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  • tanyaslosingit
    tanyaslosingit Posts: 178 Member
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    Go watch the HBO four-part documentary, The Weight of the Nation. Each episode is about an hour long and can be watched for free (online and legally) here: http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/films

    You can also rent or purchase the DVDs and; there is a companion book as well.

    The documentary is well researched, extremely revelatory and informative. It talks about the factors that play into being overweight, obese and morbidly obese; as well as the consequences and; it offers some general but truly helpful solutions.

    It's well worth the four hours to educate yourself about what is truly a public health crises and; I've found it very helpful in my own personal weight-loss campaign to know exactly what I'm up against.
  • TinGirl314
    TinGirl314 Posts: 430 Member
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    What is everyone getting up in arms about? It's a medical professional taking the time to actually learn about a medical condition??

    I started at 375...

    1: Got PCOS and diabetes by the time I was 14.
    2: My family was full of very unhealthy eating habits. We went out to dinner almost every night and then when we would run out of money we lived on mac and cheese and hotdogs.
    3. No one in my family did any activity, ever. We came home from our obligations and went up to our room to sit in front of our electronic device of choice.
    4. People started getting really mean when I got as heavy as I did. I didn't have many friends, I couldnt even talk to my family- I turned to food.
    5. My mother locked the cabinates and the frdige when my brother and I got heavy. Which lead to hiding food and eating in secrecy. Which was not a good development.

    As I got heavier...being active got harder. The constant pain and nausea...not being able to breathe. It's hard to imagine yourself walking a mile when you can't make it up the stairs.

    So it was a combination of environmental and emotional and the PCOS/diabetes.
  • AlexandraLynch
    AlexandraLynch Posts: 161
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    For my husband, who started his diet at 350 pounds: 1) His mother taught him food was love and reward. She cooked Old Southern; everything fried in tons of grease with meat flavoring all the vegetables. Good food for a man going down the mines, but not so good for someone inactive.

    AND then.... He played football and started to injure his knees. So he started to sit more. And he eats when he's bored or sleepy or stressed. And then he gained more weight. And started driving a truck, where he sits all the time and is usually bored, sleepy, and stressed. And his knees hurt more, and he fell on the ice a few times as a trucker (and this is America, where you don't go to the doctor for that sort of thing), and his knees hurt more.....

    So now he's due for knee replacements, AND he's got COPD from his years of breathing smoke as a fireman. Exercise, hell, he has a hard time walking up the three shallow steps to the porch from the sidewalk. What's left to do that's fun? Eat.

    And he married a woman who cooks well. So eating is fun and tempting.

    And he quit smoking three times (the third time took) and each time put forty pounds on him.

    But it's all coming off now, slowly. I am very proud of him, because he's having to do it all with diet, and just alter a lot of his habits around food.

    Myself.... I am inclined to be active, but at 23, I folded my foot in half and they put it back together with pins and screws. Now at 40, this means I have arthritis in my foot. I can't guarantee I can stand up long enough to scramble an egg on any given day. This makes staying active hard. And this isn't a visible disability, and I'm not "old enough" to hurt like that, and after all, they repaired it so it should be fine now. So I got rather depressed. And I am hypoglycemic so a carb fog was actually nice.

    Now I've got my thyroid medicated, my ADHD medicated, and am on a prescription pill for the arthritis pain that actually works with minimal side effects. I'm doing better, and losing weight, slowly, but steadily, and that works for me.
  • silverlockmacy
    silverlockmacy Posts: 2
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    Most women gain 10 -50 pounds with each baby sometimes it is slow to come off.
  • VelociMama
    VelociMama Posts: 3,119 Member
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    I went from 135lbs to 218lbs in about 5 years after high school.

    I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it had a lot to do with emotional eating from a very stressful college career and being very delusional about the way I looked. Despite my clothing sizes continuing to climb, I was in denial for years about my weight problem and my emotional issues when it came to food.

    It wasn't until my doctor told me I was obese, and I couldn't shop in the misses section anymore since the size 16's were too tight that I realized how far I'd let myself go. For the last year or so before I started to make changes, I didn't even weigh myself. Getting on the scale and seeing that dial go almost to 220 broke my heart.

