I want to hear from people who were always thin but are now fat.

lauractemple85

So here's the thing- I feel like almost every weight loss story starts with “I’ve struggled with weight loss for as long as I can remember…” When I hear that I immediately think that I can’t relate to this person or their story.

The last five years of my life were the first years that I’ve struggled with weight. I’ve been thin my entire life (I’m 5’3” and teetered between 105 lbs -110 lbs)– up until my mid twenties when I moved to NY and started my career. I actually started piling on the pounds (fat) when I started going to the gym regularly! Maybe it was because I was more hungry and didn’t know how to properly fuel my body…I don’t know. I do know that I’m now in my early 30s and would do it all over again if I could. I’m now around the 170 lb mark.

I want to hear from people who were always thin, but are now fat and trying to navigate through this struggle. I don’t know how to dress this body, I don’t know how to be confident in this body and most importantly, I don’t know how to love myself in this body.

debboike

I can totally relate. I was so skinny that I was always the recipient of all the thin jokes. I was very active and in everything. My weight started to come on gradually...basically I still wanted to eat everything like I did when I was active and thin. I started working out an hour a day and walked 5 miles each day and I was able to maintain my new weight. Then I was in an accident and was not able to work out or walk and then I gained about 75#'s. Now I am struggling to take it off. Being 60, I deal with age related weight loss issues, so get it off when you are young, stay active and love yourself. You may never get to where you once were, but that does not mean you are not beautiful. I love my fitness pal, because it makes me aware of what is going into my mouth. Good luck.

kristen6350

I'm 5'11 and was thin most of my life. Up until about 32, then it all went to pot. But I learned that I ate too much and wasn't doing enough to regulate my weight and I just have to watch.

When I started I was 193. I got to 143. Took about 1.5years...I maintain no after 5 years anywhere between 150 & 160. 143 was easy to go to (because I was on a roll!), but maintaining it stunk.

garygse

I was always of a slim frame (160 lbs at 5'10") with an ability to eat just about anything and everything without gaining an ounce. That changed when I moved to the US and the pounds started to creep on; I suspect it was a combination of me getting older (I was in my late twenties when I moved), becoming less active (a sedentary job, and driving everywhere while walking very little), a much higher consumption of alcohol, and a new diet where everything now seemed to have a good dose of high fructose corn syrup added to it.

Fast forward 16 years, and after yo-yoing with my weight some, I finally ended up 24lbs higher than I started...I know, it doesn't sound a lot, but those pounds manifested themselves in my stomach and face, leading me to not really like what I was seeing in the mirror: a pregnant man that doesn't look good in maternity clothes.

That was last year, and after a lot of effort, I've managed to get things back under control again. For me, it's now a matter of continuing to educate myself, exercising my body, exercising stricter control over what I'm eating, and continuing my fight against alcohol addiction (8 months dry as of now).

I think the biggest thing that helped me was waking up to the fact that I really didn't like how I looked at all, that I was angry and upset with myself for allowing me to become a much more unhealthier version of my prior self, and that the only person that could change it all was me. That led me to finally being able to get into a more determined mindset where diet and exercise were going to be the new norm in my life. Until that point, I was destined to continue yo-yoing up and down, with each 'down' becoming seemingly harder and harder to do while the 'ups' were becoming easier and easier.

Eliziboo

Hey there! I have always been thin! My entire life! It wasn't till I was in my mid 20's that I started to put weight on. To the point where I was hospitalized with liver failure to make me see that I was in serious trouble! It kinda snuk up on me. I went from being 140 pounds to 250. That's a issue, so I can relate!! I hated what I looked like, hated what I saw staring back at me in the mirror. I cried in the changing room because nothing fit. I couldn't find anything to ware, I was depressed all the time.... it really SUCKED!

It's tough! It really is! I've been loosing weight and inches over the last year and at my last weight in I was back down to 160. I'm happy!

I have tried just about everything out there to loose weight, but it wasn't until lately (the last 9 months) that I really started to make huge changes! I'd be happy to share with you what I've been doing, because it isn't a diet I'm on! It's a whole lifestyle change! Whole foods mostly and exercise! Thats it!

Trish1c

I struggled with food the other way -- I was anorexic. I overcame that & got to a healthy weight between 120 - 125 from probably age 21 until I hit 40. I'm 5'7". Anyway, at 40 the pounds started to creep up, 130, 135, etc. I went from a size 4 to a 6, maybe an 8. Then I got married & my weight topped 150. Ugh. Nothing fit. I was busting out of size 10 clothes. I was miserable that I was in double digits. I tried to lose before but thought adding exercise alone would do it. I didn't think I had to pay attention to diet. I didn't lose & I just kind of gave up. When I realized I weighed almost 160, I hated my body. I carry all my weight in my stomach & somebody asked me if I was pregnant. I freaked! Friends turned me on to MFP & this time I really read through everything & have made an effort. especially with portions. As of today I weigh 146, 12 pounds down from my heaviest of 158. My goal is to get back to 135 by next Spring.

rachelr1116

I was a thin kid and teenager. I was actually underweight in high school at 5' 11" and 125 lbs. I took dance lessons until I was 13 and I was just never a big eater. I was at a healthy weight (160 lbs.) when I got married but then I got pregnant and gained way too much weight, I think around 60 lbs. I managed to lose most of the pregnancy weight but then I got a desk job and just started eating too much fast food and sweets. Since I grew up eating whatever I wanted and never had a weight problem I think I just assumed that I could keep doing that but my activity level went down so much that I just wasn't burning as many calories as I used to.

