Why did you let yourself gain so much weight?

Gave up smoking and didn't have motivation to stop eating. Now though it's been nearly 3 years since. I've lost 10 ks and 10 more to go but December is not a good time lol.

I was always very active, after uni I started working and spent less time in the gym. Met my ex partner of 12 years who introduced me to partying, I should have known better but I was young and stupid. Pounds crept on, then woke up one morning, after a really stressful time at work and looked in the mirror... I was so disgusted it pushed me over into depression (I was run down through work and really stressed too) I then ate anything in sight that was not nailed down.

Yes, that includes half defrosted food, eating so much I would throw up and continue the binge. Needless to say the pounds did now not creep on but I rapidly gained weight.

After ditching the counselling which made me feel worse, and the happy pills, I took back the control of my life (I do not recommend anyone else trying this btw) and I started making positive changes to my life. I instantly lost 200lbs of "him" ate healthier, but too much alcohol and partying. Then decided I was too old for this, and my journey started for real. 15kg down and counting. So for me it was not one reason why I got fat, but I was the one that stuffed my face with all those calories. Yes I was introduced to a more unhealthy lifestyle, but I should have recognised it for what it was and stayed strong, I should have worked and stressed less. Easy to say now, and I wish I had acted earlier, but I am here now, tackling the issue, one pound at a time.

I quit smoking and told myself I wouldn't worry about weight gain until I was well past the urge to smoke. So I gained 60 pounds in 8 months. I had always been thin and my own family didn't recognize me!

I then went on a diet and lost it all but it came back as soon as I quit dieting. Thus the yo-yo. I've lost and regained that 60 pounds about ten time now. One time I didn't even count calories, I just quit eating sugar and since sweets make up a big portion of my daily calories, that was enough to lose sixty pounds -- but donuts and pie returned and so did my weight.

Ignorance and love of food. Getting more of my own money + my step mom divorcing my father and leaving = more freedom to eat horribly. My step mom used to cook dinner, dish out the portions herself and keep the snacks under lock and key. My poor daddy had to work and usually brought fast food, frozen entrees and pasta dishes that came in boxes and could be prepared quickly and he wasn't strict about portions. A single chicken pot pie from Marie Callenders = 1,000 calories. He'd buy me two whopper jrs from Burger King, fries and a medium shake from Burger King, or a big chili cheese burrito, two tacos and a big soft drink from Taco Bell, or let us fix our own big plates of pasta Helpers. When he was away, there were packages of Oreos, big boxes of big creme pies and fudge rounds, ice cream, big tubs of powdered drink and sugar and when I wasn't starving myself in a desperate attempt to lose weight, or buying packages of junk and eating them, skipping the "real food" and thinking I'd lose weight that way, I was stuffing my face. I went from being a normal to chubby kid to being quite heavy, then moved to moms, gave up for years and gorged on the delicious dinners there.

I was lazy and piled it on slowly. So slowly i didn't even realize it.

I saw a picture of myself one day and was SHOCKED at how i looked. I didn't even recognize myself. I weighed myself and realized i had gained 35 pounds over the course of 3-4 years. I am not even kidding when i say i didn't realize it.

I also thought i didn't eat *too* bad. I was wrong. First day logged i ate like 2,800 calories.

I've never been overweight but I was actively anorexic for a long time. I was anorexic binge/ purge ( not vomit purge exercise) and for a long time I'd starve myself all week and binge badly all weekend so I wasn't underweight (actually was about bmi 24) until I was so depressed and disgusted with myself that I stopped binging as regularly ( bad one every few months) and dropped weight quickly until I was bmi 15.4. Thank goodness I went through inpatient and day hospital programs and am behaviourally in recovery (though I think I am gross at my current bmi of 21)

Personally, it was because I loved food and stopped caring about myself for a long time, I feel into a dark spiral of depression and eventually got diagnosed as bi-polar. I let my gut get out of control, my teeth go bad, my relationships with people sour, the whole 9 yards. I first noticed I was a bit fat a good 3-4 years before I did anything about it. Most people gain it nice and slow, then all of a sudden they realise it one day looking in the mirror / at an old photo of themselves.

For me I think it was just so gradual it went unnoticed plus laziness.

