Why did you let yourself gain so much weight?

cwolfman13

i was always pretty active growing up and in my 20s...when i graduated college at 30 i took a desk job at a CPA firm and was pretty much working 10-12 hour days 6 days per week. i also bought a car, so i wasn't walking or riding my bike everywhere anymore. i didn't really make time for exercise, because other than playing sports when i was growing up, i never really "worked out"...i was just active. i put on 40-50 Lbs pretty easily over 8 years or so due to being way less active with no change in my dietary habits.

smotheredincheese

I never really became fat - I just always was fat. A chubby kid turned in to a fat teenager and I thought I would never be able to change. A few people have mentioned having parents with restrictive attitudes to food, and I think that contributed to my weight problem hugely. I wasn't allowed treats at home very often so when they were available I would gorge myself, and when I got older would spend my lunch money on chocolate every day.
I was very unhappy with my weight but bought in to the myth that it's near impossible for obese children to ever be a healthy weight, so let myself get bigger and bigger.

ald783

juggernaut1974 wrote: »

Because food is delicious and I was lazy.

Samesies

kommodevaran

Eating all day/night feels good, in a bad way, and too little excercise makes me lazy, and as my weight goes up I become more and more indifferent, and all I want/manage to do is eat. I got used to the new normal really fast. It's easy, and pleasant, if I don't think too much about it.

Keeping the weight off and being active every day takes a conscious effort, planning, and sometimes telling myself NO. Saying no to things I want and can have is really difficult sometimes. But it can also feel good.

jkal1979

I won't go into detail, but I dealt with my emotions by stuffing my face and gaining 36 pounds.

Shanel0916

I eat out of boredom, with no "real" friends and a not so exciting life boredom was the norm. I also binge from time to time not sure why. I would come home everyday after school and eat just about everything in sight plus dinner.

13bbird13

I embraced what I call my "frat boy diet" many years ago... pizza, burgers, tacos... and I also sit on the couch watching TV with a glass of wine in my hand whenever possible. I was pretty much raised on processed food like take-out and TV dinners and I got used to the convenience, so I kept eating that way as an adult. I was skinny as a rail in high school (and I walked to school all 13 years of public education) and in fact was once turned away when I tried to give blood because I didn't weigh at least 110 pounds. Not a problem these days; two months ago I was 60 pounds over that!!

WickedPineapple

I was always overweight as a teen and an adult. I slipped into obesity in my early 20s without even noticing (depression + stress eating).

abatonfan

juggernaut1974 wrote: »

Because food is delicious and I was lazy.

Same here. I was also the person to eat a family-sized bag of baked potato chips, nuts, or grapes because they're "healthy" (not knowing that I just ate 1000+ calories in my "snack").

I don't want to put the blame on my parents (I got fat because I was a pig with no portion control), but I wish my parents spent some time teaching and demonstrating good nutrition and portion control. I saw them eat straight out of the bag of potato chips and not give a fat rat's behind about their diet, and I modeled their behavior. I feel like the entire family's dynamics about food is a swinging pendulum -my grandmother placed such a big emphasis on weight and "skinniness" (what mother would send her 12-13 year old daughter to Weight Watchers?) that it ultimately backfired with my mother. My mother didn't want to force my sisters and me down the same path she went on, so she didn't spend much attention on nutrition and healthy eating. If I decide to have kids, I hope that I will be able to strike a balance between emphasizing healthy eating and portion control but not shoving "skinniness" down their throats.

etebbetts

My mom got sick when I was 9, and family dinners didn't happen often. I was a super picky eater, so my parents told me that if I didn't want whatever they were making, I could cook my own dinner, haha. So, I always made what I liked to eat without any regard to health.. Usually pasta. I was SO active as a kid and up until college, I could literally eat whatever I wanted and still had a great body.

Food became a crutch for me for sure, and I was also super picky, used to seeing food as a reward, are crazy big portions, etc. I'm a stress eater for sure. So my mom died when I was a sophomore in college, and I gained around 15lbs. Later that year, I got super in shape and lost that weight. I was in the best shape and health of my life. Because I was so active, I think my mentality was that I could continue eating a decent amount of food while maintaining. But I moved in with my long time boyfriend, winter came in Boston, and I felt uncomfortable doing the programs (like insanity, p90x, etc) in our tiny apartment on the second floor., so I became much less active, even though it didn't really register in my mind. I started gaining back weight pretty quickly.

Since then, I've been gaining weight and constantly thinking that I need to stop and lose it. I even managed to gain weight instead of lose it for my wedding. But my (now husband) truly does make me feel beautiful and loved at every size, and I've been so stressed and busy the last few years... Working full time while also running a biz full time, getting engaged, buying a house, quitting the 9-5 and being self employed full time, building my biz, getting married, etc... I just haven't been active and kept stress eating. I was ashamed of how I looked, but very little in my life revolves around how I look, so I wasn't mortified enough to not let myself get to this weight.

