How much does genetics effect weight and weight loss?

There are 4 major factors involved in determining a person's weight, and consequently their ability to lose weight when they want to.

1. Dietary Habits
2. Fitness Habits
3. Metabolic Rate
4. Genetics

Dietary and fitness habits basically comes down to the lifestyle of the individual.

• How much are they eating?
• How nutritious is the food they are eating?
• How much do they exercise?
• How intense is the exercises they are doing?

So the number of calories consumed daily, the nutrition value of the food being consumed, the amount of exercise they are doing, and hopefully the exercises being done are intense enough that they get the heart rate pumping harder (a higher heart rate on a regular basis increases metabolism).

Diet, nutrition, exercise and intensity all in turn effect a person's metabolic rate. The faster their metabolism, the more fat they burn.

Thus if a person wanted to they could harness specific foods and exercises that deliberately boost their metabolic rate.

Likewise, the metabolic rate effects hunger, sleeping, stress levels and a host of other factors.

But what about Genetics?

So genetics do effect your body quite a bit, but that doesn't mean you have zero control over your ability to lose weight if you so want to.

Lets look at 5 different genes that effect weight gain/loss, and how you can actually work around that specific gene to invoke weight loss. Note, there is no 1 "fat gene". There are many different genes which affect weight gain/loss, these are just 5 of them that play major roles.

#1. The FTO Gene

The FTO gene acts as a food and nutrient sensor, which affects appetite and hunger, the ability to regulate food intake and how "full" you feel while eating. Scientists have found that people with abnormal variations in this gene have a higher BMI, which effectively means the gene isn't working properly and causes them to overeat.

An abnormal FTO gene is often associated with inbreeding, which is why it is common amongst Amish / Mennonite people. However you may have noticed that the Amish and Mennonites don't have a big obesity epidemic, and this is because they are doing daily chores around their farms - thus they exercising daily.

So how do you fight an abnormal FTO gene? #1. Regulate how much you eat and #2, exercise daily. The recommended amount of exercise if 30 minutes per day, daily.

#2. The PPARG Gene

The PPARG gene affects fat metabolism, including a regulating a special protein responsible both the creation of new fat cells and metabolism the fat later to be used as energy. An overactive PPARG gene can cause too much of that protein, resulting in weight gain and increases the risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.

When people with an overactive PPARG eat more unsaturated fats than saturated fats, their body stores the unsaturated fats as fat tissue. By contrast, when they eat more saturated fats than unsaturated fats, the opposite is true - they lose weight and become leaner.

Solution? Eat more saturated fats. Avoid unsaturated fats.

#3. The ADRB2 Gene

The adrenergic beta-2 surface receptor gene (ADRB2) plays a major role for a protein that breaks down fat. An abnormal ADRB2 gene has also been found to affect your metabolic rate and increase your chance of being diabetic by a factor of 6 (as in you are 6 times more likely to be diabetic). Essentially the gene isn't doing its job, which results in difficulty breaking down fat cells.

How do you combat this? People with this gene abnormality have to workout even harder, so the recommended amount of exercise for people with this is to exercise 60 minutes daily.


#4 and #5. The PGC1-Alpha and Tfam Genes

So many scientists lump these two genes together because they both effect methylation.

Methylation is a chemical process effecting protein conversion, which in turn increases your metabolism. An unhealthy or low rate of methylation slows down your metabolism. The two genes PGC1-alpha and Tfam also effect the creation of mitochondria, which are the energy-creating part of cells. Low rates of methylation have been determined to cause various types of obesity.

Methylation is also affected by age, sex, race, exercise, and diet. So you cannot change your age, sex or rare, but your exercise levels and diet are certainly open to change.

How do you increase methylation and your metabolic rate? Healthy food and intense exercise certainly helps. Aim to be exercising at least 60 minutes daily.


Conclusions

You might think you have specific genes from the list above, but that is not a guarantee. You would need to have your genes tested to know for certain if there were any abnormalities. Also there are other thousands of other genes we did not discuss here, so it is possible you have an abnormality with a completely different gene not mentioned here.

So you may have noticed that people with an abnormal FTO gene only have to exercise half as much people with an abnormal ADRB2 gene or people with slower methylation. Lucky them! 30 minutes per day is only 1/48th of their day. Roughly 2% of their day.

The people with an abnormal ADRB2 gene or people with slower methylation meanwhile have to exercise for 4% of their day.

True, we do sleep 33.3% of the day, but is 2% or 4% of the day really that big of a deal? For the people with a genetic disorder, that 2% to 4% of their day can be the difference between leading a normal healthy life and being obese, so clearly it must be worth it.

Do genes effect your weight and weight loss? Absolutely. 100%.

But if it only takes 2% to 4% of your daily routine to rectify the problem, then clearly exercise and diet is more powerful than genetics. Like 25 to 50 times more powerful.

There are a lot of success stories out there of people who beat their genetics too. Lots of before and after photos too.

Do you know what is even more powerful?

Willpower.

Willpower and self control is the driving force behind eating well and exercising. You decide to make it happen. All you need is a good dose of stubbornness and then you just get it done. Perhaps you motivate yourself using music or you choose exercises which are more fun, which makes it easier to find that needed dose of willpower because you are enjoying the process of exercising.

You cannot change your genetics, but you can beat it into submission if you are stubborn enough.