What do you think has caused you to be underweight/overweight

ilovefood9998

So I'm an overweight 18 year old guy and I always have been chubby. I'm not relatively huge I'm around 185 pounds but I'd love to be 150. I think the main reason why I'm overweight is due to my addiction to soda. If I want I can honestly drink around 2 litres a day which in itself is over the daily sugar intake and around 800 calories. Another contributing factor to my weight gain is the fact that I only eat one meal and day and that meal is normally really late at night. Is anyone similar to me? What are the reasons why you are overweight/underweight

ladyreva78

I used food as an emotional crutch. Instead of dealing with my emotions, I stuffed myself to try and make them go away. It didn't matter what. The fact of eating was all I needed.

As you can guess, I ended up morbidly obese (BMI just a smidgen under 40) with no real coping strategies for when life gets rough. Kind of a sad state of being for a soon to be 36 year old.

So now I not only need to lose weight (currently down to BMI 28.8), control how much I eat (sticking to my calorie budget and learning what an appropriate portion size is for me), but also develop healthier strategies to deal with my emotions (exercise - without over-exercising - and writing).

JoJosAnatomymfp

No self care for a long time. I would eat once a day too. Some days I didn't at all. Choices I made were not always good. My job can be quite stressful and I was focused on work in work and at home. Few small changes last January has helped me significantly. I started walking, I am eating regularly and I have introduced strength training. I'm 50lbs down in a 101 days!!

missevil

My mum used to give us sweets every day, so I was sugar addicted from the beginning, started to be chubby from a young age and never had a real concept about eating healthy.
The first round of real weight gain happened when I moved in with my BF when I was 18. We were responsible for buying our own food and boy, we did buy food. All the fatty yummy goodness.
The second round, which brought me up to a BMI of ~39 was my job. I was stable and had money and could buy whatever I liked. (Food AND clothes, so I never realised how much I gained, because I liked buying new clothes frequently and so it always fit) Combined with an office job and free juices/soda, I gained easily.
Plus, like @ladyreva78, I like to eat when I'm unhappy. Fortunately, that's not happening too often.

Machka9

I gain weight when two life events converge ... moving house and ill health (like surgery or DVT).

I stop paying attention to what I'm eating, I ease up on my exercise, and focus on moving house and getting well.

glassofroses

I started gaining because I was unhappy and stressed with my living situation at university, not exercising because I have Exercised Induced Asthma, and my bad habits (read: eating all the cookies and food in general) carried me pretty far, but after a health shock in the family, I realised that I couldn't take care of anyone because of what I was doing to myself.

You have to decide who you want to be: do you want to be the person who eats whatever they want? Or do you want to be the one who fuels their body for good things?

pawan245lbs

Stress and break up!

Geocitiesuser

Being raised with poor eating habits mostly

perkymommy

I'm 48 and I can lose the weight if I stick to a plan. I'm lazy though. Bottom line I eat too much in one sitting. I eat too much throughout one day. If I stayed within what I'm allotted per day as far as calories then I would lose. I know what to do but doing it is a whole other thing right now. :-/

TavistockToad

I'm naturally greedy and used to be a bit lazy...

malibu927

Because I ate too much. My parents didn't teach me portion size or nutrition, so I kept that up well into adulthood.

moonstroller

I drank a lot of soda as well, Coke, specifically, and then I switched to Polar Water which is a flavored seltzer water that has zero calories and no artificial sweeteners. It took a little while to get used to the difference, but now if I drink a regular soda, which is once or twice a year because when I visit my Dad he sometimes wants to go to Wendy's, it's far too sweet and I cannot even finish the cup.

My problem was/is with chips. I love potato chips, nacho chips, pretty much anything in chip form. I had no problem eating a large cheese pizza with extra cheese, a family size bag of potato chips, a family size bag of Doritos, and around eight or nine bottles of beer in one sitting. Watching TV while I ate was another major problem that helped me over eat.

I can easily blame it on my mother dying, my marriage ending, or any one of several other life altering events, but those are excuses because the truth is simple: I'm a fat lazy guy who desperately wants to be a fit active guy.

Fortunately you see what you're doing, now you need to devise a course of action and then stick to that action plan to achieve your goal.

estherdragonbat

Boredom eater. Emotional eater. Stress eater. Sedentary lifestyle. Just... not caring. Until I got a medical issue that made me.