    Judging by the responses I've read in this thread already, it seems that my story isn't unique at all unfortunately.
  • Diablo360x
    Diablo360x Posts: 15 Member
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    The bad thing about obesity is that parents pass it on to their kids by allowing them to eat as much and as often as they do. I have a friend who has a majorly obese kid and I know that if I said anything I would catch hell and she would just chalk it up to genetics. Can't win in that situation and the kid is going to be messed up for life most likely.
  • VelociMama
    VelociMama Posts: 3,119 Member
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    The bad thing about obesity is that parents pass it on to their kids by allowing them to eat as much and as often as they do. I have a friend who has a majorly obese kid and I know that if I said anything I would catch hell and she would just chalk it up to genetics. Can't win in that situation and the kid is going to be messed up for life most likely.

    That is really sad.

    I really wanted to get most of my weight off before I got pregnant, and I got about 40 lbs of it off (still had about 20 more to go to be where I wanted to be). I'm hoping the skills I learned along the way will help me get my baby weight off and help show my son how to eat well and have a better relationship with food than I did.

    Sadly, a lot of parents don't even try or just don't know how to fix things when it comes to their own obesity and the obesity of their children. I just feel so sorry for those kids that never get a chance to be healthy
  • Jebbster007
    Jebbster007 Posts: 265 Member
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    I think someone probably already said this but very very slowly. Lets say (im a fairly large guy, 6'4") you put on 2 lbs a month. That is only 1/2 a pound a week. In one year, that is just shy of 25 lbs. 25 lbs on a very large frame is almost indistinguishable. I mean that sincerely. I can lose 25 lbs. and you can barely tell I've lost weight. Now instead of a year, lets work with a decade. Add a zero. Now that fit 200 pounder is 450 lbs. Now I didn't get to that number before I wanted to turn the ship around but I did reach 395. It happens so gradually that you almost don't notice, it just seems normal, or you blame it on age, slower metabolism. You don't gain it overnight and because of that, you don't lose it overnight either.
  • aussiemegs82
    aussiemegs82 Posts: 29
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    Unresolved emotional issues that manifested physically. "letting yourself" get overweight is like saying a depressed person 'lets themselves be unhappy". Its easy to see what you need to do, doing it is another thing all together.

    Personally, I always thought I looked better than I actually did. lol. Denial is an interesting foe.
  • uwdawg07
    uwdawg07 Posts: 372
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    For me it was illness.

    I was always very thin and active, never counted calories and couldn't gain weight. I got really sick for about a year and was practically unable to move. I became depressed and ate more. So that's how it happened.

    As soon as my health got better, I started taking care of the issue.
  • Culley34
    Culley34 Posts: 224
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    I got through the first episode and half of the second one. Scary stuff down the road for this country. I'll try to watch more tonight.

    They're very well done - I suggest that anyone interested in obesity, and especially, childhood obesity, take a look at these videos.
    Go watch the HBO four-part documentary, The Weight of the Nation. Each episode is about an hour long and can be watched for free (online and legally) here: http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/films

    You can also rent or purchase the DVDs and; there is a companion book as well.

    The documentary is well researched, extremely revelatory and informative. It talks about the factors that play into being overweight, obese and morbidly obese; as well as the consequences and; it offers some general but truly helpful solutions.

    It's well worth the four hours to educate yourself about what is truly a public health crises and; I've found it very helpful in my own personal weight-loss campaign to know exactly what I'm up against.
  • purpleipod
    purpleipod Posts: 1,147 Member
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    Well, I'm not THAT heavy in the grand scheme of things, but I think one of my reasons for not stopping my weight gain until now was denial and laziness. It's pretty easy to hide from a scale and mirrors and not accept how much weight you're gaining. Food makes me happy, so I get a high when I eat. In my head that cancels out the logical thoughts that tell me I don't need to be eating this much.
  • krisiepoo
    krisiepoo Posts: 710 Member
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    There's the parable of the frog who was put into water...

