When did you start gaining weight?

NancyKhuu

I am curious as to when/why/how everyone started to gain weight. Was there a specific trigger? Were you in your 20s or 40s? And when you realized it was a real problem to your health.

schle009

20s... started due to depression which is always fun (not), and continued when I got a sedentary desk job. I never wanted to exercise and ate whatever I wanted, and I thought calorie counting was dumb. I decided to try to get my act together when the scale was reading 200 lbs

SmartAlec03211988

Bed-ridden inducing injury + lack of motivation to be the active person I was prior to it = 90+ lbs gained.

Happened around 18. Got my act together around 24 years old.

PinkyFett

When my body decided to turn against me and develop an autoimmune disease. Early 20's.

FJcntdwn2sknyluv

First Grade.... so 7-8 years old.... gained about 15 lbs before my Second grade year, due to me eating and watching tv all summer long, vrs playing outside... then the teasing/bulling started.. so turned to food, since it didn't talk back... also my Mom's answer to everything was food so just continued from there my entire childhood till I was 27 130lbs overweight about to be put on high blood pressure meds and miserable.... and I was going to have to buy a size 24 !!!!!
SO started this journey and today 7 years later I'm down 125lbs and have kept it off for over a year... currently I'm working on toning everything up for my 'Flex-Friday' photo

chrissyrenee1029

It seems that the day I turned 20 my metabolism completely shut down. I was in the 170s by the time I turned 21 and over 200 before 30.

ETA: I did lose about 35 pounds at around 25 and got down to the low 140s for about a year before I gained it all back and then some.

TutuMom41

early childhood

fallingtrees

When I bought my first computer.

courtneyfnc

I started working at a craft beer bar a few years ago (when I was 23) and was encouraged to taste the beers on tap. Craft beers are delicious, but FULL of calories. I drank a lot for a couple years and gained 30+ lbs. I began drinking less, but I kept the weight on because I was still eating like crap. I'm just now seriously trying to lose this weight and exercise.

MichelleLaree13

19.... I started birth control and gained 10 pounds. At 25 I was off birth control and lost 10 pounds in 3 months. I started different birth control then gained a massive 20 pounds.

GoForLew

Mine really started getting bad in my early 20s, right after I graduated college. I started working at a place that served food that was really bad for you, but free, so it was easy to eat. I also wasn't walking to class every day, so I wasn't getting any exercise. And from then I think my metabolism just shut down and is crap now, so I have to be very careful.

tiggsnanny

I've always been small, 5ft 2 and 8stone 5lbs, but when I was 42 I had a brain stem stroke , lack of mobility and not being able to work anymore, I lolloped about all day and put on weight.

After about a year my partner got me a greyhound and I started walking again, but I still gained weight. I have balance and sight issues but I can walk, so i'm slowly losing the weight again :happy:

Soggynode

I was an early casualty in the childhood obesity epidemic. Mom was buying my clothes in the "husky boys" section as far back as I can remember.

PunkyDucky

When i went to my grandma's house for a weekend visit at the ripe age of 7 years old.

It's been downhill ever since that weekend in '93 :grumble:

fredgiblet

When I was a kid, I haven't been skinny for YEARS. In a couple of months I'll probably be below 200 for the first time since high school.

YearsWorthOfFAT

When i was just about a teenager - not a teenager i started playing more games inside instead of playing football etc outside with my friends. I also developed a bigger love for cookies.

RoseLavAllen

I've always enjoyed my food but I gained about 4 stone (some was due to growing but most was fat) when my dad became ill then passed away in 2012. My mum would often give me the wrong food after this if i asked because, I guess it made me happy.

So yeah, I guess mine was just really comfort eating. I have now lost quite a lot of that weight that I gained because I realised that eating my troubles away wouldn't solve anything & would just actually make things worse, NOT BETTER ????

czechwolf52

I started gaining a bit of weight around 5th grade, so 10 years old. The weight really started piling on when I was in 6th grade. I was home alone everyday for the first time so I had bigger snacks since no one was around to tell me I couldn't. The school lunches were also "good", there were some days when I had pizza, fries, and cake because those were the choices that day. I guess I was going through puberty at that point, but I didn't grow that much. I started hating my weight when I was about 17. I lost a few pounds, but a few months after I turned 20 I really became disgusted with myself. I was never technically obese, but at 5'2" and 160 I was pretty damn close. I would do anything to have the chance to go back and redo my middle & high school years.

TheVirgoddess

My first pregnancy. I never had a weight issue until then. I didn't even know how to start to lose weight after I had her, so then my second pregnancy I was even worse off. Add in some depression and drinking a stupid amount of calories a day via soda and coffee and here I am.