I've yo-yo'd up and down over the past 10 years but every time I diet I end up quitting after 6 months or so. This time around I've lost almost 35 lbs. since April of 2015. I actually didn't realize just how big I had gotten until I started comparing recent pictures to pictures taken 2 years ago. It makes me really sad to know that I let myself gain so much before I decided to really do something about it. I did stop logging for about 3 months over the holidays last year and that set me back some but it also helped me realize that I have to make this a change that I can stick with forever. I'm only losing about a half a pound a week but I'm hoping that makes the transition to maintenance easier and I won't ever have to lose weight again. I haven't cut anything out of my diet and I still go out for drinks with my friends, I'm just much more aware of how many calories I'm consuming and I try to make an effort to be more active.

jess427

Once upon a time 12+years ago I was super skinny....but actually too skinny to the point I wanted to gain weight I didn't look very healthy, afterwards I filled out and liked my body was comfortable in my skin for a few short years. I basically ate what I wanted and no biggie and even when I got prego 8 yrs ago I wasn't overweight after due to getting super sick and loosing about 25 lbs from morning sickness that followed me throughout the day. But I stayed with stretch marks and later going thru depression the overeating caught up with me:/ & i was no longer happy in my skin.I'm only 4'11 and I've fluctuated at 135-most recently 146 at this height bmi of 29.28 so I've decided it's time for change not really diet but lifestyle for me and my family plus to help my depression and energy levels. Plus I gain in such a disproportionate way I hate shoppi ng

middlehaitch

From the age of 15 to my late 40's I weighed between 105-115lbs (5'1), including pregnancy, with the odd dip below.

In my late 40's I got a car and slowly my activity level dropped and my weight went up to 130+ (top of my normal bmi) by the time I was 54.

Who knew never exercising but walking and biking almost everywhere as well as going out dancing 3-4 nights a week could burn so many calories.

It never dawned on me that my activity level was slowly shifting to very sedentary because I had always called my self a sloth allergic to exercise.

At the age of 54, and menopausal, I saw a photo of myself I couldn't believe- I was fat, frumpy, and fifty+

( I never thought to attribute any of my weight gain to menopause, because it was my own actions, or lack thereof, that caused the gain)

The next day I signed onto a calorie counting site and started my first ever exercise programme- Aqua fit.
From that day I haven't looked back.

It took a year to get back to 105 lbs eating 1200 cals, plus exercise calories. This just ment shaving a few calories here and there; no big changes in what or when I ate, except for more protein.
(1200 was correct for me due to height, age, and weight)

I lost at a pound a week for the first few pounds then it just got less and less a week, sometimes 6 weeks to lose a pound.

I continued the Aqua fit for the first 6 months, then started adding other classes and doing 5 and 10km races, walking. At the moment my focus is weight lifting, swimming and the rowing machine.

I try to do 60x5 a week as I can see this, while changing what I do, as sustainable as I age. With a couple of months off in the summer for gardening and wine drinking.

Now, at 63, I maintain my weight easily (100-105) and continue to do structured exercise to replace the bike riding and dancing I did when younger, and fend off bone and muscle loss.

Cheers, h.

Machka9

I was always slender growing up ....

When I was 23, I had a major surgery and couldn't exercise for a couple months ... and then we started packing up to move 2 provinces away. As soon as I could, after the surgery, I was back in the gym training with my bodybuilding coach and also cycling ... but it just wasn't quite enough, what with all the time spent packing + convenience food.

When we arrived in our new home, 5 months after the surgery, one of the first things we did was to sign up with a local gym. I stepped on the scale ... and discovered I had just stepped into the overweight category for the first time in my life.

I immediately dropped about 25 lbs and stayed there for several years, and then increased my cycling and dropped another 20-25 lbs and stayed there for years. There were some minor ups and downs, of course, but nothing significant.


When I was 42, I moved to Australia, developed DVT on the flight over (ended up in hospital for 2 weeks), and had to adjust to living in a cabin completely off the grid for a year ... as well as dealing with energy-draining warfarin. I was exercising and trying to eat a decent diet, but just couldn't get up the energy to do as much as I would have liked. For the second time in my life, I stepped over the border into the overweight category.

Then another move into a small town at the end of the year, off the warfarin, and I started increasing my exercise again. When I was 44, I lost the weight and dropped back to normal. I also took on the 7 Peaks Challenge ... a cycling challenge in Victoria where you do 7 climbing events. I needed to be lighter for that!

When I was 45, my husband and I packed everything into storage and set off for an 8-month RTW tour. Lots of cycling and walking, but so much good food! And yeah, some weight gain ... back into the overweight category. We ended up in Canada with my family for a month over Christmas, joined a gym, and lost the weight ... back to normal. The 2 weeks cycling and swimming in Western Australia after that helped too.

