How did you gain the weight?

Ilysandrew11

I Started working at a bar 7 years ago...a lot of beer and red bull shots. I got pregnant and lost some weight but I gained A LOT with the drinking,

Stump_Likker

I was assaulted and became afraid to leave the house for pretty much a whole year. Sat around eating and feeling sorry for myself.

millionairesstv

I gained weight as a combination of discovering I had fibroids then I used it as an excuse until my stomach started to over hang and I said - NO MORE.

when I became focused I found mfp and have not look back since.
I have lost a few pounds now and feel so much better.

I am booked next year to have an op to remove the fibroids. In the mean time I will continue to exercise and keep fit inorder to maintain ideal health conditions.

auteurfille22

I just got into really terrible habits. Family dinners as a child became associated with very bad memories for me (I was yelled at for eating too slowly, for getting up to get more food, or for accidentally finishing something that my dad wanted (this was when I was like 6 years old)). So as I got older, eating became a very secretive sort of thing. I would eat hardly anything at meals, and then I would sneak piles of food up to my bedroom and hide it under my bed or in my dresser. Then, once my parents went to bed, I would pig out on it before going to sleep. That habit never really changed. I started sneaking food all throughout the day, and stopped really having meals at all. My mom stopped cooking for my brother and me once I got to be around twelve, and only cooked for my dad, who to this day eats dinner by himself when he comes home from work. So my diet basically consisted of tons of junk, pasta, chocolate, and frozen meals (which were probably the most low-cal healthiest thing; at least they had some vegetables!). I progressively gained weight as this went on.

But then I started going to summer camps, and one in particular served AMAZING food. To me it was amazing to think that people actually ate meals like this, with balanced portions of various real foods. I had always thought that was only done on holidays or in restaurants. To eat like that every day, every meal was entirely new for me. A few months after that, I decided that I wanted to make a change, not only to be thinner and more attractive but to be able to eat foods like that; foods that I had previously seen as "special" for only a few days of the year. And now the weight is falling off. I still don't eat nearly as well as I do at camp, or as well as I'd like to, but it's a lot better than what it used to be and I'm slowly training myself not to be so secretive about eating and to sit down at a table and have meals rather than erratic all-over-the-place eating.

paulasuscas01

I started my weight gain freshman year of college and it all went downhill from there. I have been gaining a little more and more every year. It doesn't help that I work at a movie theater where popcorn and soda are never in short supply. But now, I've finally reached my breaking point and am fed up with always having to buy bigger clothes and not feeling confident in anything. It's time for a change.

xkaylaxmichellex

I never cared about what/how I ate. My entire family is overweight/obese. I wasn't happy. I learned that something had to change. I'm now 45 pounds down and in a healthy weight range while the rest of my family is overweight/obese. I've tried my best to help out as much as possible and they don't seem to want to put in the effort to change. I won't give up though, but whatever happens, I WILL stay healthy throughout the entire journey!

fuzzball01

I gained all my weight when I quit smoking then gained even more when I quit drinking

Yanagibashi

I think it started with depression in my late teens. I had a horrible relationship with both my parents at the same time. I was very stressed out as a student in a very academically challenging university. I had given up athletics to focus on studies. I relied on food to soothe the emotional pain. Food was there to comfort me when the rest of my family were being jerks or when I had huge, virtually impossible deadlines coming up. And then I graduated and got a job and some money. Why not celebrate with a little fine dining and a few drinks with my friends? And this repeated when each one of them had a success in their life. And then I moved to another country where I didn't know a lot of people or speak the language fluently (yet). Food's language is universal! And then I moved back and was unemployed and lost my grandmother, the only family that I felt loved me no matter what. And then I moved to a new state where I didn't know anybody and was very stressed out with my new job. And then here we are. Working hard to undo all the damage that unhealthy coping with my challenges did.

iheartmy1dog

Something happened and it caused me to stop living my life. I was scared to go out and so for over a yr I pretty much stayed inside and did nothing and lived off of delivery.

That's in the past now tho! I'm getting my life back now!

FatOldBat

Self-indulgence, sloth & denial.

emalinemartin

My first boyfriend - we were always on the road so we ate a lot of fast food.
We broke up, blah blah blah.
Emotional binge eating out of depression and stress.

Mcgrawhaha

beer
flaming hot cheetos
beer
skittles
beer
chocolate
beer

Britebabs

I was a lucky one.. Was lean all through my youth, my 20s and 30s (i smoked during most of that time...not too good for the heart or lungs, but pretty darned good for the waistline). Then came my 40s: menopause, quit smoking, went back to college..and ate my way through formal education. The way i gained weight during those years almost makes me think that each fat cell held a little bit of knowledge... Alas, that's not the way it works. I'm still dragging around those extra pounds and now I really FEEL it: in my knees...ouch!

cbattles516

Simple. Beer. Budweiser and Heineken. Six pack + a day. That's an easy 1000 C extra/day before the pizzas, pulled pork, etc. Not that you asked, but how am I losing it? Gave up beer? Hell no! Cut back and switched to Beck Premier Light @ 64C vs 150C. OK, it tastes more like water than beer, but beggars can't be choosers. Also the occasional full flavored beer after exercise when I have extra calories to use. Find I sleep better without all the alcohol too!

bcz2011

Babies and bad knees

tommienana

after having 2 boys & years of stress i have found myself close to 40 pounds over my weight . I am only 4' 11 .

Nacima26

from a variety of things, the 3 prime ones: stress from 4 years of university, staying up studying and pulling all-nighters. the dissolution of a toxic 5 year relationship, and the stress of being underemployed after graduating from university.

Smccabe8

I worked retail through college, full-time, so I was running around a store 8 hours a day, plus walking to campus and classes. I graduated, got a desk job, and gained 20 lbs. Eek.

