Why/how did you become overweight?

I was a healthy 120-125 pounds and was very active all through high school. Like most people I gained a few pounds freshman year but it was no big deal. Then my sophomore year of college I got hit with a bout of serious depression and went from 135 to 160 in less than three months. Eventually I had to drop out of school for the semester to deal with the depression. I stayed around 160 for the rest of college. After I graduated I vowed to lose the weight and get healthier. It worked for a little while and I got back down to around 140 pounds my first year of graduate school. But living in an area I disliked and attending a school I ultimately ended up hating made me fall off the wagon. I gained everything back plus about 10 pounds. That put me at my highest weight ever--170 pounds. So once again I'm on a mission to get myself healthy and hopefully keep it off. I've gone from 170 pounds in 2011 to 147 as of this morning and I couldn't be happier.

It allllll happened after high school. I was never skinny or anything but I was reasonably athletic, being on the dance team and I ran track. However after I graduated I stopped these activities and that was a big factor. I love to party always have, so ungodly amounts of alcohol over the years has contributed...and finally, really bad eating habits. I love food, everything, I would eat anything and everything I wanted, whenever I wanted. I love to cook and bake. I had jobs over those years at food places, one was a donut shoppe and one was panera bread. I was surrounded by deliciousness. The combo of all three is why I got to how I was.

I was pretty skinny as a kid growing up in the 70s. By HS, I was more naturally muscular and carried an extra 5-10 pounds in my midsection and thought I was 'fat' compared to the other thin girls, so I had to watch my weight to keep it in line. I discovered alcohol in college and gained a little, got married, gained a bit more, got divorced, lost the extra weight, got married again, got pregnant and gained, lost the baby weight, got pregnant again, lost most of the baby weight, had a bad accident at work, was off work due to broken neck and surgeries, gained 30 pounds, back to work and lost the weight, few years later got divorced, had back surgery and gained some, lost most of it after going back to work, few years later got married, had a knee injury and surgery, got pregnant with third child at 36, went back to work after birth with 30 extra pounds. Three months later had a severe disabling spine injury that put me in a wheelchair for a few years.
Constant pain and immobility, plus stress of losing my job and income, then father dying, then having my youngest dx'd with Autism, all added up to five years later having added another 50 pounds to the 30 I was carrying already. 100 calories a day over maintenance is all it takes to gain 10 pounds in a year. Do that 5 years in a row and that is 50 pounds. It is just that easy.

I didn't gorge myself with donuts and fast foods. The only time in my life that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight, was around age 30 when I was working a very physical job and training with some pro bodybuilders. But even then, I was only eating between 2000-2500 a day to maintain.
My extreme decrease in activity after my knee injury, pregnancy and then permanent disability at 37, coupled with the stress of all the life events that happened during those 5 yrs left me at an all time high weight of 237 when I finally stepped on the scale at a WW meeting. I changed my eating and concentrated on losing by various ways over the next few years, and my weight fluctuated down and up and by the time I started here in Aug 2012, I was at 228.

For the past 6 months I have logged on every day, and aside from Holidays, have stayed around my calorie goal and have exercised as I can. I have managed to lose 37 pounds and am halfway to my 'Healthy' goal.

For me, it was accepting my reality and that I simply cannot eat as much as others, no matter how hard they may try to insist that I can, according to some online calculator. I have to know my body. I have to be consistent. I can't do it for a week and expect 75 pounds to be gone. I have to stick with it even when the scale doesn't move as fast as I would like it to.
I have to be happy with 1 pound a week. At that rate, in six months I will be down another 26 pounds and only have 11 pounds to go. YAY!

For me, I have never accidentally lost weight. I have to remain conscious of my weight and calorie intake at all times, and must continue to do so if I wish to keep this weight off. It sucks, but it is so worth it! I feel better now than I have felt in 12 years.

I have always been a little on the chunky side but never super overweight that was until my grandma passed away when I was 13 and I gained over 100lbs in less than a year. I went from being a 5'10" 180lb 13 year old to being a 5'11" 300lb 14 year old. It was a very hard time in my life and I have worked passed those issues and now on the way to recovery.
Only 60lbs to go until I am back to where I was!

