Why/how did you become overweight?

Were you always overweight? No, I started becoming overweight in high school
Or were you once a healthy weight? Up until my junior year of high school
Did you "let yourself go"? Pretty much. I started driving, which gave me access to fast food anytime I wanted, and I paid no attention to how horrible it was for me.
Or perhaps it was due to a traumatic event, injury or medication? No.
And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food? For me, it was the crap food. I was young, so I will still fairly active, but the junk just caught up with me.

Were you always overweight?
No I was always a very thin kid until 25.

Or were you once a healthy weight?
I was always between 110-115 at 5'8

Did you "let yourself go"?
I guess in a way but more to do with family loss

Or perhaps it was due to a traumatic event, injury or medication?
My mom died when I was 25 which happened pretty quickly and I had a miscarriage after that.

And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food?
Crap foods. Became an emotional eater. Sprite and Sour Cream and Onion chips - Ruffles. Started eating more pork and less chicken.

For those of you who want to share, I am interested to hear your stories about why/how you became overweight.

Were you always overweight?
Or were you once a healthy weight?
Did you "let yourself go"?
Or perhaps it was due to a traumatic event, injury or medication?
And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food?

Thank you for sharing, I think your stories will shed some light and help us to understand our weight loss journeys, since the mental component is so important, and we have to know where we come from to move forward.

Feel free to link to other past threads or groups.

I was always tiny, 5'2, 110 soaking wet. I had my first daughter and the day I gave birth I weighed 135lbs. What I wouldn't give to be there now. I quickly lost my pregnancy weight and had the same body I did prebaby. 3 years later came baby #2 and all hell broke lose. I gained 60lbs, and kept those same 60lbs on all these years.

{quote}Were you always overweight?
Or were you once a healthy weight?
Did you "let yourself go"?
Or perhaps it was due to a traumatic event, injury or medication?
And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food?

When I was young (up to ... oh, maybe 15ish) my weight was appropriate for my height. I was never particularly athletic, but I enjoyed being active. I LIKE healthy foods, always have. As a three year old left unwatched for ten seconds in the grocery cart, I would break into mushrooms over cookies every time. The problem was that as I hit puberty, I took after my short, curvaceous paternal grandmother instead of my tall, slender, 70s-swimsuit-model mother. I remember being aware that my parents thought I was too heavy before that, but I didn't start caring until I was in middle school. In sixth or seventh grade I remember asking my mother for Slim Fast because I'd heard them discussing my weight again when they thought I wasn't listening. She balked, but gave in rather quickly.

After that it was all down hill. I started skipping breakfast because I preferred to sleep in the extra half hour. I discovered that I got a bigger energy boost out of taking a twenty minute nap during lunch than out of inhaling cafeteria food. So I would go all day with nothing to eat, then get home to my mother's dinners, which alternated between carb bombs (she made amazing beef stroganoff) and tasteless "healthy" things (don't even get me started on what that woman did to perch) that I politely picked at and then raided the cupboards and fridge all evening.

I developed a habit of eating 2 or 3 huge baked potatoes loaded with butter and salt and pepper for Sunday lunch because I could have them ready in 15 minutes while my mother puttered around with the early dinner she wouldn't serve for another 3 hours. Got really fond of pistachios... to this day I can't bring the 16oz home because it'll be gone in two days. If I'm lucky. The boobs appeared, sooner than everybody else in my class, had a full C cup (as big as my mother's) by the end of 8th grade. The locker room? Trés awkward. Didn't help that I was basically the social outcast in a very small school. My father's sole comment on my senior photos (the first professional photos I'd ever had taken just for me)? "Meh... a bit to Rubens-esque for my taste." I was 17, and devastated. Didn't occur to me until years later that the sick *kitten* was sexualizing his teenage daughter. Suffice it to say he preferred my mother's body type because it lent itself to a young appearance, and she cultivated that to please him. My more full-figured type didn't appeal to him, and he made sure I knew it.

So yeah, I hit college set up to fail miserably in the weight control department. Life without parents hovering? I ate as I pleased, snacked, and surprisingly didn't gain too much at first... the campus was set up to encourage walking, and I was dating a boy who loved to do just that, so we walked EVERYWHERE that wasn't ridiculously far away. End of freshman year I was running... oh, maybe 150ish. Spent that summer in New Jersey as a camp counselor (best job EVER... well, 2nd best, best was costuming a summer theatre), and came home so thin and tan my own mother looked straight at me in the airport and kept scanning the crowd.

I got lectured for neglecting my sunscreen (a load of whooey, I'd used it constantly, you just get dark outside all day every day), and told I looked like I'd been raiding the campers' candy stashes.

