Anyone else who has been overweight since they were kids???

Yup, I'm 42 and have been overweight my entire life. I was *close* to goal weight for a time in my mid-20's, but never actually got there. This is the first time in my life that I actually feel in control of my eating and exercise and like I might actually get there. It's also the first time in my life I'm not trying to crash diet and instead I'm eating at a moderate calorie deficit and exercising moderately. Things I can sustain for the rest of my life instead of eating a starvation diet of frankenfoods and exercising like a mad woman trying to lose 50 pounds in 2 months and then giving up when it didn't work.

I've been overweight all of my life. I've tried crash dieting, exercising like a fiend, and only have maybe a year of "skinny time" to show for it. Now I'm doing it the right way. I hope I'll be where I want to be by 2015.

I've been overweight on and off throughout my entire life

I was a overweight kid at the age of 3 and now im 19 and still overweight

anyone else out there like that??

I grew up below the poverty line so didn't have regular doctor visit except when absolutely necessary (vaccines, mandatory physicals, etc.), so I didn't start keeping track of my weight until age 10 and height until age 14. If I had to guess, I think that I've been borderline overweight since age 7 but I've always been tall so I was proportional. I know that I haven't been shirtless in public since about age 9 though.

At age 10 (90-100#), I had to take a prescrip-med for a couple of years and it absolutely WRECKED my metabolism! By 12 I was 148# and by age 14 I was 196# (5'4"). At age 14 I was probably in the worst physical condition of my life; walking more than a few blocks or a couple of flights of stairs and I'd be winded.

Then puberty went into maximum overdrive and I had rapid cycles of obese to 'skinny fat' and back. At 16 I was 4" taller but 36# lighter! I grad high school at 17 and I was 5'11.5" and 190#, "skinny fat" and technically overweight, but in decent shape because of a high-activity weekend job.

At age 20 (1992) I finally stopped growing, upward that is, at topped off at 6'4". I was probably 240# at that point. That was probably the last time (before this year) that I was not obese as per BMI.

I started this journey March 2013 at (probably) my highest BMI ever, 36.03 (296#). However, I was in MUCH better shape than I was at age 14 though, because I could wear a 40# backpack and walk for hours (zoos, amusement parks, other vacation spots). It was the scare of being officially diagnosed with HBP that triggered it for me. I'm now maintaining in the 240s and ascend 100+ floors of stairs/day semi-weekly and can do 2-4 continuous hours of high-incline treadmill (e.g. 3.0mph at 10-15%). Cardio is all-good and I'm in the best physical condition of my life at age 40 (recently stopped HBP meds), but I'm long overdue for strength training.

Looking back at pictures of myself, I think I was about 8 years old when my weight really ballooned. I think it was in part to my parents divorcing and the stress that it caused me but more so to my steroid inhalant for my terrible childhood asthma. I was an extremely active child and rarely watched TV and such. We even had a basketball court and lived right on a lake so I was always playing HORSE with my dad and brother and swimming. I was also in swimming lessons, basketball, soccer, baseball, ballet and tap dancing. But still, my weight ballooned. I remember being in fifth grade, I would turn on my radio and I would run circles around my bedroom for 20 minutes to get some cardio in to try and lose weight. I was conscious of my food intake even back then. Now that I have a child that age, I cannot BELIEVE that I was so consumed by my looks and weight at that young of an age. When I was in eighth grade, I was 180 pounds. I've just never been "small." I was in 7th grade working out every day on my mom's NordicTrac. I used that thing more than she did. The summer between my eighth grade and freshman year, I ran a mile every single night. My body shape did change but I didn't really lose weight. BUT, I did feel better about how I looked and the way I felt. I did pretty well keeping my body under control until I became pregnant with my first baby, when I was 20, and I gained 80 pounds. At least 35 of it was water retention and that fell off within three days of giving birth (I had pre-eclampsia). I did get down to almost my pre-pregnancy weight after I had him in about 9 months to a year but then I became pregnant again. Anyway, this has been a life-long struggle for me. Currently, I take blood pressure medication twice daily because after my last baby, whom I had in August 2011, my pregnancy induced high blood pressure never went away. It did with the other two pregnancies but not that one. I feel that I can get off of this medication if I can lower my weight significantly. But it might require that I get below where I was even before I was 12 years old. I am almost 30 years old now and I've never been so dedicated in all of my life to getting my weight down and my body confidence up. If you would like to cheer me on (and have me cheer you on!) would you add me? I am in need of some other really dedicated friends who are on MFP more than Facebook

Yup! Growing up and through my early 20's I was always 20-30 pounds over weight.... Then in my late 20's I added (gradually) about 50 pounds to that.

I can totally relate to not knowing what a goal weight should be. When I was in high school anybody I told my weight too would be shocked, assuming I weighed 15-20 lbs less. (Which I SHOULD have.) So I'm not sure what I would even look like if I were actually 15-20 pounds less.

Also, I remember having a conversation with a small (but curvy) friend when I was 19 or 20. She was complaining about gaining weight and she knew it because her stomach touched her legs when she was on the toilet, unless she sucked it in. I remember thinking.... you can be thin enough that that doesn't happen?! I had never experienced that and just thought when you sat of course your stomach would touch your leg, because it was bent....

I was born 9lb 7oz, which is the biggest birth in my family so far. From then on i was a little chubby; then as i got older i was always the one to go back for seconds. I remember being an XL in 6th grade...and it kept going from there. Now I'm 22 and waaaaay heavier than i want to be.
The most important thing to remember...look to the future. Don't let who you were define you, be defined by who you want to be. Work hard, and keep your chin up.

My fiancé was born 10 lb 2 oz. He weighed 200 lb by age 9 and was around 400 lb when he graduated from high school, although he is not sure because his parents' home scale only went to 380. He's now been in the range of 220-240 lb for 11 years (he's 32 and 6'3").

Also, I remember having a conversation with a small (but curvy) friend when I was 19 or 20. She was complaining about gaining weight and she knew it because her stomach touched her legs when she was on the toilet, unless she sucked it in. I remember thinking.... you can be thin enough that that doesn't happen?! I had never experienced that and just thought when you sat of course your stomach would touch your leg, because it was bent....

I have soooo been there. A hundred or more times!!

Especially when talking with friends who were ALWAYS thin or smaller average sized, and then they gained a lot during pregnancy. It is simultaneously a bit amusing and frustrating to me dealing with those who haven't had a lifelong battle with their weight. Not that I don't sympathize...but it's just so different for them, I think!

I have always been the one to sabotage my weight loss. I would start losing then when my friends would get discouraged i would start to feel guilty cause i was doing it they were not i would start sabotage myself to make them feel better. That is very dumb of me to do. Now I see it which is good. Anyone else ever do this?

When I was born, people say to my mom, is he 3 months now? always overweight since I was born