Weight Above Which You Wouldn't Go

0somuchbetter0

SuggaD wrote: »

BarbieAS wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

So when I was overweight, I always had 200 in my mind. That was the number I would never allow myself to get to. What was yours and how did you decide on that number? I'm honestly interested in gaining some understanding as to how people allow their weight to get super out of control.

That's sort of a condescending attitude. I really doubt that super morbidly obese people get on the scale and think to themselves "Ok, at 475 I'm totally fine, but 480 is just something that can NEVER happen." There are lots and lots of reasons that people gain weight, and there's no one mindset that can be attributed to that happening.

I'm curious - what's your definition of "super out of control"?

I'm not trying to be condescending. I asked a question that I am honestly interested in hearing answers to. Why people allow themselves to get to 475 is exactly what I'm getting at. What are the reasons? Just trying to understand. Is that wrong?

It's not "wrong" per se, but it shows a lack of empathy on your part. Which is ok, really. If you've never been in that place mentally where someone could "allow" themselves to get to 475 lbs or whatever, you can't empathize. But maybe you could try to imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes...the humiliation, the desperation, the lack of control. I'm sure it's a horrible place to be.

0somuchbetter0

Noodle797 wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

BarbieAS wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

So when I was overweight, I always had 200 in my mind. That was the number I would never allow myself to get to. What was yours and how did you decide on that number? I'm honestly interested in gaining some understanding as to how people allow their weight to get super out of control.

That's sort of a condescending attitude. I really doubt that super morbidly obese people get on the scale and think to themselves "Ok, at 475 I'm totally fine, but 480 is just something that can NEVER happen." There are lots and lots of reasons that people gain weight, and there's no one mindset that can be attributed to that happening.

I'm curious - what's your definition of "super out of control"?

I'm not trying to be condescending. I asked a question that I am honestly interested in hearing answers to. Why people allow themselves to get to 475 is exactly what I'm getting at. What are the reasons? Just trying to understand. Is that wrong?

To me it's like asking my dad why he let his whole life go into the toilet before he went to AA. For some people it's not about a number, I avoided stepping on a scale for years, the motivation for me to finally lose weight was getting a laundry list of health problems that I now had because I was so overweight. Sometimes you're so used to being overweight that as the number creeps up you barely see it. You're busy focused on other things. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I went through a lot of tough events in my life & my way of coping was to eat, others use drugs or alcohol. The thing about being overweight is that we wear our mistakes on our bones, out there for the world to see. You say, how could you let yourself get "super out of control", but there are other people who have problems that you can't see that don't get crucified the way that fat people do. So I made some mistakes, that's my cross to bear, what really bugs me is when people say, how could you let yourself get so fat? I don't know. How could you let yourself drink & get in a drunk driving accident? How could you rack up so much credit card debt? How could you cheat on your wife? How could you hit your kids? How could you cheat on your taxes? Etc, etc, etc. It's only fat people whose mistakes are out there for the world to see. We're criticized and ostricized and why? Because people think we're lazy, or stupid or don't care. That's just not true for me. I can't speak for every morbidly obese person out there, but frankly I'm sick of being a pariah. Try to practice empathy. You claim you're honestly curious, yet your wording drips with contempt.

Just got to this...

Yes, well said. Exactly.

Liftng4Lis

Does it matter?

Spreyton22K

By the time I topped a weight of 268lbs, 2 lbs heavier than my husband on a 5'5" tall, small framed woman, it was just one of many things in my life that were out of control at that point.

Depression, medications for said depression, loneliness, Yada Yada.....basically I had a long period of time where I ate my feelings down, rather than deal with them. I didn't think about the number, it wasn't about when I get to a certain point I'll reign myself in....for a long time I just didn't have the energy or reasons to care to change.

It did thankfully, and when I did find out my true weight, the enormity of me and the task ahead head like a Mack truck....everyone is different.

krysmuree

Noodle797 wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

BarbieAS wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

So when I was overweight, I always had 200 in my mind. That was the number I would never allow myself to get to. What was yours and how did you decide on that number? I'm honestly interested in gaining some understanding as to how people allow their weight to get super out of control.

That's sort of a condescending attitude. I really doubt that super morbidly obese people get on the scale and think to themselves "Ok, at 475 I'm totally fine, but 480 is just something that can NEVER happen." There are lots and lots of reasons that people gain weight, and there's no one mindset that can be attributed to that happening.

