Why/how did you become overweight?

I ate too much cr@ppy food. Didn't burn enough calories.

A whole bunch of things. I was tiny skinny as a small child, it wasn't a particularly pleasant time. I first started putting on weight at 9 when my mother discovered soda concentrates were cheaper than milk. She was fed up with cooking by the time I came along, so started getting ready meals. She wasn't that great a cook anyway, and she liked the cheapest, nastiest processed stuff. And preferred having skinny children as she thought fat kids were the most disgusting things in the world. She was very obese herself. But the tons of food around the house was hers, not for me.


She never accepted it, but I had become the hefty girl at school. So everyday I had to deal with kids making nasty comments, go home and she would make nasty comments about how fat another girl was, but I would know that girl was a whole lot lighter than me whilst being much taller. I also heard about how fat people have pus and fungus in their skin folds and how it's useless to try and lose weight because they look worse with having baggy skin sliced off with knives.....


I went vegetarian at 14 and she refused to feed me full stop. So I lived on baked beans as that was all I could cook.

I lost all the excess fat and was skinny again, but she kept saying to anyone who would mention it that I wasn't slim at all. But I had gone from a size 16 to below a 10 in a year. With exercise in the school gym.


I left home at 16 and then spent years where I didn't have enough money to pay the bills each week. So food was the last thing on the list, especially after I had my daughter. But then I got access to free food at a new job and I took full advantage. Exercise got less frequent and my weight went up. Being vegetarian - or being choosy - had been abandoned because I never knew when I'd get to eat again.

Anyhow, by the time my second child was born and there was quite a good income in the house, I was officially obese. So I started exercising, eating better and was going great. And that's when I started getting injuries and had my first major flare of rheumatoid arthritis. So I ate crap due to pain and lack of energy. And became single, so the money dried up again. So I ate everything as though I were still exercising, and as though I might not eat again for days. For five years.

Add ten years of steroids, limited mobility, constant injuries onto this and you get me.


Finally, I've found a medication that seems to be helping the RA, so I can stabilise the joints and get moving again. It's falling into place with the food, I'm eating what I like instead of what I can afford, I'm not eating to try and quash feelings of anger at my past, my present, my health or the future. I am exercising on my terms. Because I like it.


Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and, instead of thinking 'god, you look gross!' I think I can see a little bit of 'me' inside the covering of fat and skin. I nearly lost myself under it, but I'm still there. And I'm going to escape.

I've always been slim. After I had my second baby I didn't lose the extra weight as easily as with the first. That combined with enjoying the good life a bit too much, made sure that I was still rather big when my baby turned 10 months. Not anymore though!

I had always been pretty thin and as I got older just kept eating the same as when I was younger! We were also eating out a bit more and having more get togethers with friends that of course revolved around food/drinks. The weight slowly came on and my sizes were going up. I just kept telling myself it was age and to deal with it! I was very un-comfortable in my clothes and growing out of clothes like crazy, so enough is enough and started MFP and back on track. A year later and I could not be happier!!!!

Were you always overweight? No. I was athletic in high school... played softball and cheerleading. I was "thick" but not overweight.

Did you "let yourself go"? After i started having kids I just neglected to work at losing the weight. An unhappy marriage attributed to a lot of comfort eating. One day I woke up and I was fat! I know it is gradual but it feels like it happened all at once, that is why it is hard to be patient about losing it.

I snuck chocolate and crappy snacks and yes, lots of fast food.

I guess it was a minor case of depression... I no longer wanted to dance... I danced for hours and hours through my childhood and teens, and I LOVED it, but hitting my 20's the desire just left me...

I only became overweight in my 20's (I'm 25 now), I was always quite lean in my teens, had a bit of curve but nothing that looked overweight... I was very fit, could easily dance for 5-6 hours straight no problems (and often did!).

I gained roughly 50-60lbs from the age of 21-24.... it just after my 24th birthday that I decided I wanted to change.

I am losing my weight easily, in that I'm not really changing my food all that much, but getting back into dancing 6-7 hours a week is seriously helping me weight loss... and I'm feeling happier and less stressed in myself.

I went through a 100-year hurricane the same year I turned 50. The next three years were very fattening. The last two have been normalizing.

I have always been on the "higher" end of the "normal" weight according to my height till I was 17. However, it was considered still obese back where I was raised so I have struggled so hard to get it lower and in the end just lost whatever fibre of self-esteem I had left. Then I migrated to Canada, my activity level immediately plummeted lol, and I was so depressed having left many of my close friends behind, that I turned to food for comfort. I have gained over 20 kg in the last 6 years. Fortunately, with the help of a couple exercise dvds and MFP, I have lost 34 lbs and have maintained it for over a month (busy school season) and I have gained so much more confidence since. Just jumped back onto the healthy wagon recently and here's working towards a leaner, stronger and more confident me

Comfort eating due to depression and anxiety


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I never knew why I became overweight. I was a skinny, skinny kid. When I went to college I gained the "freshman 15" and then some, but I then dieted to take it off until I was thinner than when I started. I gained a little weight after college, but was still in my healthy weight range. Then I had to quit taking the birth control pill and something went completely whacky, my cycle stopped altogether for 6 months and in that time I gained 50 pounds. I didn't have medical insurance or a doctor so I had no idea why. Many years later I was diagnosed with PCOS. I had been yo-yoing up and down but never as low as I was even at my heavy weiight in college. I developed other health problems like ashtma and severe migraines. This kept me from being able to move around as much as I used to, and I overate just a little in my misery - almost all homecooked food, with vegetables and low fat dressings and everything! I have figured out that one second helping a day is all it takes for me to gain weight - not the "I stuff myself sick on fast food daily" stereotype there is of fat people. I never drink anything with calories in it, for example. My behavior from when I was a skinny teen was only slightly different!
But one day I realized I weighed 300 pounds and there was going to be no end in sight to my weight gain unless I took control, no matter how sick I felt. I'm down 37 pounds from that high now. One big help was finally being able to get treatment for my migraines. Still, it's been a huge struggle. Losing weight is very difficult for me, and now of course they say that higher protein intake, with fat, is ideal for weight loss for people with my condition. This is of course the opposite of what I had been trying when I went on diets. It seems to be working for me, along with realizing that I burn fewer calories than other people my size and therefore just have to work harder to lose and maintain.