I'm 34 and for the first time in my life I'm learning about calories and protein and fat and what my body needs. Kinda sad.

Sailatsorf

Childhood obesity is fun. I think I started getting fat at around age...8, or maybe 9 at the latest. My mom cooked delicious, yet horrendous food, let my siblings and me drink as much soda as we wanted, and there were zero restrictions on TV time, video games, or candy binging. So yep.

My new friends in college decided they wanted to start exercising, and I was like, "Well, it can't hurt, and I'd like to hang out with these people more." Cue becoming BFFs with some genuinely good people for the first time in my life and dropping 70 pounds.

janatarnhem

When my body decided to turn against me and develop an autoimmune disease. Early 20's.

Same here, then years of yo yo steroids and fatigue etc...etc.!

FeraFilia

Birth.

I've always been overweight.

I was born a month early, and that was the last time I was ever underweight.

(Seriously, I was a chunky kid, a chunkier teenager, and now a fat adult... I don't know what "normal" is.)

WhoIsAmber

I have been chubby all my life, but I was generally pretty active, loved riding my bike around the neighborhood all day and being outside.

But when I was 15, A LOT of stuff happened with my life and family, I got very depressed (diagnosed with depression and anxiety) and got put on a medication called Paxil. I was tired all the time, didn't want to ride my bike anymore, slept a lot, ate a lot, stopped going to school because I just didn't want to get out of bed and I ballooned up to 265 lbs from probably around 180 in the span of maybe a year or less.

cwolfman13

I put a lot of weight on in my twenties, but that was a good thing and it was mostly muscle mass. When I was 20 I weighed in at 5'10" and 135-140 Lbs and pretty much borderline underweight...by the time I was 25 I was around 165 Lbs and pretty lean with some good muscle.

I didn't become over-fat until my 30s when I finally settled into a desk job.

zyxst

I starting using food to deal with being molested when I was 8. I never felt being fat hindered my health. Most of what I have is linked back to genetics since losing weight hasn't "cured" me.

maybe99

I have never ever been a normal weight.... Sure I sabotage my weight loss, i am so not sure what to expect when i am no longer obese.... I do get excited thinking of the possibility

angiez93

My junior year in high school. I was quite depressed and preoccupied with my education... so I packed on about 20 pounds. Funny to think back on those days - I thought I was super fat at my lowest weight. I would love to be that tiny again!

angiez93

This is definitely an interesting thread. So often we are completely focused on our journey to wellness that we fail to reflect on its origins. It's a healthy thing to do sometimes, looking back - it makes looking forward that much more meaningful. Thank you for posting, OP!

abyt42

I thought I was super fat at my lowest weight. I would love to be that tiny again!

I've had this same relationship with my weight as long as I can remember. When I lose a pound, I also remember how fat I felt when I got UP to that weight. I've been aware of "dieting" since I was very young (probably 2 or 3) since my mom was very insecure about her weight, too.

My dad started calling me "Tubby, tubby two-by-four" when I was nine. Looking back at pictures from that time, it's pretty clear I was healthy rather than fat. He was trying to encourage me to be more active in a not particularly encouraging sort of a way.

Listeninguponyou

I've been pretty heavy set my whole life, but I think my problem was that I just didn't think about how much I consumed and what I consumed. I also think (though I've played many sports through my life) it is due to not exercising enough to compensate. I use to think it was depression, but when I was depressed I actually weighed a lot less, lost weight, and looked pretty healthy. Now I'm having such a good time I don't think about it! So MyFitnessPal is ideal for me as I need to track my calories and other things. That's my 2 cents.

Swiftlet66

I've actually been "chubby" ever since I was little. My parents liked to feed me a lot...and it wasn't healthy food either. But my "highest" was during junior year of college. A year before--during my sophomore year of college--I was so busy writing a paper one night, I barely ate anything, rushed to class after the paper was done and nearly fainted (flat out collapsed in the library) due to low blood sugar. I freaked out and thought, "Oh sh**, I need to eat more," and after that, for one year, I ate tons (just to be sure I never fainted ever again like that) and gained quite a bit. It wasn't in muscle too, just fat, and it showed. I lost the weight and more while studying abroad in Japan partly due to the lifestyle there and also due to one horrendous food poisoning experience (from oysters). After moving back to the US, I gained back half of the weight and that belly fat is still there. Actually, it's been increasing since I started an office job a little more than a year ago. I commute to work, sit on my *kitten* all day, commute back home, ate and slept. When I started school again last fall while working full time on the side, the stress was at an all time high and a few months ago, I looked in the mirror and realized "omgah, I need to do something about this."