anyone found the root cause of why you gain weight?

I like to eat food while I play video games all day. Kind of a recipe for disaster, really.

So now I play video games, but rarely eat while doing so (Which sometimes makes me not eat all day, which is another issue) and make myself move around a lot. A. Lot. Because I still want to eat all the food.

I have a high cookie drive.

I gained weight because of stress. I also had this medical condition that started when I was 8 years old, which, at that age, causes a bunch of confusion and stressed out the little kid me. Later in life, finances started stressing me out. I had one "toxic person" in my life that I kicked to the curb before you could say Quidditch once I found out that she was causing me even more stress.

Poor eating habits from parents, boredom eating, generally preferring fried foods and sweets to everything else. In our house, a standard meal is something like a plate of chicken and a big helping of white rice. Normally I'd get seconds too, since I'd still be hungry. I generally have to beg for salads and lower calorie foods or I won't get them. For the longest time, my brother was the only one not overweight simply because he eats the least. I still remember my parents trying to convince me that there's nothing wrong with fried foods when I was close to being a hundred pounds overweight. Of course, everything in moderation, but still. You can lose weight by only eating Chicken McNuggets, but it's also a hell of a lot harder than if you eat the right foods (imagine surviving an entire day on 32 nuggets [1520 calories]). I've also led a sedentary life style for the past ten years or so. My exercise would consist of walking from one class to another in school. It's been a little of everything.

In decreasing order of siginificance (how much they contributed to my gain) :

- starting to eat equal portions with my husband after we moved in together (yes, I know :embarassed: ...)
- eating for procrastination, i.e. to avoid doing something I hated/was afraid to do
- snacking too much in addition to having full meals - I was capable of having a large snack at 5 pm and a full dinner at 6 pm for example. Now I am not hungry after the snack so just skip the dinner, may be have a lighter snack later. Similar before lunch - if I get hungry early, I just have an early lunch now, but before I had the snack and the lunch after.

Fixed all of the above, thanks to the fact that MFP has made me really mindful of my eating habbits. Before I didn't even notice I did those things. Also I got on top of most of my emotional problems before starting MFP, and am working on the ones that remain.

ETA: I am aware that I am losing due to calorie deficit. But I hope understanding all of the above will help me not regain it all at the end.

mine is a multifaceted. First I have hypothyroidism that has to be adjust every so often other wise I gain weight like mad (ie recently gained 30 pounds in 15 days..........got my tsh back and above normal again so thyroid med increased)
Number two for me is also vitamin defficencs that I also found out that I have to increase those as well as they are down too.....vitamin b12 (have to do injections as I don't absorb it) and vitamin D
Number three sometimes my energy levels affect my weight as well and the three things above all affect that including having low iron
number four having PCOS which throws even more hormones off (and they do not have a good line of treatment developed for this yet)
Number five...........stress i notice that in high stress ie husband being hospilized I tend to let my eating an exercise slack and spend a lot of time eating caf. food from the hospital (not the greatest)
number six............lapsing back into old habits of comfort from food. society teaches us that when we are happy we eat, when we are sad eat, to spend time together eat dinner......etc.
I could go on and on but one thing I have learned that you can always start over and realize that you can only control things that are withing your control ie: what you use to fuel your body. And also learned that sometimes there needs to be medical interventions to correct things that are wrong within your body. One other thing that I am trying to implement is finding a better way to deal with and handle stress that I go through in life rather than lapsing back into old habits

I've always loved good food and wine, and until recently had a ludicrously high metabolism--seriously, I ate as much as or more than my 6'1", active husband and didn't gain. Then I got into perimenopause, got a job with a crazy commute so I ended up being less active, got depressed because I hated the job with the crazy commute... And when I did have time to do anything other than work, my social life revolved around foodie activities.

Twenty pounds later, I realized I had to get active again and start tracking what I ate, because left to my own devices I still think I can eat 3000 calories at a sitting and not have consequences!

Originally, I gain weight due to my dang boredom eating, stress eating, you name it. Especially when friends jokes about 'food is pleasure?' Duh, that's where I felt comfortable with me just eating and eating and always having an excuse of ' I'm hungry I gotta eat(even if I'm really not hungry!), I can't exercise my back hurts, I can't exercise I really have fat genes!(LOL, dang excuses!)'

And also the main root cause is me eating everything in sight and not paying attention to my calories and macros.


Now that I'm aware with calorie counting, and recognizing my hunger cues, I am now down to my goal weight and maintaining forabout 3months now. If ever I got down to my ultimate goal weight that'll make me more happy!;)(just saying!)
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A few things:
1. Me and my husband had crappy schedules. We got home late and would cook full meals usually involving pasta then go to bed.
2. No exercise.
3. Emotional eating and plenty of emotional issues. I binge eat for just about every emotion. Happy. Bored. Sad. Depressed. Then I beat myself up about it, tell myself how terrible I look and rinse. Repeat.

I've found my main problem was portion size, I ate the right foods, just too much of them, if I got bored I ate, but again it wasn't really what I ate, but how much.

I didn't do very much exercise, now I'm enjoying my trips to the gym, Pilates class, playing badminton, walking to work and my new addition kettle bell workouts, I see it a a little bit of me time, which I'm really enjoying.

I've reduced my portions size and trying really hard to stop the boredom eating, I have to keep myself busy and drink a glass of water or herbal tea before I reach out for food, it's hard especially at work where there is so much temptation, but I think I'm finally getting there.

Eating too much.

My root cause was depression. Losing my dad in May '05 & my mom in August '08, I turned to food. I know I did, I didn't care. I wanted my parents back and couldn't have them here with me. Now at the age of 33 years old I am struggling with getting the weight off. I am working towards a goal slowly but I am getting there. No more excuses for me to not lose it, time for me to better myself and make my parents proud

Good luck!

They would be happy that you are making your life healthier and better. I know my mom would have been for me. My heart goes out to you

Boredom eating, mostly.
I apparently like to sabotage myself, as well.

Mine is not stopping when I'm full and not being able to turn down food.

A single root cause? No. But I know what foods caused my weight problems: sweets. One time a friend and I were discussing "bad foods," and really I could live without most fattening, calorically dense foods. I could live without cheese, meat, butter, gravy, etc. I used to be obsessive with sweets though. I've gotten much better with age...luckily.