I finally reached 199.6lbs and did NOT want to see that 200 number. It's about to be my off season, and I feel my adult brain actually starting to take over my adolescent one, which has been helpful in me deciding to once and for all make a serious effort to live a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. I convinced my husband to do this with me, and it's so so helpful. It's a whole different mentality than before.

I hope this time sticks. I hate feeling so fat, feeling ashamed about how I look, feeling so unhealthy, and worrying about the effects on my health. I love the way I feel when I'm getting regular exercise and eating relatively well. I want to hold onto that feeling forever, please!

Ninkyou

juggernaut1974 wrote: »

Because food is delicious and I was lazy.

This. I had a complete disregard of the consequences. I loved food a bit too much and was completely lazy.

malibu927

I was the kid of morbidly obese parents who didn't know portion control. I also had leg problems growing up so athletics were always a problem, even the three years I played soccer. Even in high school I hit 200 pounds. Then as an adult I turned to boredom snacking and became even lazier.

zoeperfect14

Emotional eater. Have anxiety and financial issues. Therefore I take my stupidity out on myself with food. I don't like what I am doing to myself. But that is why I have allowed myself to gain weight

LaceyBirds

Really don't mean for this answer to be offensive, but OP, why are you overweight? Not technically overweight, but your goals show that you have been trying to lose 13 pounds. How did that happen to you? What are your reasons for gaining that amount?

I certainly never thought that I would be overweight or obese. At your age, I had never been overweight, never been on a diet, and wouldn't be until I was 25. At that time, I was newly married, was cooking meals and going out to eat and drink all the time. My husband gained weight right alongside me. I got up to 25 pounds "overweight" (but 21 pounds below technically being in the overweight category) and then lost it. I kept it off for years. After that, I would periodically gain weight, due to many reasons, enjoying food, eating too much fast food, eating due to depression or stress, but I was never in the overweight category until I was in my late 40s, and then I wasn't obese until about 10 years ago after a hysterectomy, job loss, losing my house and pets, moving across country, more surgeries and developing many chronic health issues, including clinical depression and anxiety. I'm 60 now, and have lost 60 pounds, with 35 left to go, and I hope to never be obese again, but life happens, as it happened before, so we shall see.

If somebody has ever felt like they had to lose a few pounds, if their clothes have ever gotten too tight, then they are no different than any other people who gain weight or become obese - it is just a matter of degree.

Rachel0778

I gained weight in high school when my parents separated, mostly because I started partying, drinking, and eating way more fast food than I used to.

As an adult, I lost the weight, but then became obsessed with perfect eating and restriction and fitting into a certain size, which of course led to binging and unhealthy food behaviors.

It took falling in love with the body I have to break the binge cycle and start slowly moving my weight in a healthier direction. This time around it's not about quick losses. Instead I'm setting up a lifestyle that I can work with for the rest of my life. One where I can have indulgences (hello Christmas cookies in the break room) while still working on a healthy body and weight.

jgnatca

Ten pounds a year. I am in my fifties. Do the maths. I did some calculating and I was over-eating on average a hundred calories a day. That's half a cookie. Easy to have happen.

misskarne

When I was a kid/teenager, I had a very fast metabolism. I could shove thousands of calories down my throat and never gain an ounce. Or at least that was what I believed. Looking back, I was also a lot more active. I rode or walked to school every day, we had PE multiple days a week, in the summer I played softball. My father loved big meals and was well on his way to becoming overweight and my mother was already overweight, so the dinners she served up were always big and high in calories. I got to Year 11 and 12 (so 17-18) and the walking/riding to school vanished as I was then attending a new school that was further away. I wasn't taking a PE class and the softball was switched for cricket. I started to gain a little, but all it did was give me something bigger than an A cup, so I wasn't complaining.

It was when I went to uni that it started to go out of control. I was also working by now and earning my own money and able to buy the "treats" that I enjoyed on campus. I stopped playing cricket. I was studying more, driving more, heading to a more sedentary lifestyle. The first three years of uni I managed to control it somewhat, but then for reasons I am not 100% sure of it spiralled out of control in my fourth and fifth years. Then I faced the prospect of being unable to find a job in my degree, and the eating became emotional, too. I was 70kg at 22 (which I had thought fat) and ballooned up 90kg by 24. Then I hurt my ankle badly and was completely sedentary for four months. Boom. 100+kg. Another 10kg later and the horror finally got overwhelming. NO! I would not get any heavier. So now, gram by gram, it's going back down. It's hard, really hard, because I still love food as much as I ever did.

Kimegatron

I love food, I love the taste of foods, I love to cooook foods. And I was lazy. Plus depression. But mostly love of food. I have to eat it all. ALL OF IT

oolou

juggernaut1974 wrote: »

Because food is delicious and I was lazy.

Sums it up for me.

hotnumber

Mindless eating... If people didn't cook delicious things, I might not eat so much