 or so. Guys who were 130-180 lbs lean in college now 240+ lbs all a sudden at 30+.