I was a fat kid because I ate too much and watched too much TV. Then in high school I realized that I could eat whatever I wanted so long as I exercised and did sports. Been thin/muscular ever since, and never dieted once.

But I still THINK like a fat kid, and I enjoy eating, a lot; I still struggle with overeating, cause I want to. But I KNOW that I can eat anything, cause I can just go on a 50 mile bike ride the next day and it will be all cool.

Let's get this out of the way: you still have to take responsibility for your choices, even if you are subject to strong biological tendencies towards being fat. Food choices, portion control, and exercise are still on your plate. It had to be said, now onto other points.

There is also a psychological component. The other year I finally realized that the notion of being hungry was just unsettling enough to me that I was making for damn sure never to get in that condition (i.e., overeating as a rule). Once I realized I was overreacting to what was at most an abstract worry, I was able to start managing it a lot better. Portion control immediately got a lot easier.

I also figured out that protein is the best way to feel full. According to some sources, take your weight in pounds, and divide by three: that's how many grams of protein you ought to be consuming a day. If you're not getting it, you may never quite feel full ... and those numbers can be harder to reach than you thought, until you start running numbers. A hard-boiled egg's got only 6 grams of protein; it took Cool Hand Luke ten of them to reach his daily protein requirement. Lean meats, lentils, certain beans, soy, veggie burgers, TVP (textured vegetable protein) are all good sources of protein.

Stupid Bort trick: make a pot of Lipton or Knorr prepackaged pasta, and toss in a big helping of TVP. Maybe chop up some vegetables to be fancy.

Fat chicken virus.

I was able to get my weight down by doing calorie for calorie exercise: I'd calculate the calories for the vegetable sandwich that was my breakfast and lunch and burn those off on a stair stepping machine. I also ate less for dinner - only one glass of wine, a smaller plate of food overall, etc.

Insert "I'm not fat and here's why" story here.

I'm fat because I love pasta and taters and hate exercise.

Since Poetv is sharing it's "here's how I got in shape stories" right now, can anyone recommend exercises to make your lower belly not pudgy?

Very interesting study.

While I fully believe your body tends to stay a certain way due to a vast number of physical/psychological/behavioral factors, I think that overall trend can be changed.

If a fat guy runs on a treadmill for a few weeks focusing solely on the fat loss aspect, he may lose some weight, but he'll probably tend to gain it back very soon as he fails to comply with a specific exercise/diet regime.

However, if a fat person actually changes his way of perceiving his life and his responsibilities in life, I think a long-term change is quite possible. To achieve this though, exercise needs to be perceived as a normal part of a healthy life, part of your day to day, not as something you do to avoid becoming a lardbeast. Basically, you need to enjoy exercising, and possibly get involved in some competitive sports you actually enjoy doing.

Sugars and shitty carbs are all over the place nowadays and people are ADDICTED to them, so of course they never feel satisfied. But stay TOTALLY away from sugar and eat healthy carbs for a while, and you can totally change the perception of "I'm not full even though I ate a shitload" to "I have eaten enough and now I'm full".

Because they have no soul. You only accumulate enough Ki to form a soul at 200 pounds, you fools!

Couldn't get last the chomping, sloshing, eating noises in the intro.