How fast did you gain your weight? (And why I'll be logging forever)

I have been overweight since I was a child. I've also until recently never been one to step on the scale. I remember weighing myself once in high school. I was 180lbs (5ft7in). A couple years ago, I went to the doctor and weighed 238, so I gained 50 odd pounds over 18-20 years. I've had two brief periods of weight loss in that time, which probably helped me to not go higher.

After college, I spent 5 months in Australia, where walking was my primary means of transportation, and where I ate a lot less than usual because I plan poorly and had very little money saved for the trip. As I said, I was not a scale person, but I went from a US pants size 16-18 to a 10-12. Then, I came home back to my car, and got a desk job and didn't exercise. Also, I took up drinking regularly.

Two and a half years ago, my friend introduced me to MFP, and I started to actively try to lose weight while training for a 10k. I lost about 20lbs but once the 10k was over, I lost my will to run regularly and my motivation to keep calorie counting. I took a "break" that was supposed to last a month, but stretched into 2 years. In that time, I have increased my running, but regained 15lbs because I was not watching at all what I was eating, and, probably more importantly, what I was drinking: way too much craft beer.

I think I am overweight for many reasons, but mainly, I never cared enough to do anything about the weight gain. Being ugly and fat was just what I did. Not fitting in my clothes just meant buying pretty new clothes. I watched my mom diet my entire life. I watched her drop a ton of weight after gastric bypass surgery, and then watched her gain much of it back over the past 10+ years. I am relatively healthy, so what was the point of denying myself tasty food and beer?

I've been back at MFP since October and have lost 25lbs so far. I care now because I want to be a faster runner and all this extra weight does not help with that. And, I'm tired of being the Fat Girl in our group running photos. I hope not to log forever, but we'll see. I hope more to never have to do this again.

This is interesting!

I started gaining weight slowly during my senior year of high school when I moved out of my parent's house in 2000. I would say I weighed about 125 back then. The scale creep continued through undergrad, my first desk job, into law school, and then while I got my masters. I probably weighed about 170 by the time I finished school in 2011. So that's about 45 pounds in 11 years (so just under 40 calories over maintenance per day).

Then things got worse! Between 2011 and 2015, I went from 170 to 210. That's another 40 pounds in just shy of 4 years (which equates to just under 96 calories over maintenance per day).

So eating about 40 extra calories a day led to a 45-pound gain in 11 years, while 96 extra calories per day gained me 40 pounds in 4 years. Math is amazing!

BTW- I've lost 40 of those pounds in the last 6 months!!

I put on 50 lbs in 4 months. How? I stopped breast feeding but kept eating. I was losing an average of 5-8 lbs a month after my youngest was born, but when I stopped breast feeding her, my weight exploded.
Then my previous marriage was miserable and I was binge eating. After I left him, I lost 20 lbs in less than 2 months just from quitting the constant eating and being miserable.
I plan on keeping it off by watching more what I eat. I eat junk. I make healthy meals, then ruin it by snacking on junk food. I'm on a sugar detox for the next month to see if I can get over craving it.

It took me about 8 months to gain back the 15 lbs I lost last year. I seem to always slip up in the summer, and then slowly gain until around December. This year is was compounded with a foot injury that had me off the running.

I think I'm going to have to log for life or I'll constantly be dealing with the 20lb "6 month sneak attack." A good way to think about it that I read elsewhere was the metaphor of glasses or contact lenses. When you put them on and your vision is "fixed" that doesn't mean you can stop wearing the glasses, or that you're somehow inferior to someone that doesn't need glasses, it's just an element of your physiology that some people need to compensate for.

CalorieCountChocula wrote: »

Merkavar wrote: »

I think when I did the maths it ended up being 120cal surplus a day for 13 years.

Such a small amount.

This sounds small but I think the figure is deceiving. Wouldn't you have to continue to increase the number of calories you eat as your TDEE increased with your weight and/or as your body adapted to your intake to continue to gain weight? I think. Maybe.

Yeah. But as my tdee went up and my intake went up the surplus would remain the same. Right?

Or does an obese person gain fat at a different rate than a thin person or does both take 3500 calories?

salembambi wrote: »

i gained 150 in a little over two years

That awkward moment when I meet someone I follow on tumblr here! Hey there.
I gained 63 lbs in two years. I stopped doing my daily exercise and watching my calories. My boyfriend, now husband, kept feeding me junk food to make me happy. I definitely cannot blame pregnancy for eating like a beast. I was so happy and loved unconditionally that I didn't care about my looks. About my health - well, maybe, but obviously not enough. I think most days I would eat about 3000 calories but this is just a guess.
Thanks for sharing your stories, everyone.

Merkavar wrote: »

CalorieCountChocula wrote: »

Merkavar wrote: »

I think when I did the maths it ended up being 120cal surplus a day for 13 years.

Such a small amount.

This sounds small but I think the figure is deceiving. Wouldn't you have to continue to increase the number of calories you eat as your TDEE increased with your weight and/or as your body adapted to your intake to continue to gain weight? I think. Maybe.

Yeah. But as my tdee went up and my intake went up the surplus would remain the same. Right?

Or does an obese person gain fat at a different rate than a thin person or does both take 3500 calories?

Same rate. The wording and the way it's being broken down is misleading. It makes it seem scarier to go 120 calories over than it really is. It's like if this were money and you said "All I did was save an extra 120 dollars a week" when what you really did was save 120 the first week, 240 the next, 360 the next, etc.

maxit wrote: »

This is my theory based on my own experience and observing friends over a period of decades. With dieting, there is fat and muscle loss, and until relatively recently the idea of muscle preservation with added protein and weight training wasn't really on the general radar for women. Once off the "diet" and now in a slow-gain mode, for many people, there is more of that additional weight represented in fat than muscle (which is why you notice a decade later you may be at the "same" weight but your body is bigger - fat takes up more room, pound for pound, than muscle). Over time with repeated cycles, the fat to muscle ratio increases, fewer calories are needed to maintain, much less increase weight, and if the person gets more and more restrictive during the "diet" cycles, more and more muscle mass is lost.

very interesting post. also as we get older, sarcopenia progresses without any strength training, so that contributes to the increased fat/muscle ratio. never thought of this angle.

duddysdad wrote: »

I went from 185 to 340 in about 2-3 years.

Same for me. I've been overweight as long as I can remember, but I also was extremely active. I was active enough to not be obese on an average of 3000 calories a day. Then I stopped being active and my food habits remained the same, so I ballooned pretty quickly into the morbidly obese category. I tend to gain weight really quickly if I don't watch it. After my initial loss of nearly 100 pounds here, I quit smoking and regained 30 back in a matter of 2 months when I decided to give myself a break from watching my food to give myself the best chance at quitting and thought how bad could it be? On holidays and such I have "planned gain" instead of "diet breaks" where I plan to gain 2-5 pounds within than month. If I totally let go I would be looking at a 10-15 gain.