What made you fat?

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Replies

  • squirrlt
    squirrlt Posts: 106 Member
    Eating too much (obviously). The precipitating factor was a shift change to very early hours at work. I'm a natural night owl (well, a diagnosed insomniac), so I very soon found myself nearly passing out at my desk from exhaustion and grabbing caffeine/sugar-filled drinks and food in a desperate attempt to stay awake (can't pass out if I'm chewing, right?). It didn't really work too well, and I gained weight pretty fast. I have since changed my work hours and try to go to bed as early as possible. Getting enough sleep (and reducing stress) is a huge factor in helping me stay on track with my dietary goals.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Me is the simple answer.

    The more detailed one is I was drinking way too much and depressed and stopped all of my physical activity without adjusting my eating. Then I stopped drinking and started eating a lot more as something of a replacement (emotional/stress eating)--I knew I was doing it and shouldn't, but for a while I was scared that getting rid of that outlet might make it harder not to drink and I didn't trust myself at all. By the time all this ended I was fat enough that losing it seemed like hard work, especially since I was really physically out of shape and wanted to continue ignoring that, was used to being able to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and just didn't care enough to bother losing it until I did.

    Why I didn't care and how I came to care enough is something I don't totally understand and wish I did.
  • PositivelyFlawed
    PositivelyFlawed Posts: 316 Member
    edited March 2015
    As an overweight child I blame my mom for larger portions and rewarding everything with "treats". Also her denial that I was overweight. I am neither husy nor big boned, my frame is actually quite petite, but this was my mom's insistence all through my youth. I did not form good habits. As an adult tho, that's all me, mostly eating way too much of the same things I eat now. I did consume some junk, but most of my weight came from eating double, maybe even triple portions of regular fairly balanced homecooked meals. Also very sedentary.
  • PositivelyFlawed
    PositivelyFlawed Posts: 316 Member
    ana3067 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    Popcorn and jelly beans. I ate them all day and night.
    When I stopped, the weight fell off easily.
    I always see popcorn mentioned here as a healthy low calorie treat. I can't just nibble on a bit of popcorn, I eat a whole jumbo bag to myself.

    So do I. I still think it's low calorie for how much food it is.

    I ate 47g of air-popped popcorn tonight with lots of marge and shredded cheese on it. Only came up to a few hundred calories for being a HUGE bowl.



    this sounds so fabulous i wouldn't dare give it a try :P
  • angelgreathouse9
    angelgreathouse9 Posts: 103 Member
    LAZINESS :p
  • cincysweetheart
    cincysweetheart Posts: 892 Member
    My weight came from eating too much and moving too little.
    I ate because there was food there. And I liked it. It was never about hunger. It was never about eating my feelings due to stress, guilt, depression, or anything else. It was never about binge-ing. It's been that way my entire life. Food tasted good. So I ate it.
    And I moved too little because all my interests were sedentary ones. Or was it that I chose sedentary activities because that way I didn't have to be on my feet (which hurt when I was at my heaviest). What was a result of which… I'm not sure. Because I've always been fat.

    I really struggle if I'm away from home and not making my own food (family style dinners are a disaster… so are restaurants). But I'm learning. I've learned that I feel miserable when I overeat… so I'm learning to practice portion control. And to make healthier choices (order a side of veggies instead of potatoes and gravy).

    And by forcing myself to workout out of sheer principle… I realized I love walking/running (especially now that it doesn't hurt). So, now I have at least one interest that isn't sedentary.
  • ReeseG4350
    ReeseG4350 Posts: 146 Member
    A little truth or dare here. For a very large majority of overweight people, the core cause is low self-esteem. For me, that was definitely the case. (I didn't find out until many, many years later, that this was something of a pandemic condition.)

    I grew up in a very large household. My father was an abusive alcoholic and my mother was overweight from gaining a few pounds with each of 8 pregnancies - weight she never made any effort to lose. Apparently she always felt inadequate and overweight herself so her method of "helping" me (and presumably my siblings) to not be overweight was to tell me I was! In the eighth grade, I was 5'9" and weighed 108#. I was horrified at the triple digit figure which, to me seemed to prove my mother was right! I WAS FAT! So, I grew up with an unrealistic body image and very poor self image. Low self-esteem. It's a kind of abuse nobody even recognizes.

    So, how did that make me fat? Who cares what I eat? I'm fat and ugly and inadequate and otherwise useless anyway. Just ask Mom! So I ate and never thought about what I was eating. I always saw myself as being fat. Then, hypothyroid reared its ugly face and a slowed down metabolism did its dirty work. Before you know it... grossly out of shape and seventy, eighty pounds overweight.

    Took a long, long... LONG time to overcome the adverse affects of a diseased childhood. It's a battle that starts anew every morning. But it can be done.
  • SergeantSausage
    SergeantSausage Posts: 1,673 Member
    Eating too darned much.

    Nothing more. Nothing less.