    The first time the water was super hot and he jumped right out again because he wasn't going to be boiled alive

    The second time the water was a nice comfortable temperature, which was gradually increased so the frog didn't notice how hot it was getting and he died.

    Weight is the same way. people don't get fat overnight, they slowly put it on over years and years. They don't "let themselves go", they slowly eat an extra 3500 calories a week that they don't burn off which slowly adds pound by pound.
  • lilmissymoo90
    lilmissymoo90 Posts: 324 Member
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    lots of reasons it creeps on slowly my main reasons was i comfort ate

    i gained 2 stone during pregnancy and had problems with my pelvic bones which didnt go away after having my son for a while and it hurt to walk so i gained another 2 stone
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,229 Member
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    I haven't read all these pages... I'm sure someone has already offered a similar answer.

    I believe there is a difference between obesity and morbid obesity. You can be a healthy obese, but there is no such thing as a healthy mobidly obese. That is almost an oxymoron. To become morbidly obese, you have to have a certain kind of mentality. You have to believe that your health is not important or at least have some kind of disconnect between your health and your size. For most people, it is depression that leads people to have this mentality, but I don't think it generally starts this way. I think depression is more the end result.

    Either way, it is my opinion that morbid obesity is more directly associated with mental health than any other physical condition.
  • cheerforsteelers
    cheerforsteelers Posts: 686 Member
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    I didn't read all the pages, but I'm sure others have said this:

    There's the way people grew up (cultural) - some grew up around food where anything happy or sad was celebrated with food. There is illness for some, disorders or medications that speed up weight gain. Depression, death in the family, bullying, growing up uneducated about nutrition. Some people just honestly don't realize how much weight they've gained until they see themselves in pictures or someone point out to them that they've gained weight. Then there are people who just don't care. It various from person to person and culture to culture.
  • Bakkasan
    Bakkasan Posts: 1,027 Member
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    Honestly the two times I have gained a lot of weight I really didn't notice it. The slowly boiling a frog metaphor applies fully. Doctor said dude, you are fat. That and I saw my photo I have in my profile of this time last year. That did it.
  • mmachick2011
    mmachick2011 Posts: 55 Member
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    People often find comfort in food when they are profoundly depressed.

    And... I didn't even realized I was so depressed because I was the "clown" in the group as an adult. The funny one, so we were always laughing. And when I got upset I would eat fast food in my car and hide the evidence. Add on squashing being abused as a child and never having to worry about weight until my 20s= recipe for disaster. Lors of help, therapy, and support and I could then loose the weight. Not before.
  • ChgingMe
    ChgingMe Posts: 539 Member
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    This is a genuine question I am asking because I am very interested in obesity and morbid obesity, specifically WHY and HOW. I am also a nursing student, and I understand that factors X, Y, and Z play into obesity. But here is my question, and I would really appreciate honest answers from people who truly understand:

    How does a person "let" himself or herself become so heavy? How and why does a person put on 300, 400, 500 pounds? I just do not understand and would really like to "get it" so in the future, as a nurse, I can better help those struggling with this issue.

    Thank you

    -Nicole

    Don't take this the wrong way either... but lets turn the tables. Your ticker says you want to lose 15lbs. My question to you is "how did you get yourself in tat situation? Why didn't you start working on your weight sooner?"

    If you can answer that, then you know the answer for most of us. I got up to 400lbs. Would you still be gaining if you didn't come across MFP? If so why?

    My point is, it's the same situation for most of us, just varies degrees of weight gain.

    :drinker:
  • timmymon
    timmymon Posts: 304 Member
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    I think that there are obviously many reasons why this happens but just look at the lifestyle most people in this country live. The vast majority of people could care less about what they eat and rarely ever exercise. if you are on a website like this and you care even a little bit you are part of the minority. We can blame addiction or sickness or basically anything we want (and for some people these things might be semi true) but for the most part we are just LAZY and it takes too much effort to be healthy! Way easier for people to come up with lame excuses as to why they are obese rather than for them to actually face the music and address the problem directly.

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