Response to “I Can’t Lose Weight Because of my Metabolism

How often do you hear this excuse for obesity: [Person] cannot lose weight, no matter how little they eat, because of their low metabolism.” Well . . . bullshit. Here’s a few excerpts from a NYT article titled “What We Think We Know About Metabolism May Be Wrong: A new study challenges assumptions about energy expenditure by people, including the idea that metabolism slows at middle age.”

Everyone knows conventional wisdom about metabolism: People put pounds on year after year from their 20s onward because their metabolisms slow down, especially around middle age. Women have slower metabolisms than men. That’s why they have a harder time controlling their weight. Menopause only makes things worse, slowing women’s metabolisms even more. All wrong, according to a paper published Thursday in Science.

Dr. Klein said that although people gain on average more than a pound and a half a year during adulthood, they can no longer attribute it to slowing metabolisms.

When it comes to weight gain, he says, the issue is the same as it has always been: People are eating more calories than they are burning..

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

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