Can you remember the history of your weight?

My weight honestly came from back to back babies my last 2 babies are 12 1/2 months apart-

I was always slim/skinny through school. When I turned 16 I started padding out a bit, but I was also working part time and enjoying being able to afford to but whatever I wanted to eat.

When I left hone at 18 I went from a size 8 up to a 10-12 through eating and drinking a lot. Summer came round and I dieted back down to an 8.

With winter I put on weight again to a size 10 and in summer dieted down to an 8 again. I became obsessed with dieting and was constantly crash dieting to get to a size 6. I did some very stupid things.

I've found my weight going up and down and I have had a very unhealthy body image.

This is why I now (at 22 years and a size 8) do not weigh myself. I view female athletes as my inspiration and my goal now is about looking and feeling healthy (and toned).

I remember those things, too. But most of all...

I remember in the 6th grade, my science teacher was talking about how fat his grandmother was... she was 5'2" and 130 pounds.

That was my exact height and weight.

I think that scarred me for life, as an 11-year-old.

I went on my first "diet" when I was 11. All my life I was always a little bit bigger than the other girls which my mom and peers pointed out. then the popular girls called me fat so I stopped eating for three days before I got really sick and my dad realized what I was doing and made me eat.

I got super into softball and that managed to keep my weight at a manageable level - again a bit bigger than other girls but always athletic and in shape with a little belly. I started atkins when I was 15 and lost some weight but then really wanted some pasta.

After softball I gained weight because I didn't change my eating habits and quickly gained twenty pounds. I lost some weight while I was living with my boyfriend when I was 17 (went from 180 to 160) but then... stuff happened and I gained it all back plus an extra 20lbs. I made a few more token efforts at dieting.

Became an alcoholic when I was 18-20 and packed on more pounds until I met my last boyfriend and I topped the scales at 232. He encouraged me and I got down to 190 before I lost my job, moved and started school again, got a new job and between everything I gained 10lbs again. Then that boyfriend broke up with me and I tried to pull the "whatever, I'm doing this for me gig" but fell into a depression and gained up to 217 again.

Dieted again last summer but fell off the wagon because I was trying to pull off 18 hour days between work and school and exercising and speech team and I had a mental breakdown from too much at once (probably the only legitimate reason I stopped).

Now I'm back again and being smart, not trying any gimmicks and not drowning in life.

I'm sure you have seen this all before, but for the benefit of people who don't know me, I've got a fairly interesting graph that documents my weight gain from the age of about 17. All courtesy of my mum's scrawled-on post-it notes...

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/helenium/view/why-yo-yo-dieting-is-a-waste-of-time-106015

Yup. I was a rather podgy child/adolescent. Then started rowing at 15, weighing about 8.5 stone (waist 27). Developed anorexia at 16, and dropped to just below 8 stone (waist 25). I stayed between 8 and 8.5 (between 112 - 120 lbs) until I was 22. I was just under 8 stone (about 112 lbs) when I got married in 1999 (at 22). I then started putting on weight as I wasn't in education with easy access to sports facilities. I weighed about 10 stone when I first got pregnant at 27.
Weighed 12 stone at full term, 11 stone 6 months after the birth, and I just never really shifted it after that. I got pregnant again 17 months after my first, only put on the baby weight, about a stone, I was again 12 stone at 39 weeks. 11 stone 2 weeks after the birth, and back in my UK12 clothes with a 31 inch waist.
I piled on about a stone after learning to drive at 31, and got up to 12 stone (un-pregnant) when I realised I had to do something, and went on a crash diet for 4 months, no wheat at all, 1000 cals a day. I lost 1.5 stone, but looked ill and couldn't maintain it, so I let myself get back up to 11 stone, and stayed there until last Sept, when I joined an aerobics class, and started running. The weight started coming off in Feb, when I started running more seriously and added 2 circuits classes in a week. Since then I have lost just over a stone, and am now the lightest I have been since I was 25, and have a 28 inch waist. I think having quite a post caesarean bulge it would be optimistic to hope it will get any smaller.

I'm sure you have seen this all before, but for the benefit of people who don't know me, I've got a fairly interesting graph that documents my weight gain from the age of about 17. All courtesy of my mum's scrawled-on post-it notes...

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/helenium/view/why-yo-yo-dieting-is-a-waste-of-time-106015

I hadn't seen that - that's really interesting!

Thank you!

High school I don't remember except to know I was fit and trim. Competitive swimmer, lifeguard, swim instructor, marching band, etc.