Like if I go from the earliest weight I can remember to my highest weight it averages out to be like an extra 125 calories a day.

There was never a year where I suddenly gained 20kg or anything like that.

Any excuse you can think of. ( i have used/abused them all)

I was thin as a child and was always outside being active. By the time middle school and high school hit I was the only one my age in the neighborhood and I had quit riding my bike for hours after school. I ate for comfort because I was lonely. I didn't have any friends in school and just drifted by as if invisible. I lost a bunch of weight when I first went to college but I gained it all back plus some when I struggled with a medical issue and related depression. I gained even more after a close relative died. It had creeped up so slowly that I hadn't really realized just how overweight I had become until I saw some pictures of myself.

I was travelling around the world for 8 months, and eating as I went. I didn't have a scale, often didn't have much of a mirror, and was cycling a reasonable amount, so I didn't worry about it.

It wasn't till I settled somewhere that I became concerned enough to do something about it.

I was actually below average weight until my mid-twenties.
I got pregnant. I had my baby and was 20 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight. I was still a healthy weight so I didn't worry much about it.
I became more sedentary and ate too many calories for my activity level. My child had sleep issues and I was getting by on 4 hours of sleep often. I replaced sleep with food.
I didn't think I was eating a huge amount of food but some of the foods I was eating were kind of high calorie so eating a bit too much all the time added up. I didn't gain 50 lbs in one month or year. It was a 15 year process of gaining, losing, maintaining, gaining, etc.
When I tried to lose weight before I did not know how many calories I should have been eating. I did not count calories or keep a food diary. If I could go back and tell my younger self to do this I would.

Also, I gained because I fixed my husband's favorite foods when we got married (pizza, nachos, etc...) and always ate as much as he did. Needless to say, we both gained a TON of weight.

Which time?

Can't fully account for the chub when I was a little kid. But I was another of those "oh dear, your heavy, must restrict the goodies", so then once I had access to get what I wanted I did. Plus that was around the same time my parents had a fairly ugly divorce that I felt in the middle of and my mom essentially was shut down and recruited me to be her "wife" with the housework and my brother.

Battled it down in high school with a lot of exercise (5 hours of aerobics a week, walking/biking everywhere, 12 hours a week at the roller rink), but after my BF moved away and I got a car and part time jobs at 3 different food places it piled back. Had a not nice spike due to depression, true binge eating (not my usual MO), and then, lucky me, the anti-depressant that I took for a year had weight gain as a known side effect.

There was a first unhappy marriage...my highest weight ever besides pregnancy...then when it ended even though everything was crashing the scales were going the right direction. New relationship, a round of low carb, still over 200 (SO kept losing on the low carb, I didn't). But I was still down 40+ from the bad marriage.

So then I got pregnant. God laughs. Miserable as a pregnant woman, really bad post-partum depression...wouldn't trade my kid for anything.

By that time I really was trying with healthy choices, tried exercise but the weight meant I kept getting injured.

Desperate and determined VLCD...yes, supervised, nearly all protein to preserve muscle. Managed to just get off 100 pounds...didn't stick there long. Up about 15, not feeling too bad about it though sad those dreams of ever being really little didn't come true..single digit sizes, never say never, but not yet.

Then spouse took a job 2 days drive across country from the city where I always lived and where my family are. There only about 4 months when my dad took ill and I had to make that kind of flight back home. Stayed and visited him in the hospital daily for near a month, finally had to fly home and he passed that night. That year there was grief, and another move (only military move house more than me, and I've moved more than a lot of them, if not always that far). I didn't so much love eating as I just ate whatever was easy. I did try to stick with exercise for stress at first. That winter and the following were really harsh here; second winter I didn't have a gym membership for financial reasons.

So here I am again, determined again, trying again.

Losing so much was eye opening for certain. I went from invisible to smiled at to flirted with. Then as the weight came back I once again disappeared. Heartbreaking.

But where there is life there is hope.

Because my friend was killed when I was 16 and my parents told me to "get over it" and move on. They never got me any help and I suffered for years in deep depression. I got on anti-depressants when I was 23 and my weight, while never thin (180), sky rocketed. I gained like 100 lbs in about 2 years or less.