A couple of questions about your journey so far

I think it may be difficult for you to get many answers to some of your questions.
Speaking for myself and several of my overweight/formerly overweight friends, the main reason for gaining weight in the first place is because food comforts and doesn't judge.
I was abused as a child, so to deal with it I ate and ate. Despite years of therapy, it wasn't until I was in my mid-50's and retired that I had the time and inclination to deal with losing weight for the right reasons.
The reason many people allow themselves to put on weight in the first place is very personal and be very painful.
Congratulations on your chosen career path, you will surely help many, many people.

My adult weight has fluctuated between 120lb to 180lb over the last 25 years (size 2-14).
The gains are generally associated with physical injury (impedes my ability to exercise) and/or emotional stress&sadness (comfort eating) or genuine laziness (I love my bed!). A few times, illness has caused unintentional drastic weight changes.
Switching to a vegetarian diet over a year ago has definitely led to weight gain- carbs!
I'm motivated most to get fit when even the "fat" clothes stop fitting and my level of performance in daily activities suffers.
Right now I'm about 25lb over my ideal, and it's hard to understand how I let this happen. Every day I think THIS is the day I turn it around, but then I go home and eat ice cream and watch Netflix.
How centered I am spiritually is key to my body's health. That is what I'm missing now.
When my relationship with God is strong, I have a much healthier relationship with food, exercise, and everything else in my life.

I gained weight through comfort eating as a child due to being abused when young, being lonely and withdrawn and not having any friends.

What motivated me to lose it is because I got a job that I loved and met and spoke with people everyday and realised that there are nice people out there... I guess I was happier in all honesty..nice people made me happy. Therefore I didn't feel the need to comfort eat through sadness and loneliness and the weight slowly came off

I didn't do it sooner because there has always been an element of self sabotage in me that stems back to childhood and poor self esteem. As soon as I would lose a little weight I would become nervous and embarrassed at the extra attention I was getting from the opposite sex and just wanted to hide away and become invisible again. Therefore it took me a long time to lose weight and subsequently I have gained it back several times over the years.

How did you come to gain weight?

A dear friend died and I threw myself into running, not eating, and drinking heavily. My weight was the one thing I could control. I got down to 103 pounds, which is underweight for my height. I got therapy, which was great and saved my life, but in trying to repair my body, I got up to 200 pounds.


What motivated you to start losing weight?

I negotiated a healthy relationship with running and food, so I decided I thought I was emotionally healthy enough to start losing.

And why didn't you start your weight loss journey sooner?

I wasn't fat for a terribly long time. Two years, ish, or so, maybe a bit more. I didn't start it until I was sure I could negotiate a healthy relationship with weight loss and myself. I now weigh less than I did originally, am close to my original goal weight, and need to be very careful about any desire to go lower and make sure I'm being healthy.

I had always been a little chubby as a kid and teenager. I gained a little in my early twenties and was a little overweight. Over the next 10ish years I slowly gained until i was almost 200 pounds (I'm about 5'5"). I decided to lose some weight and ended up at MFP. Over 3 months I lost around 20 pounds but a lot happened in my life and logging stopped. I slowly put back on the 20 pounds over the last 3 years.
I gained because I LOVE food!! I love "comfort" food and cakes and cookies and you name it. I probably lIke it. I just love food. I had zero portion control. I ate what sounded good and ate too much.

What motivated me?
I have a hiatal hernia and was having issues. I had esophageal ulcers and gatritis so I wasn't eating as much and was losing a little weight. I decided to get back on MFP and start logging again since I was losing anyway. I did NOT want the hernia surgery and my dr said losing the extra weight would help the hernia.

Why didn't I start sooner?
I had no idea how easy it actually was! I could still eat my faves and still lose weight???!!! That's awesome!!!

I have learned portion control and make better choices now, while still enjoying my food!! I have lost a total of 35ish pounds. I am down from 196 to 160.8!! And my hernia is tons better!!

Good luck with your schooling. That's awesome!

I’ve never had a healthy relationship with food. I’ve also never had a healthy relationship with my body. That’s way I’ve always “struggled” with food, with my weight. With my body.

I’m bipolar, so it’s difficult for me not to think in “all or nothing” terms. I wasn’t given the skills I needed to cope with the realities of life. I had, quite literally, a Southern Gothic childhood—mental illness, alcoholism, excessive Religion, secrets. My mother had an unhealthy relationship with food. I learned from her, and from fashion magazines, that looks counted more than anything. My body was on display, always under scrutiny.

My environment is now, and always has been, full of food choices. So many choices. I’m just now learning that I CHOOSE what to eat. And I don’t have to choose everything. It’s up to me. I know this now. It’s made all the difference.

I posted a success story yesterday—“How Making Choices Helped Me Lose 80 Pounds.” I talk about this more there.

Weight gains over the years were generally to do with a lack of interest in cooking (resulting in poor food choices, easy options), comfortable relationships (lots of takeaways and dining out)
Not knowing actually how many calories my body needed, so avoiding the calorie subject completely because it was all witchcraft and wizardry to me!

