By: Bric

Bric — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:11:22 +0000

When I weighed 230 pounds, I was obese, but not fat.
I was about 7-8% body fat, and outran everybody I played against in a highly competitive basketball league comprised of former college players and current NFL players and ex-professional baseball players.
Then I quit, cut my calories in half, began a strenuous walking program and still gained 40 pounds in six months. My legs couldn’t handle the pounding anymore.
The only way I can keep weight off is extreme exercise. My body can’t do it anymore. I have to run, but my body cannot do it anymore.
Dieting at 900 calories a day is the only way to lose weight for me, but I medically cannot continue at that rate, and when I return to 1800 calories, I gain every ounce back within 2-3 weeks.
My grandfather who played pro football was over 300 lbs, and I so am I.
I was thin at 230; my blood pressure went down when I gained the first 40.
Grandpa was a dead ringer for his Iroquoian great-grandmother, and I am built exactly like him.
We share a dominant gene that allows us to gain weight with normal eating, and we share a gene that ultimately gives us diabetes.
That gene causes both conditions.
The obesity is caused by the diabetic gene; the obesity, in our case, did not cause the diabetes.
The only solution for young people in our situation is for them to be treated for pre-diabetes at an early age before the diabetes condition develops.
The weight is a correlation, nothing more, in my case (and many others).
Yes, it’s possible some people bring it on with massive overeating, but the major reason diabetes is increasing is that there are more of us, people of Native American or African descent, even if we have only one or two obscure ancestors, because we have inherited the diabetes/weight gain genetic mandate.

Comments on: Deciphering Diabetes

By: Bric