The weight started sneaking on again at that point, and by the time I met my husband, I was hovering around 170-180. Got up to 190-200 toward graduation, dropped back to 180 for the wedding in 2006, then fought back and forth over 200-220 for several years. When I found out I was pregnant (at barely 4 weeks gone), I weight 222 flat. I lost twenty pounds during the first half of the pregnancy purely because the little monkey was making me so darned sick I could barely eat. Random cravings aside, I mostly survived the pregnancy on Sprite and McDonalds french fries. I walked into triage a grand total of 4 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight. Two weeks after the birth I was flirting with 200 pounds.

Enter a refluxing baby, a faltering milk supply, and Domperidone.

Great galactalogue. Nobody warned me about the weight gain side effects, and before I knew it, that twenty pounds was back and it brought friends. Cold turkey'd the meds, but was too tired & busy with a baby to do much else.

Fast forward to about five months ago... I started having constant back pain, right where my bra band hits. I figured I'd thrown out my back, easy enough with a growing kid, right? Except it never healed despite being super careful. Two weeks ago I ended up in the ER because I couldn't hold ANY food down, and someone finally ordered an ultrasound instead of telling me "oh it's just muscle strain". Sure enough, bad gall bladder. I was in the hospital for a week on nothing but IV saline and antibiotics, had the gall bladder out. Dropped ten pounds all told that week.

Portion control became my best friend overnight. The surgeons were trying to scare me into bigger dietary changes than were necessary, according to the nutritionist, and she was right... I can still HAVE my treats, I just can't stuff myself anymore. I no longer have a choice... unless I want to be utterly miserable every time I indulge, I have to change how I fuel and care for my body.

Since getting home I've dropped another thirteen pounds, twenty-three altogether. My next "milestone" goal is that 200 mark. I want to see a 1 in the first slot when I step on that scale, and never see that 2 appear in anything but the second or third position again.

After that, the next milestone is 180, because I want to buy myself the Flirty Girl workout kit with the dance pole and learn to USE that sucker.

End goal right now is 150 pounds. That's more than I weighed in high-school, but I was never healthy in high school. I was skinny-fat at best because my habits and mentality were horrible. I want to see a toned, healthy, sustainable body and I want to do it while maintaining emotional health so that I can teach my children to love their bodies by loving mine.
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My mouth was open the whole time i was reading your post. I could not imagine going through what you went through.
I did absolutely love the last sentence. So inspiring.

Were you always overweight? No, for me it really started about 4-5 years ago when I was going through a divorce and went on antidepressants to deal with the stress. I gained about 35 lbs. I've managed to lose 20 lbs but I've been stuck at around 140 for a while (I'm 5'3")

Did you "let yourself go"? I think some of it was stress, some of it may have been the meds but mostly it was just that I didn't pay close attention to my diet and exercise the way I usually did previously.

And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food? For me, it wasn't that I would binge eat but I would probably eat more than I could burn off for my height and activity level. I wasn't eat McDonalds or ice cream every day but not watching my portion sizes real closely.

Freshman 15 found me.

I was always a skinny kid, but I didn't know it. I gaine a little weight at age 13-14, and was around 135 at the beginning of high school. When we moved to the midwest my junior year, I lost about ten pounds without trying (better food choices, etc.) and graduated at 124 lbs.

Then I went to college. I moved to California, where I thought I'd be tan and fit all the time, but eating processed foods, cafeteria food, eating out a lot, and minimal exercise caught up with me. I was a runner the beginning of my freshman year, and finished my first half-marathon in 2.5 hours, but by the end of that year I'd gained ten pounds and was up to 137. I spent that summer working out religiously, tracking my calories (my first stint with MFP), and ended up being 130 lbs at the beginning of my sophomore year.

Then I studied abroad in Europe, and learned about the deliciousness of nutella, crepes, scones with clotted cream, pasta, croissantes, swiss chocolate...you name it, I tried it. We all figured we were just "living in the moment" while traveling, and we could worry about exercise/weight later. I drank a lot, too. I didn't realize the extent of my weight gain until I came back to the States and saw that I was tipping the scales at 150, the heaviest I've ever been.

Since then, I've been struggling to lose the weight. I cook almost all of my meals now, but still struggle with finding time to exercise with my busy schedule. I want to get back to my starting weight, though; ten pounds, I could deal with, but nearly a thirty pound weight gain, and I can't even fit into my clothes anymore. I'm tired of it.

First time I gain weight was when my ex and I got seperated (my oldest was1 y.o at the time)... I lost a lot so i ate my pain and let myself go....
I've dropped weight a bit after but on December 2011...I was hospitalized and after the surgery i gain weight again.

