eli5: why is it that fatter/bigger people in general have an easier time gaining strength and putting on muscle than skinny people?

Question

This is not the place to give any measurements, so I’ll just say I was fat 7 months ago and I’m not anymore.

I put on a lot of muscle mass while losing quite some fat, so I can lift rather heavy (on my own perspective), but when I mock my friends about lifting more than them even though they’ve been training for years they all go “well, you used to be fat” or “that’s easier for you because you were bigger” and I have come to understand that’s just how it works because of the Internet too, but I don’t really know why.

I don’t know if it’s the language causing a misunderstanding here, but when I say “mock” I mean we joke with each other playfully in a way that everyone’s comfortable with.

In: Biology

Answer 1

There’s a lot of incomplete answers here from people going off the dome that haven’t experienced obesity *and* lifting so I’ll give it a shot.

There’s many contributing factors that are a combination of genetics, formed habits, physiology and just… thermodynamics. First, getting a body into good hypertrophic state can be more energy intensive than people recognize. Your body will consume glucose stores first, carbs next, and then will resort to fat deposits. A person in caloric surplus will usually have an abundance of the first two regardless of size, but it’s important to note that the body is reluctant to burn fat deposits unless it has to, often especially in people prone to obesity, so it’s likely that the caloric surplus is helping them most while increased fat stores provide them a metaphorical cushion for when that runs out. It’s also why body recomposition tends to be easier for obese persons rather than so-called “hardgainers” that struggle to put on weight.

That said, from personal experience as someone who went from about 300 lbs (way too big)down to 185 (starvation for me), and after years of lifting sit at a comfortable dad weight of 245, the most important part is definitely the caloric surplus for *most* people. A hard gainer that’s tracking well and eating like 500 kcals surplus will get big and strong just fine in comparison, AND will typically look strong sooner.