What's one thing that attributed to your weight gain?

lmethven

Sorry for me it is two main things, it is portion sizing and using food as a comforter rather than dealing with issues.

A combination of those two, led to me not exercising etc. I always said I was big because I love my food, in reality it was not a particular food but how food made me feel :-(

emergencytennis

Booze.

arewethereyet

I am posting to remind myself I was going the wrong way on a one way street! When I found MFP in January 08 I was close to 170+ pounds. I was miserable and it wasn't the weight itself, as my then husband loved me as I was, it was groaning when I rolled out of my bed with no energy at just 47 years old!

When I had had enough, in about June of 08, I stumbled back on this site and thought, huh-what the heck.

I posted all my food, then added in some exercise, then started listening to people like Banks/Boss giving me info on how ot do it better. I made friends with some real losers..........100+ pounds to be specific!! What an inspiration, I had 50 to lose, they had lost over 100!!!!

Now to the weight GAIN.............I had lost 36 pounds total, was fit and happy and healthy. Then came the excuses. EXCUSES are the cause of my weight gain. Ok, I had a stroke, heart surgery, they closed my office of 18 yrs and they took away the job I loved and had worked for all those years, I was blessed with a new job in the same company with ppl I adore, but it is hard and not the job I worked for, I was not happy at home, finally moved out and in ALL of this turned FIFTY years old!!

Holy crap, what a year!

BUT>>................... what it comes down to is excuses. Exercise and healthy eating in all of this would have made it BETTER. I would have had more energy, felt better about myself, showed confidence to others and would not feel so bad about gaining 10 pounds. Worse than the 10 pounds is the condition of my muscles. :sad:

:laugh: I am working on all of this now. It is OK because each day is a new beginning.

I am NOT waiting until tomorrow, after the party, or until Monday. TODAY is the day. This minute is the time. RIGHT NOW!

Thanks for posting this thread!!

samhradh

Me Myself & I.

arewethereyet

Forcing myself to stay in a relationship to "make it work" because it was the only thing I knew at the time. I was trapped, and I found other sources of "happiness" I guess.

{{{{{hugs}}}}}}

Geordie_Girl

I've been overweight since I started working at 18. Travelling to work I used to have to get off a bus and walk through a shopping centre to get to the train station, I very quickly developed a habit for going via McD's in the shopping centre and getting a breakfast on my way to work every morning. That developed into just overeating in general.

SurfinBird1981

Me, myself and I

SurfinBird1981

Me Myself & I.

I would have thought this would be everyone's answer

natika33

To be honest, I'm not really sure what to blame, but I think there might be some genetics involved. My grandmother on my father's side, my father and I all have the type of body that builds muscle easily, but also gains weight easily. My grandmother was most definitely overweight, my father jogs and exercises like a demon (10km every other day and swimming on non-jogging days, plus biking often). He's in good shape because of it, but you'd expect him to be super skinny and he's not.

I was always active, dancing ballet during the winter and swimming in the summer on top of running around playing tag, climbing trees etc. We ate pretty healthy growing up, mostly brown bread, small portions etc. Somehow though, when I stopped growing at age 12, (I'm 5'4'') I was already 120 pounds!

In my teenage years I was dancing three or four times a week and swimming on the swim team two or three times a week. I'll admit, I definitely feel my meal portions were too big when I look back, but not huge by any means and I never really binged or ate super unhealthy. Despite that, I gained 5 more pounds between 12 and 17.

Then I quit ballet and gained 6 pounds. Since then, I've barely gained any weight. My university doctor even joked about how 4 years in a row I weighed exactly 131 pounds. (Several years later, that was still my weight until I moved countries). Unfortunately, I've also had a real hard time losing weight despite starting jogging routines etc. 4 months of jogging (working up from 2km to 4km every other day) would result in a 2 pounds loss. It didn't seem worth the effort when my weight didn't really seemed to be going up and I was in a "healthy" weight range.

However, now I live in a country where it doesn't snow much in winter so I can continue to jog all year. Also, I can count my calories better with MFP. I am determined that this time I will finally get rid of those 16 pounds and more!

Sh1tsRainbows

Having no clue how hard it would be to change my habits once i did gain...being lazy, eating everything in site while pregnant...oh and *kitten**n fast food!!!

FearAnLoathing

quiting drugs

asyouseefit

Lack of portion control and lack of exercise!

melsinct

Big portion sizes. That's it. I have always eaten fairly healthy, lots of vegetables, not many sweets, etc. but I love me a big plate of food!

Mmmary212

Thinking a low fat, minimal meat--"lets use meat replacements" (those terrible fake meats)...was the answer. Then my love for baking added to that as well. AND I've had 4 babies and 'ate for 2' and gained weight. Always lost it after, but still negatively effected me in the long run.

So to sum it up, eating the wrong foods because I was grossly miseducated.