I wasn't prepared to gain weight, because I always thought I had an awesome metabolism. Turns out, I had a normal metabolism, and a super active job. Being at a desk is not super conducive to losing weight.

But I am officially tracking calories and signing up for workout classes. And possibly C25K. 20lbs by December would be awesome!

janer4jc

time and genetics and not paying enough attention to either one

leslturn8

I was 13 when I lived in a very little food in a household of 10 people to 12. At this time we were all broke and i practically ate 2 slices of bread for most of the day. My nan and pop brought me down to live with my mum and then I was living in a household of 6 people and I was given the opportunity to eat.
I am and always was a fussy eater and when we finally had a place of our own I was a size 8 and was dog sitting for my nan every friday night and she would buy me a tray of sausages. I felt obliged to eat them, she never froze them so it was then or bin sort of thing. So for 6 months I had a competition with myself "how many sausage sangas can I eat." ! sausage and 1 slice of bread.

After a few months I was challenged to eat 9 sangas.

I was 13 and didnt know how much I weighed and then I was 14 and chunky size 16 and hell I still didnt notice. I was 16 and I was bulding out of size 18 pants and I still didnt notice I was fat. It was when I started tafe at 18 a friend said I was the fat one and she was the skinny one and it shocked me, I went home and looked at myself. WOW.

I got into habits that I had to break and this was that time. I was adamant I would get skinnier then my friend and prove all the people who ever dissed me wrong. (Still work in progress, I fell off the wagon after losing 21 kilos and I was stuck so I put it all back on......TAKE 2. )

Flabulousss

College, being poor, eating lots of ramen, $5 pizzas for lunch, daily binge drinking, inactivity, soda, stress, poor sleep, avoiding the scale... I've pretty much changed all those those things and have lost 10lbs... 15 more to go!

RenewedRunner

I love going out to dinner. Portion sizes are grossly inflated, and after spending years being told to clean my plate, I started doing so. And I stopped exercising so a ton of calories going in, not so many going out.

I am a fomer bulimic who still has binge tendencies. The food was a panacea for the emotional pain of the crazy state of my life. Now I am focusing on being healthy and happy in ALL aspects of my life!

sweetcurlz67

had to do with being unhappy in several areas in my life including marriage...

FindingMyself24

I was really active in high school...i worked out 5 days a week and I was a flag girl in band...so i was always doing some sort of exercise....well i got married and didnt know how to cook very well lol...plus we were busy...i worked and was in college..so we ate a lot of processed junk...we also went out to eat A LOT!!....i gained a bunch of weight and then i got pregnant with my first and gain a lot of weight....then i lost half of the weight and got pregnant again...they were very close pregnancies...i had two under two...my body didnt really have time to recover....and now i am trying to lose the weight i gained before and after pregnancy.

spookscheer

Life from the course of 2 years caught up and I didn't handle it very well when everything finally set it. It was horrible to watch all the hard work I had done last year just diminish.

TheRealBruceWayne

It was intentional for me. I was always athletic and in great shape and then I started to train and compete in Powerlifting where it was a scenario where the bigger I got the better I go. Now I just want to go back to being athletic and looking good. Ive been in a gym 5-6 days a week for my entire life, I've never been sedentary. It's almost easy to cut because there were many times gaining the weight when I had to force food into me just because I knew it would make me a better lifter and that was far harder than just saying no to something I want.

seltzermint555

I have always been overweight, since I was 7 years old and in 1st grade. I was always one of the biggest kids (tallest girl for many years) and I didn't like much outdoor activity, was into reading and drawing and schoolwork. Also a crazy perfectionist, so I didn't like trying sports or athletic activities because I didn't know them inside-out from Day 1 and have mad skills ;-)

My parents had what I'd call a pretty typical middle class 1980's American household of Lunchables, Pizza Hut, candy, and the occasional salad thrown in for "good measure" (which obviously was not). Almost everything we ate was heavily processed. I'm not a religiously clean eater now, but I was well into my 20's before I even knew what the majority of raw/fresh veggies tasted like!

In my teens, my diet was strictly junk food, but not much of it. So I wondered why I stayed fat on few calories and figured I was just cursed to a lifetime of obesity. I had a spider bite treated with steroids which packed on more weight.

I learned to cook for myself right after college, and lost most of the weight, getting to an all-time adult low.

Then I married a man who was a big eater (also obese) and a huge fan of restaurant meals and alcohol. We lived quite indulgently, and although I always considered my indulgences minor compared to HIS...the amount of calories I consumed was pretty erratic. I look back and think that most weeks I had 3-4 days of under 1,000 cals and then 3 days of over 3,000 cals. I thought that was normal but I'm pretty sure that's how I kept so much weight on!!!

By my 30's, I was topping out at 300 lb. I started to get worried about my health, but again my competitive and perfectionist side reared its ugly head and I stubbornly refused to make a real effort at getting healthy and eating better because all of the people I knew who were doing so, with any rate of success, were trying to get from 160 to 125. Not 300 to 225.

Finally I started exercising RELIGIOUSLY (just long speedy walks, but daily)...and got down by about 35 lb. Plateaued for a very long time, then stopped eating beef, pork or chicken and added more veggies and other lean protein sources. Only lost 9-10 lb. Joined MFP in March and now have beat my previous all-time adult low of 227 and working down toward 200 and beyond.

organic0gf

Just like everyone else. I ate more calories than I burned.

CherryOnionKiss

by getting knocked up

cdahl383

Ate too much, stopped going to the gym on a regular basis, had a couple kids and put them first and my own fitness took a back burner. Now watching what I eat, working out regularly again, because I want to be healthy for my kids as well as feel better about myself.