stereotype

I was talking to my dad the other day and I was like man I cant wait till I can see my abs. He was like you will never see that because our whole family is heavy. That was one of my motivations for loosing all of that weight. But my question is will I ever see my abs? will genetics play a roll in this or can it be done. I just want to lift my shirt up one day and say "CHECK THIS OUT!!!" Please help.

of course you could. as long as you are eating healthy and exercising and doing the right training to obtain them.

nods

Hello, nygiantsfan56. I'm sorry to hear your dad said such a disencouraging thing. As you know, everything depends on an even circumstance of nature/nuture. How your body is depends on both how well you take care of yourself and genetics. From what I know however, genetics very rarely play a true role in weight. If your family has a history of diabetes or thyroid issues, then it makes sense for there to be difficulties. You can also inherit slow metabolisms. Aside from these though, there's no such thing as 'naturally overweight, nothing you can do about it' situations. Not to be disrespectful, or rude, but maybe your father's simply someone who's complacent or has lost hope to lose weight, and tries to comfort himself by blaming genetics. He also might be mistaken in thinking genetics are at play when your family might simply be driven towards less than healthy foods.

In short, genetics can play a role- but aside from things like diabetes or slow metabolism, it will never make you irreversabily fat. With hard work and determination you always have the ability to improve. Good luck!

Thanks for the pep talk. Actualy my dad lost weight. He had too because he was diagnosed with diabeties. I dont know why he said that, but I was sick of going to holidays with my family and seeing them eat mounds of mashed potatoes and rolling ther corn in a stick of butter! I get ill now seing them eat! I usualy have a plain burger with no bun but I do eat the home made potato salad sometimes, my aunt makes it very good. But I cant see myself at 400 pounds!! I am at 230 now, Maybe want to get to 210 or 215 but solid. I am working on it now. At the gym 6 days a week. I know I can do it!

Sure there are some people genetically predisposed to being very lean or overweight, but predisposed is not the same thing as predetermined.  Seeing your abs is two things: building up your muscles with weight training so they look good, and aerobic exercise to lose the fat that is on top of them.  So as long as you're doing those things, there's no reason you won't have a show-off-able stomach.

I have to tell you that my mother- and father-in-law are both fat, have diabetes, and are generally not in the best health.  My husband, however, just lost 70 lbs and is now maintaining.  He still has some belly fat but is working his tail off at cardio to try to tone that up.  With that said, you can see the top part of his abs...and his lower belly is getting more toned all the time.  So, yes.  You will be able to see your abs if you want it bad enough to work at it.  :)  Good luck to you!