Curious - what made you overweight in the first place?

Eating a lot of food and not burning enough calories.

Processed calories.

I've always been "big"...smallest I can remember being was 150 around the 7th grade. I was pretty active my freshman year of high school, but towards the end of that year I met my (now) husband, and running took the back burner. It got worse once I started working...the only jobs I had throughout high school were in fast food, so I ate their food almost every day. Add that in with no exercise, and I was probably around 220 or so when I graduated. My habits didn't really change, and my hubby never said anything about it, so I didn't concern myself over it. By the time I got pregnant with our son I had hit 255, and by the time he was born, I was at 277. I lost the weight quickly, but I've gained it back, and then some. I never really looked at how many calories were in the foods I ate. I was shocked when I found MFP and realized I was obese because I never looked at the calories, I just ate whatever. I had mentioned to my doctor in the past that I was interested in losing weight, but all she said was diet and exercise, which duh, I knew already, but I had no clue what I should eat and how much. I've since found a new doctor who has been wonderful. Now I know and I'm slowly making my way back down the scale

EATING:laugh:

Less exercise than when I was in school plus eating due to depression were the main problems. I have diabetes in my family, along with heart disease and cancer, but none with those problems were overweight when diagnosed.

I was in denial about how many calories I was actually consuming. "Every now and then" or "once in a while" was far too often, and it's easy to get used to it. I didn't even think I was eating "that badly" and I deserved it, other people eat the same stuff... why can't I? But I wasn't spending 24hours with them... who knows what they didn't eat at home. I blamed everything I could. Bad genes, not being breastfed, too much stress, thyroid problems, hormones... you name it, I used it to keep the blinders on. It's easy to be a victim but it's also wonderful to have control over your body. Very liberating to finally admit that I had absolute control over this.

My mum was overweight and I learned my bad habits from her. 4 or 5 cookies for dessert and some chocolate with it. Hot chocolate before bedtime. Since she was overweight and I was, too, I thought it was just my genes and there was nothing I could do about it. It still doesnot seem fair to me - I was on the swim team and swam 6h a week. Why did I gain weight in the first place?
I never occurred to me that I could do something about it until I was 25. I had not known that one has control over your weight.

More things: we are vegetarians, and meat was substituted by carbs. My mum bought cheap fruits and veggies that never tasted well. We never indulged in yummi fruit - and she added sugar to fruit salad, even to strawberries. I thought that was the way to do it, hence I was not heavily overweight but have always been above average.