Decision to lose weight once and for all was because my big size clothes were getting tight, my backside looked Huuuuge in the mirror when I accidentally caught sight of it and every photo with me in it was being instantly deleted.

There was absolutely NO way I was going to buy bigger clothes, clothes that I would hate as much as I hated my body at that point.

Luckily I found MFP within a week of my decison, it TOLD me exactly how many calories I needed to lose weight, logged some normal food days (logging was so easy and appealed to my analytical nature) and that log of 'normal' days food was the shock that led to success! MFP and the community taught me that it's actually all so simple and given me the knowledge to a achieve an adulthood dream I never knew how to achieve of being one of those people who eats healthy and maintains a healthy weight.

All good!

cheetah827 wrote: »

So my questions really are; How did you come to gain weight? What motivated you to start losing weight? And why didn't you start your weight loss journey sooner?

I lost my job, got on EI, so was suddenly less active, and I'm sure being on Seroquel contributed, plus it was around my 30th birthday so just getting older and my naturally fast metabolism slowing down some.

motivation was being disgusted by having a big round stomach that at first made me look a few months pregnant then eventually got big enough that I probably could've passed for 5 or 6 months pregnant.

I was resistant to/uninterested in exercising all my life, I got to the age my friends were all starting to go to the gym and I was like I don't wanna... I hate exercise.... it just makes me feel tired and sweaty and gross. plus I really enjoyed being able to just eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted because I'd been able to do it my whole life and it was just what I was used to. the thought of having to moderate what I ate was really depressing, lol. I love food and I love eating and snacking and all of it. so yeah it took me a while to get there.

I was slim (or even at times under-weight until my late 20s): it did not seem to matter what I ate, so long as i was getting a bit of exercise (mostly walking to uni) I did not put on weight. Like my mother and my grandfather, when I hit my mid-thirties I gained weight significantly. When I met my husband in 1998 I was 34 and still weighed 68kg (150lb) which for my height is towards the lower end of the normal bmi spectrum. By the time we married in 2002 I weighed 78kg which is towards the upper end. I thought this was genetics. Then I went to work in a job which fed me as part of my salary (three course meals at lunch and dinner if I wanted them) and I became bigger and bigger. By late 2011, I weighed nearly 90 kg, but I still thought I had nothing to worry about in terms of weight (though I was beginning to describe myself as statuesque), and that this was my genes so it was just the way it was.

In December 2011, I exchanged notes with a friend, realised that I was into the overweight category of bmi, moving towards obese, and decided I ought to do something about it. My original aim was to get myself to 80 kg, which for me is the top of normal bmi. I did that within about 3 months without doing much more than restrict protions according to a suggested diet plan. But I like cooking and don't like being told what to eat or having my meals planned for me. So I stopped doing the plan, and over the next couple of years regained 5kg. In September 2014, my asthma nurse said she thought I ought to try to do something about my weight which was 85/86kg. I couldn't work out what I was doing wrong as I knew was eating reasonably healthily and had not gone back to my old portion sizes. That is when I discovered mfp and the ability to log what I really eat, and to look at the balance between carbs, fat and protein, which for me is key (as is cutting back on gluten based carbs such as pasta and bread). Within two months, I was back within a normal bmi, and aiming first to weigh less than 80kg at any time of the day or night (e.g. i nthe afternoon after lunch when I tend to see my asthma nurse!) and to have a morning weight more mid-bmi. I didn't want to get back to 68kg, which I used to find was on the low side for me, but am now maintaining between 70kg and 72kg and that feels very comfortable.

So for me this has been a journey of realising that just because my mother and grandfather put on weight in their mid-thirties, I didn't have to follow suit (and that I was not predestined to gain weight). However, I have also had to adapt to the fact that my metabolism did change in my early/mid-thirties, and that I can no longer eat as much as I like without its making any difference. I know that summer holidays (lots of eating out with my husband on holiday) and Christmas will be times when I put on weight - but I also know now how to lose it again.

Why did I gain?

I don't really know, I don't clearly remember a time before I was obese. By maybe age nine I was already turning down invitations to go swimming with my friends because I felt too fat to be comfortable doing so. From what I do recall of my earliest childhood, when I was actually thin, it seems like it was more hyperactivity keeping my weight down than any discipline around food. When you spend all your waking time climbing trees, biking, running, and playing, it's fairly hard to gain.

Why did I start to lose weight?

I actually was not too uncomfortable with my body (although I still don't swim). My main motivation was to be able to do the things I would like to do without my body holding me back. I really enjoyed the outdoors, wanted to do more, but realized unless I lost weight and gained fitness, I would be incapable of doing what I wanted.

Why did it take so long?

Lot of failures. I tended to do all of the common mistakes - being way too aggressive, having no plan for how to maintain, etc. Eventually I just settled into habits. Of all the odd things, I think getting a very needy cat was the most immediate cause of starting when I did. He broke up the routine of my day to day life enough that it made forming new habits easier.