XPost: soc.support.fat-acceptance, tx.politics   
   From: giddyyup@yeehaw.com   
      
   DALLAS - The ideal runner's body is lean and lithe.   
      
   But 47-year-old Luis Serna is a marathoner who knows he defies   
   that description.   
      
   "I see all my friend runners and they are very skinny like   
   this," said Serna, holding up his pinky finger. "And then when I   
   see myself, I see someone like this [holding up a thumb]. And it   
   is interesting to see a big guy running alongside my friends."   
      
   The Texas Health Dallas Institute for Exercise and Environmental   
   Medicine is studying Serna and other healthy, but medically   
   obese, athletes to determine how they do it.   
      
   According to some estimates, one-third of the U.S. population is   
   clinically obese. And, at any given time, up to 35 percent are   
   trying to lose weight.   
      
   No matter how hard many of them try, they just can seem to   
   exercise the weight off. Why not?   
      
   "We're using this small group of obese and fit individuals,"   
   explains exercise physiologist Santiago Lorenzo, "To try and   
   understand how are they able to do it, so that we can help the   
   regular obese people and fight this epidemic of obesity."   
      
   Santiago Lorenzo knows a thing or two about fitness. He was an   
   Olympic decathlete for Argentina in the 2004 Olympics.   
      
   Since becoming an exercise physiologist, he's been fascinated   
   with finding a reason why obese people often can't work off the   
   weight.   
      
   "One is, they're out of shape," Lorenzo said. "And the other is   
   because they have some sort of respiratory limitation, because   
   of the extra weight they are carrying. So we're trying to figure   
   out what's really the cause."   
      
   He believes the key is in the respiratory system -- which seems   
   to work differently, more efficiently, in the fit-but-fat   
   population.   
      
   Luis Serna hopes his part in the research makes a difference for   
   others who are overweight, including himself.   
      
   "I want to be faster," he said. "I wish the people doing the   
   study will give me like a pill that I will slim down and be much   
   faster."   
      
   http://www.kens5.com/news/health/Texas-study-looks-at-why-some-   
   who-are-overweight-arent-restricted-in-exercise-135894573.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)