    'Cause ... yumm, right?


    Om nom nom nom nom ....
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
    I like to put fat on everything and drink wine with everything. Sitting at a desk all day 5 days a week doesn't help.
  • ReeseG4350
    ReeseG4350 Posts: 146 Member
    No idea. I was an obese child in a household of normal sized people. I ate the same things everyone else did, in the same portions everyone else did and participated in the same activities. My sisters were 120 lbs and I was 220 before the age of 14. I lost the weight as a teenager by starvation dieting, sub 1000 calories a day. I kept the weight off for ten years and at some point was able to return to normal eating. I would gain ten lbs, notice and lose it again. I pretty much maintained in that manner until I lost my job in 2008 and promptly gained 60-70 lbs in 2 months to return to my previous childhood weight of 220. I didn't drastically change my eating, but, I was really stressed. Since then, I've been doing the whole 'lifestyle' change thing, but that has done nothing. I'm getting ready to jump back into old teenage me's starvation diet as nothing else has worked for me.

    Jennifer, maybe you've already "been there, done that" but I would suggest you see an endocrinologist. It sounds as though you may have a metabolic disorder. If you eat "regular" portions of food and maintain an active lifestyle and still gain weight despite the fact that your biology says you should weigh 100 lbs less...? This suggests there is something out of whack in your system if you cannot process food/calories as the rest of your family does.

    If you haven't already done so, get it checked out.
  • ReeseG4350
    ReeseG4350 Posts: 146 Member
    edited March 2015
    Popcorn and jelly beans. I ate them all day and night.
    When I stopped, the weight fell off easily.
    I always see popcorn mentioned here as a healthy low calorie treat. I can't just nibble on a bit of popcorn, I eat a whole jumbo bag to myself.


    ana3067 wrote: »
    I ate 47g of air-popped popcorn tonight with lots of marge and shredded cheese on it. Only came up to a few hundred calories for being a HUGE bowl.

    The problem here is not with the popcorn, or the HUGE amounts one can eat (btw, a "few hundred calories seems like a HUGE count to me!)

    The problem is the nutrients you are not getting in those calories consumed. One thing you need to consider with everything you put in your mouth is the nutrient value. What vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc. are you sacrificing in that bowl or popcorn, or ice cream, or whatever? It's a trade-off and, while it may not seem like much to spend an evening munching on air-filled bits of corn kernels with 'marge' (OMG, ditch the margarine. As many calories as butter and FAR more chemicals and additives that you really don't want in your system!) in the long run, you're sabotaging your diet by not giving your body what it needs instead opting for what you want!

    Sometimes, you need to step back and take the long view. Eating a whole bowl of anything... just one thing... is helping to establish an unhealthy habit which can turn around and bite you in the asterisk later on down the road. And, while you don't want to become obsessive about food, you do want to be aware of what you eat, how you eat it, and WHY you are eating it.

    I guess the short-speak is, Eat to live DON'T live to Eat! You'll miss out on too much! And... Love yourself enough. Whatever your demons, love yourself enough to not let them own you.
  • unlikelyathlete
    unlikelyathlete Posts: 62 Member
    Having the appetite of a 6'2" man but being 5'1". ;) I'm definitely a person who loves rich foods. I would gain weight, then I would starve myself and work out really hard to take it off. That kept me on a guilt/indulgence cycle. Life got a lot better when I realized I could have *some* of the foods I like in smaller portions, work out an hour or less, and enjoy all of life, all of the time. Amazing what moderation can do.
  • ausf
    ausf Posts: 51
    Dounts and milk chocolate:) yummmy
  • kazminchu
    kazminchu Posts: 250 Member
    Growing up in a household where the portions were probably 2 or 3 times what they should have been. And a constant supply of cakes/biscuits/sweet/chocolate/pastries (my mother should be on TV for the quantities of food she'll buy if it's cheap - I remember being sat in a drive-thru while she ordered 20 bacon double cheeseburgers for the 5 of us).
    As a teen/young adult it was depression and comfort eating, then the thought that 'I'm already fat, why not eat another packet of cookies?', and a social life based around regular trips to the local Morrisons for enough food to feed 4 people (5 giant cookies to myself, normal right?)
    By the time I was 20 I weighed 245lbs. I don't know what clicked but something did, and now I'm at 156, and still working. Sadly I am now in the awkward position of seeing my sister go down the same route, at 16 she weighs more than I did at that age, and there's not much I can do to help her unless she moves out of my parents' House of Food.
    Hopefully she'll find MFP one day and have that lightbulb moment.
  • jeffd247
    jeffd247 Posts: 319 Member
    For years I was in a really abusive relationship with beer, Chinese food and sitting.

    They would consistently force themselves upon me, all the time. I wasn't allowed to even look at some of my other friends, like veggies and exercise. I would try to resist or run away from them, but they would simply find me again the next week and the abuse got even worse. Eventually I told myself that it would just be easier to do what they wanted, rather than risking the abuse. I even got a scale and a treadmill, but they weren't afraid of those things. It was unbearable.