You were 5'11" at 14?? Wow, that had to be a bit tough on you even without the extra weight. So sorry you went thru such a traumatic time at such a young age. Good for you now that you are working on improving your health, and congrats on your success so far. You are a very strong young lady. You will certainly reach your goal!

I was skinny...all through childhood, high school, early adulthood, and into my 30's.

I was in the low 120's in my teens and 20's, and in the 130's in my 30's. I took a job that was sedentary, and I wasn't moving around as much as I had been in previous work, and crept up to the low 140's about 8-9 years ago. I looked okay, tho. Healthy, not chunky, or like skeletor.

5 years ago my husband had a bunch of surgeries on his neck, and it put him out of work for a while. Continued surgeries, ultimate disability, three kids to raise, I was working two jobs, and everyone was tended to but me. I was too busy worrying about everyone else; and not just immediate family. I was doing it at work, too, trying to fix everything for my employees.

I got in the habit of caring for everyone but me. I didn't feel that I had time enough to take care of myself, and in December 2012, it showed. Well, it showed back last April...I saw a picture of myself at an art auction and could NOT believe how ROUND I was. Last December was when I said to hell with it, I'm taking me and making ME a priority. Period.

I signed up here in the spring of 11, and did all the wrong things...ate 1200 calories daily, worked out, lost weight, didn't know about BMR & TDEE. I got hungry, cranky and then the weight loss stalled. I stopped logging. I gained back the weight. And then some. Then I had an accident that put me off my feet for about a month last year, and by spring I was ready to do it again, but I did it wrong again. (Y'all remember the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?) Well, that happened. So I got hungry, got frustrated, gave up and took up sitting on my @$$ and feeding my face.

Lesson learned? You can't take good care of anyone else if you are unhealthy or dead. I am learning to make ME a priority. And damned if it doesn't feel GOOD!

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?

I was not always overweight. I was a healthy weight until I began my long term, long distance relationship when I was 19. Then I packed on 50-60lbs. I did let myself go, when I was with him I was happy, ate whatever he ate, and when we were in separate countries again, I stuffed my face with gelato and cookies. I became overweight eating crappy food, too much of it, and not exercising.

Then I realized, at 22, I felt trapped in my own body.

I was sexually abused by brother from ages 6-5. (I can't believe I'm posting this!) People talk about emotional eating - I think I ate so I wouldn't feel anything, and I got very good at not feeling anything. Comfort food was my friend, especially growing up in a family where meat & potatoes ruled. Even so, I was a jock in high school and college so even though I was overweight all the activity kept it in check. After college I stopped being a jock but never changed my eating habits. Later, even though it was subconscious, I'm pretty sure I gained weight as a protection - against any kind of emotional attachment to people... against life.

Fast forward to post-grad school - the memories started coming back, depression and PTSD set in, and comfort food was...well.... a comfort. And the depression made it all but impossible to get moving and get some exercise, and I was on a cocktail of 5 different psych meds, some of which caused some weight gain. I was also drinking a lot of alcohol to forget and probably came closer to being an alcoholic than I'd like to think about.

Fast forward again to now:
- years of therapy later, no more psych meds
- joined a gym and work out 5-6 times a week
- the gym has a pool and I swim 3-4 times a week
- I see a nutritionist/dietician who believes in real food and no diets
- I've dropped from a 4x-shoulda-been-a-5x to 1x, size 28 to 22
- I've lost just under 100 pounds and I'm about halfway to my current weight goal.

You are an inspiration. I'm so sorry for what you went through but am so inspired by how far you have come. Thank you for sharing.

It's a simple story. After High School, I wasn't good enough to play college level sports, discovered beer, had a 24-hour pizza delivery that charged $8 for a half sheet sicilian pizza, and the sat night canteen truck made the best bacon, egg, and cheese (with mayo) subs at 2:00am

You've heard of the freshman 15? I did the freshman 50 and never looked back.

marriage, kids, job behind a desk. Am working to gain back what I had 25 years ago.

I am a yoyo'er when it comes to weight, i put on LOADS when my dad left; big comfort eater then i got into college and lost about 3 stone due to depression and not eating, then i put it all back on when i went to uni and was homesick, now i have made some amazing friends at uni and we are all on the journey together, this time im loosing weight the right way not the wrong way adn hopefully i can commit to it forever meaning i will have the body i want and can work towards just maintaining the weight