When I joined the Navy in 1994 @ 19 yo, I was 135 lbs and 18% bodyfat.
I got up to around 145 lbs between 1996 (discharge from Navy) and 2005.
Started eating right** and exercising again, getting back to 135 lbs and 20% bodyfat shortly before a trip to Hawaii in 2006 so I could feel confident in a bikini.
Went back up to 145-150 between then and Nov. 2008. Was just getting ready to work on losing those extra 10-15 lbs for my wedding when I turned up pregnant.
Got up to 208 lbs right before delivery in July 2009.
Dropped to 185 immediately post partum. Kept hoping breastfeeding (exclusively pumping) would drop the weight off.
Still 185 when I hung up the horns March 2010 (for BF/EPing mamas out there, daughter had BM until after her 1st birthday).
By October 2010 the weight still hadn't come off, still at 185, so I started on MFP.

CW - 160.2 lbs.
GW - 135 - 140 lbs.

**Eating Right: For me that means eating more. Left to my own devices I tend to undereat. Both times I've lost weight I had to increase my caloric intake.

Yeah, I can:

--At age 14 I weighed about 150 or so. I took Ripped Fuel diet pills. They made me muscular, not much weight loss though, and also made me crazy. AND who lets a 14 yr old take these things anyway?

--At age 16 or so, I weighed 170, or thereabouts. Went on Nutra System and lost 25 lbs. Gained it all back right after I went off. Again, TOO YOUNG. AND I was not even fat at any point, looking back.

--After that I went up to about 190, but I wasn't even too overweight at that time and could wear size 32 in men's and Medium shirts. But could stand to lose some weight.

--Got into a relationship, somehow gained 40 lbs and went to 230.

--Still in relationship and now unhappy. Gained 20 more lbs.

--Lost some while living in NYC (15 lbs) despite eating like crap ( a lot of walking)

--Gained it back when I moved back here.

--Lost 30 lbs in 2008.

--Got into relationship (a happy awesome, wonderful one) and stopped working out at much and went up to highest weight of 258.

--Now here I am, been doing this since Jan 2011. Lost 50 lbs so far!

I have a very clear memory of being 12 years old and divulging to my (very small) best friend that I weighed 132 pounds. I don't think she was even 100 pounds. All summer she'd make little comments about it, not purposefully trying to be mean but it hurt nonetheless. That was when I started worrying about my weight... should I climb this tree? will it hold me? am I too big for this kids' ride?

I stayed pretty athletic throughout highschool and went between 140 and 150 lbs. I remember being in the locker room wondering how/why girls had rolls on their stomachs. I'd been blessed with a flat stomach- no where near a 6 pack but flat and I could do situps with the best of them. However, my thighs were huge or so I thought. I look back at those pictures now and don't think they were that big. I wore a size 10 throughout high school. I'd wish to be a size 6 or size 8 but I just didn't think I should worry about my weight until i was 18. Because I was active I could eat pretty much anything and I did.

I put on the freshman 15 in college but then got a job in the university gym. Apparently I did pretty well at it because they promotoed me to "student supervisor" and I worked there full time during the summer. I lived at the gym at least 12 hours a day. I'd go in to start lifeguarding at 6 am, work, and workout every day. I also had my first apartment and could shop/prepare my own food. I was about 140 lbs but very fit. I was able to wear a size 8. I went to a wedding at the end of the summer and everyone commented on how great I looked. That was probably the first and last time I was really proud of my body.

After that summer working in the gym I transferred schools to be closer to a boyfriend. I joined a rescue squad which had me up at all hours of the night and also introduced me to eating out and drinking with people socially a lot more. I met my future husband, went to graduate school, became engaged, and on my wedding day weighed about 165 pounds. I wanted to lose weight for our wedding (fiance and I did Atkins for a few months- he lost a lot of weight I didn't) but I didn't want to be the stereotypical bride who hopes to fit into a smaller dress. Shortly after our wedding I was pretty solidly wearing a size 12.

Over the last 6 1/2 years the weight has continued to creep on. I was holding pretty steady between 175 and 180 for a long time (size 14) but we moved half way across the country last Fall. From the move, stress, discovering new places to eat, and living in our friends basement for 3 months with only a microwave to prepare food my weight slowly crept up to 190. I finally said enough is enough and joined MFP in April. I've only lost 7 lbs in 2 months and still can't see a correlation between my good days/bad days and the scale...but at least I feel like I'm doing something better for myself. Hope to get down 165 by a cruise in October and ultimately get back to 145-150.

I have a visual memory of what the scale read at various times in my life. And for the last 5 years I have a spreadsheet and graph of my weight from every time I weighed myself.