How did you get heavy to begin with?

FelinaDC

Being sedentary not just at work but at home (reading, watching tv i.e. not moving much) and I gained a ton of weight when I stopped walking and taking public transport and started driving but didn't change my late night eating habits....

choklityum

mskimee wrote: »

@choklityum is your profile pic Duran Duran?? Thats so cool, I love them!!

It's the "All You Need Is Now" logo, painted on a saw blade. It was a Christmas gift from my mom a few years ago. And yeah, I'm a Duranie. Been one since they started in 1978. (Yeah, I'm getting old! LOL)

Ninkyou

malibu927 wrote: »

Parents who didn't teach me about proper portion sizes/nutrition and not caring about those for my first fourteen years of adulthood

This, and I continued on that way, loving food too much and becoming lazy. Lack of education, a parent that cooks everything in a pound of butter or bacon grease or oil, hardly a vegetable in sight, cakes/brownies frequently made... I really didn't know that's not normal. And sof I kept doing the same things until I was so unhappy with myself and saw how my in-law's eat (muuuuuuch healthier, with their own veggie gardens, etc) that I just couldn't do it anymore and educated myself.

cwolfman13

I was very active for most of my life...I was a track and field sprinter and jumper from about 2nd grade through my senior year in high school. I also played a myriad of other sports...football, one season of wrestling, swim team, gymnastics, I was a life guard, etc. After high school I went to the military where I was again very active. When I returned home, I went back to school...I didn't own a car for much of that time and road my bike and walked most places and while I spent little time doing deliberate workouts, I was an avid hiker in my spare time and played a lot of frisbee golf and ultimate frisbee, etc.

I graduated when I was 30 and took a desk job working 10-12 hour day basically 6 days per week with about 25 weeks of travel per year...so I went from being highly active to sitting behind a desk most of the day and going home to watch t.v. Most of my prior activity was just general activity and me out going and having fun so it never really occurred to me that I'd need to start doing deliberate exercise to offset a more sedentary life.

fattyflamingo

I quit smoking. I quit cold turkey and used food to fight those cravings. It was November 5 of 2015. Holiday season was gearing up with all the goodies that come with it. By January 1st, I had gained 30 pounds. Over the next year, I gained another 50. In my mind, it was ok to eat anything I wanted and as much of it that I wanted because, I was quitting smoking. It's been over a year smoke free. I will never smoke again. I have balanced out on the overeating. Now, it's time to make better choices and become healthier.

laur357

A serious illness at 10 years old, followed immediately by my grandfather's death as I was recovering. I hadn't been able to eat solid food for 3-4 weeks prior to the funeral. There was an endless supply of food and people trying to get me to eat after losing weight during the illness. I simultaneously learned to comfort eat and binge eat until I felt sick. I was overweight since then.

Compounded by over a year's worth of severe depression in my early 20s, where I lost a substantial amount of weight when I didn't care enough to make myself eat, then started heavily binging as I was getting better. This is when I became morbidly obese.

I was pretty good at maintaining between these times, but had no clue how to lose it effectively.

Summerberry1012

Stress.

kimberlysexton626

I've been overweight my whole life. Before I got pregnant with my first daughter, I lost 50 pounds, then gained it all back plus 50 more. I had my 2nd daughter 3 years later and was still where I was when I had my 1st. Finally a year later I started to just worry about me and my girls and that meant first leaving my husband. Then it was like the weight just fell off. Being in an mentally and physically abusive relationship was killing me in more ways then 1. Up until last year I was at the lowest weight I had been since having kids. Then I got with my ex boyfriend, had a baby in October and now starting all over. But I can do this!

everher

My weight problems began as a preteen. I was making more of my own food choices, not as active as I had been as a young child growing up playing outside in the country, and I just couldn't really tell the difference between hunger and cravings. My mother, for her part, had struggled with an eating disorder most of her life (and had been hospitalized for it before my birth) and didn't want me to have a complex about my weight.

So while I understood more nutritious foods vs. less nutritious foods, weight was not something that was talked about. I had a vague notion of eating "a lot" would make you fat and eating "less" would make you lose weight, but that was about the limit of my understanding.

When I had gained enough weight to be obese I took steps myself to lose the weight and began reading books on health, nutrition, and weight loss. I lost the weight, became more active in high school, and maintained my weight loss throughout high school and most of college.

I began to gain weight again as I became less active, started eating more because I wanted to eat not because I was hungry, and I started using food to comfort myself.

I tried to get a hold on it a few times, but kept trying to "diet" instead of changing my lifestyle. I also would be super restrictive not allowing myself any added sugars etc. and eventually would cave. After reaching my all time highest adult weight last year and losing my mother to heart failure I decided enough was enough and here we are.

Elise4270

Great thread.

So many people experience problems and their weight is more of a symptom of something that needs to be dealt with.

Good luck everyone one!

