Question: Why do some people lose fat more easily than others?

Majid Ahmed answered on 9 Mar 2016:

I will also add that fat is mostly used as a store (backup) for the body to use when it needs to produce energy. So it is really only used when other sources of nutrients to produce energy (mainly sugars/carbohydrates) are not available for the cells within the body to use.

Historically, this allowed our ancestors to hunt/gather food and store the excess energy as fat so that it could be used when food wasn’t available. But nowadays, at least in the developed world, food is usually easily available and we have at least three meals a day. So our bodies are storing fat to be used for times when food isn’t available, which is not too often.

Now to add to the answer why some people lose fat more easily than others.

First we have to look at how that fat comes about. So as humans we all have to eat, but what we eat and how much we eat can vary a lot from person to person. Also, the way our bodies decides how much fat to store and how much to get rid of will vary. So these two things will affect how easily people lose fat. For example, I am a muslim and in the month of Ramadhan we fast (we don’t eat food or drink water) for long periods during the sunlight and eat when it gets dark. Now I often find that I will lose weight and my body fat content will go down when I am fasting because my body is using it’s fat stores to keep me fuelled up and alive. But this is not always the case for everybody that is fasting because one person might eat a lot of food and particularly if they eat a lot of unhealthy food when they can eat during the month of Ramadhan. So the way our body stores fat and uses these can vary from person to person depending on how often we eat and what we eat.

The second thing which will affect the ability of a person to lose fats is the energy they use on a day-to-day basis. The other scientists have commented on this so I won’t discuss this too much. But the way to think about it is that a person who exercises everyday and has a life where they do a lot of physical activity will use more energy compared to someone who, for example, sits at home all day in front of the TV doing very little exercise. So the active person would lose fat more easily because there body needs to use the fat to produce energy, and the non-active person would not lose the fat so easily because there body does not need to use the fat to produce energy as their intake of food is likely to be enough for their energy requirement.

Your question is a very good question and one that interests me a lot so I apologise if I have written a lot. I hope my answer helps you to understand why some people lose fat more easily than other. I think it is also important to point out that in some ways, we don’t fully understand the answer to this question and that is why it is important to continue doing research in this area so we can get a better understanding.