What triggered your weight gain?

ate too much

I had hit my goal and was maintaining and then had eye surgery. I had to stay completely immobile, face down, for a week then take it very easy for 6 weeks after that, plus had to take Prednisone which made me ravenously hungry. I regained 6 pounds that I'm having a hard time getting back on track to lose.

I was always overweight as a kid. I just didn't understand nutrition. I would eat tons of really calorie dense food like hot dogs and ice cream floats and cake. Like, as one meal. I was always active so I couldn't understand why I wasn't thin. Doing sports like gymnastics and cheerleading and track kept me "in shape", but I was still way too heavy. Once I went to college I kind of figured it out, luckily. Sometimes it scares me to think where I could have ended up if I hadn't learned.

I gained quite a bit of weight when I got married. I love good food and my husband is an amazing cook who likes to eat too. We're both trying to get it under control now so we don't sabotage each other and so that we can have a healthy slim marriage.

ate too much

Yep this

I was just dumb and ate too much -thinking I still have a metabolism of a teenager. LOL.
I have several "wake-up calls" that lead me to change to a healthier lifestyle. Most of them are funny reality checks too.

One was "the scale." -The maximum capacity of my bathroom scale was 250 lbs. When I "HAD TO" buy a new scale just to know my weight, all i could do was laugh a how dumb i was to let myself go like that. LOL.

The second and funniest one was "the bump on the road." -I was driving, and i hit a bump on the road. And for the first time in my life, I felt my belly JIGGLE. I was like: "What...The... F**k... was... that?!!!"
I did not know bellies can jiggle like that. LOL.

After that, i was like: "Yeah, Darvin! You're fat! Time to do something about it!"

Another funny story was: When I actually "TRIED to jog," -emphasis on the word "TRIED."
I was all motivated as heck. Ready to change my life.
I was like: "Okay! Today is the day I will jog! I'm gonna go for 1 mile today!!!!'"

So, I changed into my new jogging clothes, put on my jogging shoes, and walked outside the door.
I jogged for about HALF a block, (and this is a small suburban block, mind you.) and i was already out of breath. I was sweating, panting, and my side was already hurting.
I was like "WTF? Seriously!?!!!"
I didn't know I was THAT out of shape. LOL.

So, i walked back into my house. drank some water, sat down and told myself: "Well, you can feel all defeated now. But you have to start some where. Right?"
So, i the next day, i decided to walk to the gym that's a block away from my house, and was like: "Al right! Lets start with something EASY"
I tried the elliptical ...and I was hooked with going to the gym from then on.
LOL.

I used to work in a shop. My eating habits weren't the healthiest but my activity level was high.
A few years ago, I started working in an office. I'll leave you to do the math :laugh:

I would have to blame it on the fact that I have this rare condition called to much food to mouth disease.

LOL at This.
Word is, that decease has been going around now.

I didn't exercise and I drank a lot of weekends. alcohol makes me just eat everything.

An injury and being unable to return to work causing a dramatic drop in exercise levels coupled with medication that causes extremely fast weight gain started the spiral for me.
Going from being extremely active to being unable to do anything for quite a while takes its toll unfortunately.

Eating out of boredom. I became a stay at home mother last year after my son was born, and it all went down hill from there. I am turning it all around though!!!!

Depression and work related stress = bad eating habits and too much alcohol

I started realizing I needed to lose weight after I got into the habit of being obsessed over food and wanting to eat nice things all the time. My brother, father and I would just snack on whatever was available all day. We'd have a big meal at Dad's favourite Thai restaurant, buy and eat sweets/bread/pastries afterward and then continue to eat bread with butter, jam and honey for the rest of the day. Dad was active and felt full from the Thai meal for almost the rest of the day, but my brother and I just wouldn't stop eating. Then we'd feel guilty for eating unhealthily and have several pieces of fruit. What made it all worse was that I'd gone through a period where I was addicted to video games and hated exercise.

For starters, my family was somewhat sedentary. If we did go out, it was to eat, but there were rarely any outings were we did anything that involved moving our bodies. (All of us, thankfully, have become more active over the years).

I also had (and still have) emotional and/or anxiety problems, and sometimes I do reach for food.

I also really enjoy eating, and I like eating really, really bad stuff. As a matter of fact, I was eating pretty terribly for a while.
A perfect example of this is ordering out for pizza. I would eat the entire pizza, breadsticks, and chug down a good majority of the soda.

no deep reasons for me, I just got older and less active, but carried on eating all the same foods as I always had.

When younger, a combination of running after kids, a reasonable metabolic rate, not owning my own car, plenty of housework, jobs that involved being active etc.. meant that I stayed the skinny thing I had been from my teenage years but gaining work as a teacher, kids growing up and being more independent and developing a love of wine and cheeses, (in far too much quantities) all lead to a slow gain that I did not do anything about until it became a much bigger gain!