I decided it was enough in September 2012.

Changed what I was eating and started to train and workout everyday....

Were you always overweight?
I think I might have been a little heavier than I should have been growing up, but I can't really recall when it really became a problem. Maybe middle school?

Or were you once a healthy weight?
As a toddler for sure.

Did you "let yourself go"?
I think in a way I did by letting a problem get worse. At one point I didn't even know I had a problem. It wasn't until middle school that I really got teased and figured out I was different from other kids. I would get picked on for being fat. I only got worse from there.

Or perhaps it was due to a traumatic event, injury or medication?
I wouldn't say so.

And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food?
I would come home from school and plant myself on the couch and just start eating chips or other junk food. Whatever I could get basically, but the fattier the better. I don't blame my parents at all, but in a way I feel they enabled me. I wish they would have encouraged sports at a younger age and promoted healthier eating, but they didn't eat great either.

I have always been a healthy weight hovering around 58-62 kg, I gained about 10kg during pregnancy but lost it fairly easily over about three or four months. What really screwed me was going from a job in retail sales which required about 8.5 hours of standing, to working in a call centre which requires around 7 hours of sitting each day. I didn't think anything of it and didn't change my diet or exercise at all and over three years gained nearly 20 kilos. I'm only 5'2 so 20 kilos is really a lot on me. I'm having to put a lot of effort into my diet and also making time to exercise just to stay at the same weight and stop gaining let alone start losing, I'm working up to that as I've only lost about 3kg so far and i suspect it will be fairly slow to come off considering my job requires me to sit for 35 hours every week.

Were you always overweight?
ANSWER: No I was very active in sports, hanging out with friends, working and just always out and about with friends until I graduated high school. I finished high school at 5"10 roughly around 180 pounds

Or were you once a healthy weight?
ANSWER: yes, but I let myself go(answer above fits this question as well)

Did you "let yourself go"?
ANSWER:Yes I graduated high school started working a lot of hours, eating unhealthy,drinking,and not exercising...so in about 8 years I was weighing about 280 pounds

Or perhaps it was due to a traumatic event, injury or medication?
ANSWER:Yes I went through a few tragic events in my life, but I choose to well forget them, and deal with it by stuffing my face with food instead of seeking help

And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food?
ANSWER:I mean I gain weight but that is only if I eat way too much, and exercise too little

Anyone who blames a random event in thier life on their obesity is absolutely ridiculous.I dont care if youve been raped or stubbed your toe.... I got fat because I ate too much, because food tastes good, and had no concept of what a calorie was.

Were you always overweight?
>>>Yes, since I can remember
Or were you once a healthy weight?
>>>now I am
Did you "let yourself go"?
>>>not really, I never really liked myself since I was a child, so in a way I never worried about my appearance
Or perhaps it was due to a traumatic event, injury or medication?
>>> I was hit constantly by my mother, forgotten by my father, I had lots of issues in my house that made me lock myself in my room and never come out, my only comfort was food
And did anyone become overweight while still being an active person and (over)eating homemade, whole foods, or was it only through eating essentially crap food, processed foods, restaurant/fast food?
>>> I ate a lot of crap and homemade food as well

bump

Anyone who blames a random event in thier life on their obesity is absolutely ridiculous.I dont care if youve been raped or stubbed your toe.... I got fat because I ate too much, because food tastes good, and had no concept of what a calorie was.

This is true, to a certain extant. Society is willing to make excuses for so many things, but if you're fat you're just a lazy pig. I won't deny that in my case, but I was also raised in a very twisted home that used food as a reward, and withholding food as a punishment. It is very hard to have a healthy outlook on food when your experience with it is so skewed. When you are child and hungry and there is food available but you are not allowed to have it, how can you expected to grow up with an understanding of what role food should play in your life? We are, in very large part, a product of our environment. Yes, when we are old enough to make our own decisions, it is then our own responsibility, but it is hard to get past the traumas that are visited on us as children. That said, this is why I'm owning up to my culpability now, and trying to correct the habits I have run with for most of my life.

I was always on the bigger side, but I wore it well. In high school I had to maintain 160+ to play on the boys rugby team after the girls' disbanded, so I held steady around 165. Then I stopped playing and continued to eat like I was living in the gym and playing 3 times a week. Fast forward a few years, a wedding and 2 kids, and I found myself at 231 pounds., I stayed there for 2 years and I've being attempting to lose for 3 years now, but little to no success til I joined MFP last year. I've worked my way down to 166.6, with a goal of 130-140.