Then we had an unsettled couple years ... several moves, some health issues ... and back into the overweight category. This time, I hit the highest weight I've ever been after a pair of surgeries in January 2015.

February 2015, I joined MFP ... and 8 months later I had dropped 25 kg/55 lbs into the lower half my normal BMI range. I'm right back down to the weight I was in about 2004 and also my high school weight!


So in answer to the question ... I've been slender most of my, had a brief time as overweight, and am slender again.

cjane917

This is me too! I was excited to read this b/c sometimes I feel guilty on MFP when I hear of people who have struggled with weight their whole life and are in the 200s/300s and I know I've been lucky enough not to have that struggle. But this does make me less likely to talk about working on weight loss with my real-life friends because I like to hope that no one noticed and I can just slide back into my "old self."

I was 5'7" and 120 in high school (ran cross country and track) and then moved to a more normal weight of 120s and 130s for most of my 20s. Around 28 I started creeping up in weight as my thin-person poor eating habits caught up to my declining metabolism with age. My highest was 167 lb and my "new norm" was 158. I noticed some stretch marks on my hips and thighs and was appalled! I started watching what I ate more, and started MFP in June at 153 and am now down to 145 at age 30. My goal is to get back down to 135 and then reevaluate my goals from there.

I'd love to make some MFP friends to help keep each other accountable! I log food most days and weigh in regularly. Please friend me if you're interested!

mk2fit

Yep, me, too. I was in the 110s in school and the 120s in my twenties. Stayed there with a touch of 130s after kids. I quit smoking four(ish) years ago at 53 yrs old and blew up to 190! Holy moly. Having never really had to lose weight, I was lost. My doctor told me about MFP a couple years ago and I lost the weight almost as quickly as I put it on. Now I exercise daily and can once again eat pretty much what I want. I have learned to eat healthier - bonus!

amyinthetardis1231

Me. I wasn't skinny skinny (5'4" and averaged between 120-130 until shortly after I graduated college), although my perspective was/is somewhat distorted because I was comparing myself to "dancer skinny." I took dance and gymnastics from age 4 on and was a serious dancer from about 12-21. After college, I couldn't afford to continue taking 15-20 hours of dance classes every week and all of a sudden my hypothyroid and PCOS took over. I think I was only ever slim because I danced so much it kept my metabolism at least moving. Even starting thyroid meds, I gained weight steadily and have spent most of the last 10 years overweight, which makes me really depressed sometimes. I started eating low carb high fat a few months ago and the weight is now coming off, after years of trying to just lower calories, trying South Beach, and Weight Watchers to no avail. It's hard though, I still have no sense of my actual size. I see myself as both smaller and bigger than I am, and pretty much have no clue what I actually look like.

gemim2016

I would've never called myself skinny, I was more at an average weight for my height. I'm 5'1" and throughout high school I was around 105-110. After graduation- within 6 months I began overeating like crazy, having fast food all the time and the weight just piled on. I was never active but never ate this bad before, so it made sense for me to gain weight. My highest weight was 140 back in December, which is definitely not extreme but gaining 30 pounds in such a short time sucked. None of my jeans fit me, and most of my wardrobe was unwearable. Well, for the past 6 months now I've been trying to eat better and work out. Most of the weight loss was very obviously from just cutting out junk(but I did still cheat and skip the gym quite a bit haha). I'm at 126 right now. It's so hard sometimes thinking of the body I once had, but there's no reason to beat myself up. It's life, everyone gains weight at some point, but there's always hope in losing it because it IS possible.

cherphe67

I was thin all my life... 98 lbs... If I hit 105 I would lose it in a day.. Not anymore lol.. My aunt used to tell me to stand side ways and stick out my tongue and then laughed and said I looked like a zipper... Never had to worry what I ate.. That changed when I started pre menopause at 35 ..gained little here.. Little there.. Hot flashes....by 40 I gained more... I am 5'1" so any weight gained shows... I've lost and gained 3 times and I am hoping this is the last time I have to lose... So come November I will be 49 and my goal is that by 50 yes old I will have maintained my goal weight for a while... Got another yr for that the most I have weighed was this time around 178 I am down to 152 and started 57 days ago with mfp..slow process but that is the healthy way... Eating healthy... I guess it's called clean eating...

Golbat

I was very thin until I started having kids and my thyroid went bad. I didn't have to work at being thin so I didn't develop good habits.

Sabine_Stroehm

I was SKINNY. The skinny kid, then the skinny and very active adolescent. (5'6" and skinny). Then thin (5'6" at 18 and 93Lbs). Then average (5'6" and 130 at 25). Then bordering on overweight at about 37. In my case: I needed to learn how to eat.

I did.

lemon629

I know what you mean. I was always thin (120-130) until my early 30s when I took a medication that made me gain weight. I ended up a size 14 and hated it. I finally started losing it at age 38 and was at a good weight at 40. I am fit now with a good body fat percentage, but I have accepted that I have a somewhat different body type (more muscular; 150-160) now and will never be as thin as I was before absent some horrible health problem.