Are you thin on the outside, but fat on the inside?

[lalala]

There's an interesting article about weight on the NYT website "Genes take charge and diets fall by the wayside" It says that weight is determined genetically - that the metabolism of people under their natural average weight slows down to get them back to their usual weight - In short if your parents are fat you're doomed to a bitter jealous fattie destiny yourself...
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[MsDark]

I'm not exactly gigantic, but I am the only person overweight in my family. Parents are in their 60's. Other than 20-25# per pregnancy, my mom has never fluctuated more than about 10#. I'm the shortest too. Know I wasn't left on a doorstep cause other than that I look like mom. When I'm not 20-30# overweight my build looks like a scaled down version of my mom's. As for my dad...he's as lean as the day I was born. So according to that article there's hope for me yet.

[TheMoog]

^^^ Yeah, I think a lot of us nowadays have different HABITS to our parents. I know loads of thin older parents who have overweight middle-aged kids. They used to walk a lot more than we do now. My mum has kept her figure. Mind you, she doesn't guzzle wine like I do. She always walks everywhere and still does child-minding. I sit on my arse at a desk all day and I love the internet. I daresay if I lived HER life instead MY life, I'd lose weight too.

[darksithbunny]

I still need to lose about 10. 20 would be cool but my husband says that would be too thin. He is such a sweetheart.

[snakebread]

But can you have elevated cholesterol with normal or low BP?

Yes, you can. My cholesterol was about 290 and I had a low blood pressure (110/75 or so). What happens is the cholesterol builds up on your arteries over time, then your arteries get stiff and can't expand anymore, so you develop hypertension in your mid 40-s or later. Also, the "good" cholesterol (HDL) plays a part, because it cleans out the bad cholesterol. My good cholesterol was about 80 (ideal is above 40) so thankfully it helped my arteries. But there is evidence that high cholesterol settles in the arteries early: there was a study in Louisiana of people who died from accidents, and some people as young as 3 or 4 started having "fatty streaks" of cholesterol deposits in their arteries!

If you're concerned, definitely get your full lipid panel---HDL, LDL, and triglycerides; also check your blood sugar, which is critically important. Also, I like to check for C-reactive protein, which is a marker of inflammation in the body, and is linked to heart disease.

[stylin shopaholic]

Oh wow, this is definitely me.

I weigh about 125, standing 5'6. When I was around 17 I felt a number of lumps on my back and one above my groin. They were pretty hard and painful to touch, so I went to the doctor, scared that I had a Cancer of some sort. Luckily, after a couple of tests, I was told that they were simply fat deposists (i.e. rather than being physically overweight, my body was 'hiding' the fat in little pouches throughout my body)

I still have the deposists, despite the fact that I run 3km a day and do Pilates. I don't eat a lot of junk food either so I am convinced these bad boys are here to stay. I worked at Tim Hortons at the time, so I bet these fat deposists are just a bunch honey glazed donuts and iced capps!

[Mira]

Pets have them removed, maybe you can too? My dad had some fatty deposits removed on his dog, and I know my cat has a couple small ones.