HMonsterX

1) My mum starting work when i was 11, thus not being able to stop me eating too much :P

2) McDonalds breakfast on the way to work, snacks through the morning ofc, pub lunch, snacks in the afternoon ofc, then a KFC for dinner. Then snacks before bed. That might have had an impact on my weight i'm guessing....

3) Sugar in my tea. 3 sugars in my daily 10 cups of tea...and i never even thought about it. Thank god I'm on the sweeteners now, and it's working like a charm!

MinnieInMaine

Completely ignoring labels like the one in the OP and not giving a damn about proper portions. I'm a foodie and wanted to eat what I wanted to eat! Also, stress/emotional eating, especially for the last year or so until I figured out it was time to stop the madness. My hubby lost a very close friend (he was my friend too but they were like family long before I came into the picture) and my way of comforting is to provide yummy food and drink - we had a lot of take-out and comfort foods and coffee brandy... Makes me cringe a bit when I think about how I used to eat on a daily basis...

servilia

You must mean contributed to weight gain. In my case it was just eating a lot of starchy carbs (pasta, pizza, bread) and sugar in the form of candy bars lol For a while I didn't even think twice of what or how much I ate.

Teliooo

Dairy! Particularly cheese. I cut these out of my diet about 10 years ago but I still on and off ate chocolate and cheese. I eat goat and soya products but sparingly.

Teliooo

Oh and stupid sized portions.

dls06

Menopause!!!!!!!!!!

Silverkittycat

Wine.
It never fails to add an extra 5-7 pounds through my midsection. :ohwell:

bmqbonnie

I was a chubby kid and fat through most of middle and high school. I got into some bad habits. My oldest sis was raised to eat healthy but I think my mom fell off the wagon a bit with me and my other sister. We are close in age and she's autistic. Autistic kids are typically really picky eaters, so my mom kind of threw up her hands and threw us whatever she was willing to eat, which was a lot of mac n cheese and pizza.

Now if I gain weight, it's because I gave up to some extent. I don't keep weight off easily so if I "let myself go" to any extent, I gain weight. More recently, having to drive right by a bunch of fast food restaurants between work and home didn't help any. Now I live in the middle of nowhere and work from home so I make much better food choices.

meowow

College dining.

rllewell

For me it was portion size and too much unhealthy eating & snacking. I was pretty good at working out at the gym or playing sports (mostly racquetball) regularly but was amazed that I still slowly gained weight over the years until the end of 2010. I finally got sick of being fat, designed an eating plan around the "17 Day Diet" Book and lost 40 lb.

Hit a bump in the road this summer with hernia surgery and being diagnosed with thyroid cancer. However I'm fully healed from the surgeries and done with my treatments so I'm finally able to get back to my eating plan and exercising again. Ten pounds were gained through the process so my first goal is to get back to my original weight before all this happened. Second goal will be to lose 10 more which would put me to the same weight as when I was in High School! : O

healthypeoplearehappypeople

Not eating regular meals, not eating meals that filled me up. I used to have HORRIBLE portion control. Overeating, not taking time to savor food. Binging on candy and other cheap junk. Not taking liquid calories into account. Never working out.

ChantalGG

I went from doing the once a week fast food treat meal to 6 days week of fast food and sometimes for more than one meal. I also moved right around the corner from a KFC and i could smell it sometimes. It was calling me. Plus i would always look forward to a movie and chips and dip or left over dinner after i put my son to bed.

Melmade

Pizza for breakfast, Ramen noodles. Both very high in calories & not good for you at all.:noway:

live2dream

For the last 30 lbs I'm trying to get off NOW... Taco Bell for sure and Domino's pizza. But growing up, my family would get these pies every now and then and I would eat a whole one to myself. I don't think I'd dare eat a whole one NOW. I can't believe how bad these are, my parents were oblivious, and the whole thing is just pure sugar.

Lol I remember these. I never really cared for them...except for the chocolate one. But I would eat it anyway when I was hungry. I bet our parents thought they were healthy because it says there is 'fruit' in it... hahahaha. My mom is still oblivious.

live2dream

lack of exercise, and my sweet tooth.

alyssamiller77

Buffalo Wings, without a doubt. I could eat a hundred of them a day if available. I actually realized my problem and it was the final straw that led me to my new life style. At the end of June while spending a full day with my referee peers, we went out to a bar in early afternoon after our games were done. I ordered a dozen hot wings with my beer and ate the entire plate full plus the celery (and of course with plenty of ranch dressing). We left for a meeting and came back to the same place later with more of our peers to have dinner. So what did I order? Another dozen hot wings. Ate all those with the same condiments. Then one of my associates who had ordered a platter of 24 for the table asked me to help finish them, so tack on another 8. That's 32 wings in a day if you're counting!! I realized that night that I needed to make a change. Eating like that was only making me fatter and wasn't helping me as a referee.