Why does my body not hold on to fat?

[Peater503]

I've been very low body fat and skinny pretty much my whole life. Even when being in a large caloric surplus consistently, the fat that I do manage to hold on to is very minimal; worst of all, whenever I do manage to hold on to a bit of fat after several weeks of painstakingly eating in a surplus, before I know it that same fat is burnt right off my bones again after just a few days of eating at maintenance.

I know that this is 100% not a sign of a healthy metabolism...

Therefore, I desperately want to understand: Where does this inability/unwillingness of my body to store fat come from?

As far as I understand, it must be either one of these two causes:

1. My genetics, since my father was the same (skinny and always lean) when he was young

2. A result of a health condition (that I'm not aware of)
(@Outdoctrination wrote a great thread on all the conditions that can cause high fat burning:
View: https://x.com/Outdoctrination/status/1718308375895634326?s=20
The only one that I can personally relate to is hypothyroid, but even for that, I only have a rather light case of it according to my blood tests and body temps...)

Please help me to understand how I can find and verify the origin of my body's behavior with fat. Besides being slightly hypothyroid and having a minor skin fungus that I'm dealing with, I have (luckily) no health complaints. This makes isolating the root cause of my body's behavior (if it's not genetic related) all the more confusing for me. I'm ready to do any kind of laboratory testing to get to the bottom of this...

 

[Hugh Johnson]

What are your resting pulse, temperatures in the morning and during the day? Are your hands and feet cold? Have you tried taking thyroid?

And why is this such a problem? Is it just because you read somewhere that it's "bad"?

 

[GTW]

Have you done a body fat percentage test?
Body analysis scale could be a starting point for context.

 

[LuMonty]

Have you done a body fat percentage test?
Body analysis scale could be a starting point for context.

Isn't that reductive? It certainly won't reveal the cause of his issues. It seems more likely his body is in a wasting state, perhaps the fungal issue is worse than it appears. Or, it is simply a symptom of the wasting metabolism.

 

[Jonk]

Unfortunately I don't think there are any clear cut answers about this but I would suggest reading Ray Peats articles and try to find specific shortcomings in your lifestyle and diet and apply bioenergetic principles to reduce stress. I always was super skinny but look a lot more robust now after a few years following Ray Peat principles. Maybe it's a little bit of fat gain but I also think my muscles and overall body is a lot more relaxed, making me not look as skinny.

If I were you I would do a deep dive into your own physiology and go for the low hanging fruits, getting enough sunlight, avoid irritating foods, maybe pay extra attention to cravings -its a lot easier eating more calories if the food is delicious. Sleep. Getting enough of the fat soluble vitamins. Etc etc. And just go down the list of possible things that seem most plausible to be of relevance to your specific lifestyle. If you've already feel like you've exhausted all "natural" options you have things like cyproheptadine that's often used to put on weight.

 

[GTW]

It's reductive or moreover presumptuous to see low body fat as the problem and the cause without giving more context and degree\scale.
Marathon runners are often below 10% body fat approaching 5%. Many people would be happy to be slim and fit.
As another reply asks, what's the problem?

 

[LuMonty]

It's reductive or moreover presumptuous to see low body fat as the problem and the cause without giving more context and degree\scale.
Marathon runners are often below 10% body fat approaching 5%. Many people would be happy to be slim and fit.
As another reply asks, what's the problem?

I don't see it as a problem, the OP does, and the OP doesn't seem able to provide more info due to the nature of the problem. To me, the issue reminds me of a thread i was reading elsewhere on the internet about cats, where some users had to rehabilitate their rescues with thyroid medication to make them gain healthy weight, or any at all. Classically, wasteful metabolisms such as diabetic(-like) conditions were viewed negatively despite the leaner population of those days.

IIRC there are many topics on this forum about athletes, especially endurance athletes, and the associated metabolic issues they've faced. Perhaps you would like to read them? It would be far better than me trying to summarize everything I've read.

 

[GTW]

The question seems to assume a correlation between an ideal body fat greater than the writer's (at that age) and long term health.
There are many potential practical fallacies in this thinking.
Such a statistical correlation would show a significant standard deviation. This demonstrates the fact that statistics are generated from populations and certainly are not conclusive for any individual.
There is also uncertainty related to the index\variables\parameters.
>Previous studies using BMI have acknowledged the major limitation of BMI being an imperfect measure of adiposity because it cannot discriminate fat mass and lean body mass.
In summary, the available data suggest independent associations of fat mass and lean body mass on mortality in the general population.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6348595/

 

[tasfarelel]

Virtually 95% of all cases that complain about "not being able to put on weight", while not having obvious problems like constant diarrhea, can he solved with a daily calorie diary app. Most will discover that they are just not eating enough.