Reply #29: Have you ever seen the "Clydesdales" at marathons?

[riderinthestorm]

These are enormous people, some of them fat actually, who RUN 26 mile marathons. They train daily, diet religiously, yet they are really big people. They term themselves "Clydesdales" so I'm not mocking them.

I work with sporthorses every single day, horses who are ridden HARD and methodically trained to perform. These are age old sports with centuries of history so it's not as if we are inventing the wheel on training and conditioning these animals (3 day eventing which is the old cavalry test - the sport that Christopher Reeve was injured doing, and dressage). Metabolism is a crazy thing: some horses require enormous calories to stay fit while others live on air doing virtually the same work - and we struggle to keep them from getting fat. It's a known factor in animal sport circles that metabolism is a wild variable. Why wouldn't humans be any different?

FWIW, I completely understand your informal study. Personally, I am dead cert that I am genetically programmed to survive famines. I live on "air" and struggle to stay within a normal weight range despite heavy, heavy farm labor 7 days/week. My husband eats @ 6000 calories/day and cannot keep weight on his frame (6'3", 160 lbs soaking weight).

Native American Eskimos are a classic example of a population that is genetically programmed to survive on fewer calories than other populations while maintaining a "chubby" frame. I can't remember the study that examined the stats on their nutrition and caloric intake but it's pretty shocking when you look at the weight/calorie stats. They are a hardy folk.