I'm curious - what's your definition of "super out of control"?

I'm not trying to be condescending. I asked a question that I am honestly interested in hearing answers to. Why people allow themselves to get to 475 is exactly what I'm getting at. What are the reasons? Just trying to understand. Is that wrong?

To me it's like asking my dad why he let his whole life go into the toilet before he went to AA. For some people it's not about a number, I avoided stepping on a scale for years, the motivation for me to finally lose weight was getting a laundry list of health problems that I now had because I was so overweight. Sometimes you're so used to being overweight that as the number creeps up you barely see it. You're busy focused on other things. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I went through a lot of tough events in my life & my way of coping was to eat, others use drugs or alcohol. The thing about being overweight is that we wear our mistakes on our bones, out there for the world to see. You say, how could you let yourself get "super out of control", but there are other people who have problems that you can't see that don't get crucified the way that fat people do. So I made some mistakes, that's my cross to bear, what really bugs me is when people say, how could you let yourself get so fat? I don't know. How could you let yourself drink & get in a drunk driving accident? How could you rack up so much credit card debt? How could you cheat on your wife? How could you hit your kids? How could you cheat on your taxes? Etc, etc, etc. It's only fat people whose mistakes are out there for the world to see. We're criticized and ostricized and why? Because people think we're lazy, or stupid or don't care. That's just not true for me. I can't speak for every morbidly obese person out there, but frankly I'm sick of being a pariah. Try to practice empathy. You claim you're honestly curious, yet your wording drips with contempt.

I love this.

NJGamerChick

seltzermint wrote: »

On a different note, though, one thing I'm often curious about (and have seen mentioned a few times here on MFP) is how people seemingly have a natural 'ceiling' weight wise. For example I ate whatever I wanted for years and I stayed around 270 and eventually did hit 307. But a friend of mine had to hit 400. Why didn't I ever get there? Why do I see threads about binge eaters who truly ate BOXES of cookies and entire pizzas and their heaviest was still like 170 lb? It's interesting to me.

I put a LOT of focus on CICO being the "scientific truth" and to a very large extent it IS all about that...but I look at these examples, people on MFP and people I know irl and I do wonder about metabolism and so on...it's puzzling.

HAH! I laughed at the pizza part. I often ate full pies when I was around 180 and lifting and didn't gain. It wasn't until I had a real job and couldn't devote 4 hours a day to the gym and being active all the time that I started gaining. By then I was eating salads and stuff and my appetite dropped.

But to answer the OP's question fully, I'm very tall. In high school I was pretty thin from 30+ hours of ballet a week. Then I went to college, enlisted in the USMC and started lifting because I couldn't dance anymore. Then everything started going wrong. Reactive hypoglycemia at 19 (aka insulin resistance), but no gain, then hypothyroidism came in, some weird mysterious illness that put me on bedrest, and I was yo-yoing after that. Chronic Fatigue and a whole laundry list of things I can't even remember, too. Somehow I graduated lighter than I was when I graduated high school.

I didn't start spiralling until I started working. The pounds crept on. I was never much of an eater, and my job was active, just not as active as I was used to being. Spent a month without thyroid medication and gained 30 pounds. I was gutted. I was still trying to be active, but it didn't help. At that point, I never wanted to be over 245. Then I had an accident and hurt my leg. Physical Therapy to learn to walk again after being stuck in bed for a couple of months and in 2010 I was over 300 pounds. Devastation is an understatement. I was still walking around with a cane after 2 1/2 years of working on it. I was on vacation at the time when I hit that resolve to get better, just so I could walk better. Gladly, I've dropped over 75 pounds and just today put a pic of me at my max size to one taken recently and it's amazing. I'm still not as mobile as I'd like to be, but I'm doing really well there and I think that is motivating, too.

So there is my reasoning to going over 325 lbs. I still struggle with some medical issues, but they are, for the most part, under control.

melitosis

I always thought my max was 150, then 160n then 170... Ahahah. My actual tipping point came when I stepped on the scale for the first time in a couple years, only to discover that I had gained 20 pounds and my BMI had gone from overweight to obese at 181 pounds. I had been seeing the changes for ages but always convinced myself they weren't that bad. I think it was the word "obese" moreso than the number of pounds that motivated me to finally make better food choices.