LAT1963

Sleep deprivation.

RelCanonical

I'm an emotional and boredom eater. I eat when I'm happy, I eat when I'm sad, I eat when I'm meh. But mostly when I'm sad, and my anxiety issues made me sad a lot. I gained a lot of weight back a couple years ago when I had a somewhat serious binge eating issue that was the culmination of all the above. It was hardcore "eat to numb the pain". Those six-odd months of binge eating feel almost surreal now because I was so ill from anxiety and quite hungover from such a high salt intake.

krazy1sbk

Emotional/boredom eater here as well. Stress-eating has been a problem for me most of the time, but I'm trying to move toward "stress-exercising" and it works some of the time? My mother is an emotional eater and my dad is a boredom eater, so I inherited the worse end of both...

annacole94

Beer.

happysherri

Food!
Emotions.


I used to eat a lot more and do believe I gained most of my weight during my years of depression and on antidepressants. I used to be an emotional eater. However, I've lost about 45 lbs and have kept it off for many years. Currently I'm trying to lose the last 10 superficial pounds I carry.

For the past 6 or 7 years on my fitness journey, I've learned so much and continue to learn techniques and tips. I also have practiced willpower and have gotten so much better at saying "no" to daily treats. Everything in moderation, balance.

amyteacake

I ended up using food as an emotional crutch when I was in high school. Every time I was sad I would eat. And I was sad quite a lot of the time so it was constantly. I didn't exercise that much and didn't care all that much about it either. Then I ended up starving myself during the day and binge eating at night. This cycle continued until I was 17. There are certain foods that I don't eat now out of fear of binge eating on them again.

Leenizi129

When I am was overweight, it was due to things we believed that limited our potential! All not true! You have the power you just have to believe it!

stacief82

A combination of eating too much fast food and less activity due to working a desk job.

chantelp0508

Depression and binge eating. Plain and simple

Cocoa1020

Years of over eating, eating seconds, eating dessert when eating out (after overeating). I just love food.

other than over eating I do cook healthy and always have, lean meats, lots of veggies, whole grains. it was just the amount of food i would consume

also chocolate. love it. >.< if its in front of me I will probably eat it

cwolfman13

I was a competitive athlete for most of my life growing up and then the Marine Corps out of high school and then in college I was pretty active doing landscape construction in the summers and working retail in the winters and didn't own a car so I biked or walked everywhere...I never had issues with weight until I graduated and took a desk job and my activity level went into the toilette.

I'm good now, but I spent about 8 years getting fat.

Piqueaboo

I substituted love with food. I didn't get a lot of love growing up so I ate.

NewMeSM75

Bad habits and I enjoy food...

glitterng

Genetics (thanks, dad), and stress/busy life taking care of everyone else but me. Now I'm carving out time and effort for myself to do this as my health has suffered a great deal which isn't good for anybody. As you are a young male, may I suggest you visit the Air Force page and hunt up the link for "getting in shape to join the service" thing. It has a fantastic exercise program that slowly gets you in shape. Men by nature lose weight easier than women, so perhaps just making this one change will help you get a long way to your goal.

crackpotbaby

Mental illness. Psychiatric medications. Not caring about myself anymore.

Wolfger

3 things: Mountain Dew (and other non-diet pop), mindless eating (the bag of chips is empty before I realize I'm still eating), and boredom eating. I used to drink at least 4-6 liters of Mountain Dew a day when I was your age. That's an insane number of completely empty calories. And I could/would demolish a "family-size" bag of Doritos in one sitting.

amusedmonkey

I became obese because enjoying whatever food I wanted whenever I wanted in whatever quantity I wanted looked shinier to me than a thinner frame. Basically just different priorities. My problem was not with sweets and conventional snacks. My regular serving was not big then, and it's not big now. Half a cup of ice cream is more than enough, and I rarely drank soda. I enjoyed food, though. A lot of it. I snacked on nuts all day and drenched my vegetables and greek yogurt with olive oil. I loved making butter and salt, or butter and sugar sandwiches, and ate too much hummus...etc. I also ate whatever is in sight just because the act of eating itself is enjoyable to me too, regardless of the food (and doubly enjoyable if the food is great). When my priorities changed, my eating habits had to change too despite of my internal temper tantrums.

YaGigi

Simple. I used to eat too much.