    To this day, they are always looking for me. I'm constantly on the run. I've had to change my appearance and buy new clothes yet everywhere I turn they seem to be there.

    I wish they would just leave me alone...
  • ravensekhmet
    ravensekhmet Posts: 3 Member
    Mainly for me depression and pregnancys. I have four kids and after the second my will to lose weight vanished. I also just eat to eat. I don't enjoy it but I feel I have to.
  • angelexperiment
    angelexperiment Posts: 1,917 Member
    It began at age 8 when I became a latchkey kid. I ate when my mom wasn't home to stuff the lonely and bored feelings. My mom didn't and still does not know what eating healthy is. I was never taught portions or calories so I ate alot. Probably 3 or 4 portions. In high school I was the fat girl well actually the fat girl from age 8 up bc it got way worse. I ate for boredom, I ate fir heartache, I ate to cope. I started binging probably in my teens. I tried to lose weight. I tried to be anorexic. I tried to be bulimic. But I discovered only going to the gym worked and for a little while it did and I lost I was 16. But then I got into some bad relationships got inactive and ballooned to 245 at 18. Then I got some jobs and worked on eating healthy but still no idea what healthy was but by age 21 I was in the 160s then I had a drug problem that got me to 145 then a child to 180 tgen I got to 170 but still I hadn't an idea on portions etc. I had another child and got to 220 and then a third that got me to 250 during my last pregnancy that was when in the past two years prior to my 3rd child I started to try to lose I started exercise and diets I lost 20. I lost 2 babies. I gained more. I found out I have pcos and ibs and bipolar 2. I after the baby shed 30 overnight and then packed it on with a peanutbutter and nutella craze eating a half or whole jars a day and eating corn dogs and fish sticks bc we could not afford healthy food. But then in october I decided to take control and I have started the process I now know I never knew what healthy eating was or portions or calories. Now I have a good knowledge of what is good and I am no longer addicted to Mcdonald s peanut butter and nutella. I try hard not to eat my feelings. And finally of of a plan I learned what correct portions are and then the calories started to fall into place and now I am finally starting to lose and exercise is getting even better.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
    MrM27 wrote: »
    Starvation mode. I was eating 700 calories and balooned up to obese status.

    I almost just spit yogurt all over my computer reading this
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
    ReeseG4350 wrote: »
    Popcorn and jelly beans. I ate them all day and night.
    When I stopped, the weight fell off easily.
    I always see popcorn mentioned here as a healthy low calorie treat. I can't just nibble on a bit of popcorn, I eat a whole jumbo bag to myself.


    ana3067 wrote: »
    I ate 47g of air-popped popcorn tonight with lots of marge and shredded cheese on it. Only came up to a few hundred calories for being a HUGE bowl.

    The problem here is not with the popcorn, or the HUGE amounts one can eat (btw, a "few hundred calories seems like a HUGE count to me!)

    The problem is the nutrients you are not getting in those calories consumed. One thing you need to consider with everything you put in your mouth is the nutrient value. What vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc. are you sacrificing in that bowl or popcorn, or ice cream, or whatever? It's a trade-off and, while it may not seem like much to spend an evening munching on air-filled bits of corn kernels with 'marge' (OMG, ditch the margarine. As many calories as butter and FAR more chemicals and additives that you really don't want in your system!) in the long run, you're sabotaging your diet by not giving your body what it needs instead opting for what you want!

    Sometimes, you need to step back and take the long view. Eating a whole bowl of anything... just one thing... is helping to establish an unhealthy habit which can turn around and bite you in the asterisk later on down the road. And, while you don't want to become obsessive about food, you do want to be aware of what you eat, how you eat it, and WHY you are eating it.

    I guess the short-speak is, Eat to live DON'T live to Eat! You'll miss out on too much! And... Love yourself enough. Whatever your demons, love yourself enough to not let them own you.

    How do you know she didn't work the rest of the day to meet her macro levels and therefore feel the popcorn fit into her day? When it comes to weight loss/gain, it's all about CICO. Burn more than you eat, you lose. Eat more than you burn, you gain.
  • ElizabethKalmbach
    ElizabethKalmbach Posts: 1,416 Member
    Autoimmune diseases have made me balloon up several times - basically every time I get a new one, I put on a lot of weight as my body thrashes around trying to sort things out, and then once I get correct treatment, the weight drops off again. When I'm sick I end up near 180 lbs. When I'm well I'm down near 145 or so.

    First time was when I was about 26 - found out I had hashimotos disease.
    Second time was when I was 33 and found out I had pernicious anemia.
    Most recently at 37, I found out I have an autoimmune response to silicone - and a silicone BC implant.

    Since getting rid of all the silicone in January, my energy levels are back and weight is dropping back off again. Thank goodness.