leibenkat68

I have been bigger as long as I can remember. I have one older sister that is 4 years older she's never seen an extra pound other than her pregnancies. when we were little the department of children services were called because they thought my mom was starving her little did they know my sister had extremely high metabolism. Dr.s were called to check on my sister and the doctor even said she was healthy just smaller framed. So all my life I've been compared to my sister and called the fat one. I remember in jr high school a lot of people didn't believe that we were sisters and I got asked often what happened to me and why I was fat. When people met my parents who are also bigger they would ask if my sister was adopted I always felt that I was in a competition with my sister I went through a couple years of bulimia and anorexia just trying to be more like my sister. I was sent off to a treatment center for eating disorders and put on some medication for depression in 7th grade I was 160 pounds and in the size 14 my sister was 80 pounds and in a size double zero needless to say I was huge in comparison. While in treatment it was determined I suffered from depression and what the doctors thought was bipolar so they loaded me up on medications when I entered rehab I was a hundred and six pounds and in a size 3 if that gives any indicator on how bad I was dealing with the anorexia and bulimia when I left treatment I was up to a hundred and eighty pounds most of that due to the medications that they have given me I no longer wanted to do anything but eat and sleep before I knew it I was up to 240 pounds and I wasn't even a freshman in high school I worked hard got down to 160 by my sophomore year. By junior year I was still battling my own demons trying to get somewhere close to my sister's weight I stopped around 130 in a size 8 I was actually content with myself for once. Not long into my junior year I became pregnant with my son and by the end of my pregnancy I was 180 pounds again after I had my son I married his father when we turned 18 but it wasn't a happy marriage. I won't say he was a bad husband I'll just say that we were young and had no business being married to each other. Over the course of the 3-year marriage I got up to 260 pounds again when I divorced him at 21 I started extreme dieting again thinking I was young and who was going to want and almost 300 pound girlfriend I got down to 160 in a little over a year I started dancing at the clubs not drinking just dancing carrying on having a good time. When I was 24 I met my current husband who like the fact that I was thicker. We've been together for 13 years now and married for 9 and while he supports me trying to lose more weight of which the first four years I got up to almost 300 pounds again just shy of it at 296 I started dieting and exercising regularly I got down to 220 had some issues with my back and my knee I got surgery on my knee which made it almost impossible to exercise for a couple months when my knee healed I was bitten by dog in the opposite leg and that required surgery do to infection I was again off of my feet for a couple of months wall that healed. Just when I thought that it was healed I had another bad infection set in that almost cost me my leg. So after about 4 months I had already started to gain weight back and got back up to 260 pounds that seems to be a weight my body likes to go to as of October 2016 I was 263 pounds I've started dieting and exercising again which is almost impossible because we also have A3 year old who likes to take up most of my time and not give me much room to exercise I try to stay active with her and we dance daily but as a toddler's attention span goes we don't do it often long enough before it's time to do something else. I have managed somehow to lose 30 pounds and now it seems that the weight is coming off slower and slower everyday. Some days when I weigh in first thing in the morning I am up a pound and that just devastates me other days I'm down a pound and a half or half a pound the day's I'm down a pound I'm good the days that are only half a pound or up really pisses me off and I get frustrated and wonder am I going to be big forever My ultimate goal is to get back down to about 130 I'm just trying to do it right this time. I'm really not a big sweet eater I don't feel like I eat a lot I just ate the wrong things I'm addicted to starch any kind of pasta or bread and cheeses are my weaknesses. I have thought about weight loss surgery but my mother insists I go a different route. She had weight loss surgery done back in the early 1990s when it was still considered a newer technique she's still heavy but has had problems ever since her surgery every time she eats she almost immediately has to throw up even if she doesn't eat much. We still feel like the surgeon that did her surgery botched her scar runs from the very top of stomach down past the belly button it looks as though they ripped her open instead of using surgical precision. Even though they have made a lot of advance in technology and how the surgeries are handled nowadays she still does not want me to even consider bariatric surgery. So I'm hoping to find people that can help keep me motivated away from carbs and cheese and just someone that I can talk to. Although my husband supports me and dieting and exercising he really doesn't have the best motivational advice and he's not the greatest at giving positive motivation. He's not a bad guy he just says things how they are so he blames being fat and not losing as much as I want on pure laziness. He says that if I want to lose the weight I will just have to work harder and harder and if I don't lose my goal weight then I just didn't try hard enough. Which is true to a degree but it seems easy for him to lose weight. He's always said he's OK with me being big and I am OK in my own body but I just want to be healthy.

Tum22

This is a good question and I have found it very helpful in looking at where to start to make changes. I met someone who said he liked bigger women and so let rip eating whatever I wanted, but that was an excuse from holding back on all the Chelsea buns I wanted to eat in the first place. I would love to be light again but it is a constant battle with all the temptation on offer. I want to choose health and to find the key to that elusive "lifestyle" change without resenting all this deprivation.

kahulaluidancer

Nursing... crazy though because I am running around during work. But your body gets use to things. Once hospitals went from 8 hour/ 4 evenings a week to 12 hour shifts/ 3 overnights a week I just felt too pooped to exercise 6 days a week like I use to. I tried doing days but it was the same story. You always spend the next day off that you have catching up on all the sleep you missed. Even though I had the time to take dance twice a week it just wasn't enough. Then the economy happened I was just not good enough being a new nurse in my home town or state even I had to make sacrifices to take unreliable staffing or travel jobs in order to keep my experience up. It was so unreliable thag there were a couple of other triggers that contributed. Being homeless a couple of times, once in my car in which I was eating terrible foods. I was suprised I didn't get Diabetes. Then, moving around taking assignmemts to get ahold of my career in which there was no motivation to enjoy life. Finally, I have Bipolar Disorder so if I get depressed I sometimes would binge and "think" it was and call it a cheat meal.

Now I am settled in some far away place that has plenty activity resources I can utilize. The complex I live in has a gym. There are plenty of dance schools around. Finally, the weather is phenominal to get outdoors. I just have to make sure I watch the eating. Not only too much but, too little. On my work days I don't eat enough and my days off I over do it.

jellyinarubberglove

I like big portions and snacking! My parents taught me to always finish what's on my plate not leave left overs. Also I was ill for a couple years in my late teens where I needed weekly weighing and a controlled diet plan and never wanted to go back to that.

JustMissTracy

Kullerva wrote: »

Childhood trauma. I thought if I was big enough, I'd be invisible and no one would look at me. I was depressingly wrong. I lost weight when I realized I was affecting my health because of some ***hole who'd been dead for ten years.

Thank god that *kitten* is dead! Good for you for taking care of yourself, and overcoming! xo