How did you gain weight?...

I was not skinny but I guess you could say just right for my height throughout my teens got pregnant twice and dropped the weight as soon as I had the babies then got pregnant with my third baby at 23 and gained 50lbs and never lost it I guess I just stopped caring really. so now I'm almost 40 and I don't want to be fat at 40 plus now I'm just uncomfortable in my own body.

I never was a thin child. I lost a lot of weight at uni (didn't like flatmates, so stayed out of the communal kitchen!), but have since put it back on due to being in a relationship, and boredom eating!! Mind you, 100g of white chocolate every afternoon would put weight on anyone I think!

Plan of action is to stay away from the Milkybar and the Percy Pigs (damn you Marks and Spencer!)

I gained weight right after college. I played basket-ball and ran track. I was never taught about proper nutrition nor was I told to slow down on my eating once I stop conditioning. So I continued to eat like I was an athlete when I was no longer participating in sports. I gained slowly but by the time my 2nd & 3rd children were born I was a whopping 324lbs. Somehow I had got the notion that a pregnant woman can eat as much as she wants and it would magically disappear after the baby was born because of breast feeding...NOT!! Oh well. I'm on my journey back to the slimmer athletic me! 105 lbs down, 39 lbs to go!!

I was a 'chubby' girl and everyone in the house was overweight. We were never taught good nutrition or anything about healthy eating. My mom and sister were also diabetics. In fact, my mom was a nurse and diabetic but never changed her eating habits which significantly impacted her health and ultimately lead to her death. I can remember seeing my mother sitting at the table eating a 'snack' in the middle of the night.

My father loved heavy, rich foods and suffered from high blood pressure and died of a heart attack - the second heart attack, probably due to his refusal to follow the recommended diet.

Now, there is me and my sister left. My younger sister has been an insulin dependent diabetic since age 9 and now has an insulin pump. However, she had WLS last year and looks fabulous. Her health is better too.

But, ONLY by the grace of God, I have never had any health problems. I have a wicked sweet tooth and terrible eating habits that I'm seriously trying to control only recently. I don't eat because I'm hungry. I eat because something tastes good! I don't naturally like fruits and veggies so eating healthy has been very new and enlightening for me. Drinking all this water, too! We drank exclusively kool-aid and soda as kids. :-( And, ate chips, cookies, etc.

I quit smoking last year. So, this year is my year to conquer the weight. I cannot recall being less than 200 lbs in the last 20 years! 2011 is my year to do it!!

I put on weight with my pregnancy

I was a a skinny kid up until about Grade 2/3 and slowly gained weight. I don't remember being thin in grade 4, 5, 6, and 7 and 8 I gained the most. I never had any friends - sometimes I tagged along with my brother and would do things with him but noone really liked me and I got teased alot, so through J.H and H.S I had no friends and got depressed, dropped out of H.S and just ate. I ate and stayed up all night and slept during the day. I had McDs, A&W, Chips - you name it. Then I met someone online and I didn't want to disappoint them, so I decided to work out, went from under 200 to about an 60lb (then 80) weight loss. But honestly I have never been truly thin, thin - so I'm still not 100% ideal and have a way to go but I am trying,

It's funny, my mom told me the other day when she was in her 30's she heard a voice from the Holy Spirit(For those who may be religious, into LDS etc.. or not) and it said to her, "None of your children will be skin and bones" - what a disappointing prophecy for me! LOL.

Babies Babies Babies!

Gained 50+ pounds with each one

1st - lost all but 10 within a year
2nd - up and down like a yo-yo for 6 years, finally got it all off and more!
3rd - still losing from this one and he is almost 2!

It gets harder with each child...

I quit smoking.

LOL! I quit smoking, but not beer!

If you tracked my weight over time and compared it to a heartrate monitor printout, you might not be able to tell the difference.

I can remember convincing my mom to borrow her "Deal-A-Meal" booklet when I was a sophomore in high school. It was the first time in my life I didn't have PE. I'd put on 20 or so pounds, and I think I lost 13-15 doing a combination of that and Slim-Fast shakes.

The next summer my parents divorced and we were uprooted about 80 miles from where I'd lived my whole life.

Then we were left alone quite a bit (at the time I was 15, sister was 11, brother was 5). Mom would by multipacks of frozen burritos from Costco that were supposed to last us for a couple weeks' worth of dinners when she had late night shifts. I'd eat 2, 3, 4 at a time and the pack would be gone in a few days. I knew mom was concerned and she would talk to me about it, but not really push me hard. Maybe afraid I'd decide to go back and live with dad? I don't know ...

Summer after junior year I worked at the docks on a nearby lake. 40 hours a week in the sun ... loved it. Was able to save up about $2500 during the summer.

It was all gone by Christmas. Most of it to junk food and eating out during lunch ... cookies and sodas during break at school, etc.

My senior year right before baseball season I tore the MCL in my right knee. So while my right leg atrophied for 6 weeks, the rest of me kind of ballooned as the one physically exerting outlet I had was no longer possible.

By the end of that summer I weighed 255 (age 17). It was then I left for a year long foreign exchange to Brazil. Healthy unprocessed foods and a LOT of walking (an hour or more almost every day) accounted for a loss of about 40 pounds.

That was 1995, and I've never been that light since.

I put on about 10 my first year back, but was pretty active working full time as a day clerk in a large grocery store.

Then came college.

15 the first year (240), 15 the second year (255), and about 20 over the next 2-1/2 years as I was 275 when I got married in early 2001. But that was not without its ups and downs.

I was down into the 230's in 1999 then ballooned back.

Since being married, I've done Atkins (2003 - got down to the mid 250's), Weight Watchers (2007-2008, brought me from 302 to 249), and WW again in 2009 (from 285 to 268 or so).

In 2008 I ran for awhile, and this was even while I was on WW, but I didn't really watch what I ate that well and didn't lose much more than I was already losing. I never got below 261 running because I used it as license to eat whatever I wanted.

In 2009 I ran again for a few weeks, but was overcome by business of being a first-year teacher.

Last summer after a move that we ended up making without mommy (we had 2 kids at the time) as she was on mandatory bedrest (we were moving 300+ miles away) and several weeks with just me getting settled into new home and job, I found myself at 303. Lack of access to fast food meant a drop of about 20 over the first couple months, but I couldn't bust through 283.

Finally I got prompted by my brother-in-law and former running partner to train for a 10K event in May (this was in mid January).

I started Couch-to-5K January 24. Three weeks of running and the scale was not moving. I was still eating whatever I wanted.

I found and began MFP on February 11.

I dropped C25K and started a more long-term running program about 10 days later.

So now I've dropped 20 pounds in 5 weeks and am looking forward to shattering through all those layers of "lightest since ____."

I'm giving myself a year, but more important is that I've made the important decisions to turn this thing around.