What triggered your weight gain?

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!

I was a fat kid too, but dropped it all around age 14, as tends to happen!

I was always active through college, didn't have a car so I walked everywhere. Then I flew the nest and moved overseas, alone. When I was there I also walked everywhere, and despite my sweet tooth, never put on weight.

I then moved back home to my parents for a month before I moved to the USA, waiting for my visa to come through. I hardly budged all month, yet ate like I did when I was active. Plus more treats, as my parents were so excited to have me home! Then I moved to the USA, celebrated with my husband with lots of date nights that we couldn't have when we were apart (cue Cheesecake Factory anyone!?) We also moved down to California for 2 months, drank every Friday night and had Popeyes! Popeyes was my go-to meal in California haha.

THEN, we moved to Germany. Loads of new foods to try, lots of new alcoholic beverages, lots of 'oh let's get that just to try it'. In this whole time frame I haven't been working and have been sitting on my butt all day.

Yep - that's how you put on weight in a short time period - FAST!

I was an athletic kid. The older I got, the less athletic activities I did.

I stopped moving, and I started eating more.

I got depressed. I had three children, and then I just "didn't care," until I saw a picture of myself and COULD NOT BELIEVE it was me!

The thing that motivated me the most was losing my hair to alopecia. I thought, if I'm going to be bald, then I want to be in shape and look good! And I'm working my way towards that!

I was a skinny kid. I weighed 100lbs at high school graduation. I was around 115lbs after my 3rd baby. I had a hysterectomy at age 32. That was the start of my weight gain. I weighed 140 for a long time. Then 10 years ago my youngest daughter passed away and I lost 20lbs from grieving and not eating. About 2 years later I was back up to 140lbs. Then moving to a new state and staying home I put on another 10. I had lived in Colorado and was used to hiking the mountains all summer. I didn't like hiking in my new state, I really didn't even like my new state for that matter. Then last summer I tore my rotator cuff. I was in such pain until I could see a dr and get on pain meds and start PT. That was the end of October when I had gained about 15lbs from doing nothing but sitting at the computer all day and stuffing my face and feeling sorry for myself. I was in too much pain to do anything else. Even moving my good arm, hurt my injured shoulder. Since I was in a new state I was seeing a new dr and she needed the mri to confirm an injury before she would prescribe me pain meds. It was a 3 month ordeal. I weighed 165 at Christmas. I started my weight loss on February 1st of this year. I think the injury helped motivate me to get fit and healthy.

I was a skinny kid and as a teenager I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight because I was very active. I didn't drive so I walked and biked everywhere. Then I got married to a man who was always warning me not to gain weight. I started watching what I was eating more and although I didn't walk or bike as much I tried to exercise a lot. I dieted when I wasn't even overweight. I had never even thought about these things before I met him. So when I finally divorced him 13 years later, at first I lost weight due to stress, then I gained because I felt free to eat what I wanted! It was partially in spite of my ex. I know - stupid!
I met my current husband who has never, ever criticized my weight. He loves food and loves to make me happy so he would buy me chocolate bars and ice cream all the time. He cooks a lot of recipes that have fatty sauces and not many vegetables. Slowly the weight crept up. My knees started hurting. Recently my feet started hurting, too. My mother has been overweight since I was born. She decided to start dieting herself and lost approximately 30-35 pounds. My husband also lost his big belly because of my constant 'nagging' to eat more vegetables. All he had to do is replace fast food a couple of times a week with salad.
So I was inspired to change. And here I am. Ironic how I never gained with my critical ex but did with my supportive husband!

I was skinny until I hit puberty. From then I started to get bigger, but not fat really. I think I was always prone to eventually get overweight though. I didn't watch what I ate really, although I was very active until I got to secondary school (Age 12). At that point I still wasn't overweight or anything, I just wasn't really skinny like the majority of people at school. That's when the bullying started, and that's when I started comfort eating. The more I got bullied, the more I ate, the bigger I got, the more I got bullied. I'm sure you can see the pattern. I also developed PCOS at some point which didn't help with the weight gain, and I'm also pretty sure it's why I have a very deep voice (which I was also bullied over a lot at school and it's left me with severe social anxiety disorder)
I think by age 13 I was classed as overweight, by 14 I was obese, and I've been that way ever since (although I'm very close to getting my BMI down to "overweight" again now)