What age did you start struggling with weight?

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  • Shells918
    Shells918 Posts: 1,070 Member
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    Mid 20s. I ate my way through a major depressive episode. Lost it when I started feeling better but have been struggling since.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    I don't think I "struggled". I slowly gained weight from birth until I was in my 30s. One day the scale showed a number I didn't like and I thought: I'd better learn to eat in a way that makes it easier to get to and then maintain a healthy weight. So I overhauled how I approached eating. I've been maintaining +-5 for 14 or so years.
  • abatonfan
    abatonfan Posts: 1,123 Member
    edited August 2016
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    Probably around 11-12. Combine puberty, increasing independence with making my own food choices, no knowledge of portion control (eating an entire family-sized bag of baked Lays as a snack), and relative pickiness (compared to what I eat now), and being a lazy butt, and you get a fun combination for obesity. I think at 12 I was 5'3ish and 170, and at my highest (18) I was 5'6 and at least 230.
  • frankiesgirlie
    frankiesgirlie Posts: 667 Member
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    Not until 50 or so. I've never been overweight by the chart standards, but coming from a family of overweight women I was always careful of my diet and exercise and managed to stay in the mid range of my BMI at about 140-145 at 5'9" my entire adult life. Maybe not in the healthiest ways as I'm trying to do now, but that's another story.
    At around 50, building a business had me sitting at a computer 12 hours a day for about 2 years causing me to put on 15-20 lbs. I became sedentary plus stress ate those 2 years. Now I'm struggling a bit to take it off. That plus maybe menopause has it made it harder than it was in the past to lose the weight. But I know I'll get there. 10 lbs to go!!
  • sarahthes
    sarahthes Posts: 3,252 Member
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    I was almost 11 lbs at birth (my mom almost certainly had undiagnosed/untreated gestational diabetes). I was always the chubby kid growing up, although I don't think I was actually obese until somewhere around grade 11 or 12--I was 180 lbs when I graduated (BMI of 30.9). By the time I finished university I was 220-230ish and I basically bounced around between 230-280 (estimate based on pictures as I didn't have a scale then) until I turned 30. Never intentional weight loss, but sometimes I was more sedentary and sometimes less, and sometimes I binged more and sometimes I didn't.

    I was 251 when I weighed myself a few months before I turned 31, but more importantly my clothes didn't fit very well. I lost 46 lbs within 8 months so of course I promptly had an oopsie pregnancy lol. Gained 67 lbs during that pregnancy to 271 a few days before I delivered.

    Losing weight after baby was hard but once I started thyroid meds it was okay. By 2 years pp I was back to bouncing between 228-234. So of course I got pregnant again (on purpose lol). I gained a lot less due to having gestational diabetes and restricting carbs and taking insulin and all that fun. Now I'm 36 and my youngest is 1.5 years and I'm back down to 222 lbs and still losing! I've lost 41lbs since last September.
  • Etsar73
    Etsar73 Posts: 260 Member
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    Mid 30s... I was always skinny before that. I went from not eating because of stress to eating when I became stressed.
  • Amazon_Who
    Amazon_Who Posts: 1,092 Member
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    I was a little heavy in elementary school and then I got tall and was probably slightly underweight by high school. I maintained a good weight until I went from a fairly active job at a bookstore where I was on my feet all the time to a desk job when I was 30. I go up to 190. After having my gallbladder out at 36 I ballooned up to 295.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    When and since I was 2 years old, I have weighed more than my brother. He's always been trim. I've always, since I was 2, been heavier than he. Most of those years, I weighed 100 or more lb than he. Right now, it's maybe a 40 lb difference.
  • Anabug81
    Anabug81 Posts: 161 Member
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    17.
  • st476
    st476 Posts: 357 Member
    edited August 2016
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    At the end of 8th grade, which is when I stupidly decided to starve myself for the entire summer.

    Edit: 8th grade is when I thought I looked fat, but I wasn't actually overweight. I didn't get into the overweight category until 18, but that was only by 10 pounds. Lots of body image issues before than though
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
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    2nd grade. Moved 3 times that year. Very unsettling. By high school, I outweighed most of the football team.
  • Asher_Ethan
    Asher_Ethan Posts: 2,430 Member
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    When i was 10. Looking back at pictures, I was never over weight, I wasnt skinny though. My mom made sure I knew I wasn't skinny because everyone else in our family was skinny. That started my life long battle relationship with food and my distorted body image.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    When i was 10. Looking back at pictures, I was never over weight, I wasnt skinny though. My mom made sure I knew I wasn't skinny because everyone else in our family was skinny. That started my life long battle relationship with food and my distorted body image.

    Why oh why do parents do this to their children!!?? :(
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,937 Member
    edited August 2016
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    When I was 23, I had a major surgery and couldn't exercise for a couple months ... and then we started packing up to move 2 provinces away. As soon as I could, after the surgery, I was back in the gym training with my bodybuilding coach and also cycling ... but it just wasn't quite enough, what with all the time spent packing + convenience food.

    When we arrived in our new home, 5 months after the surgery, one of the first things we did was to sign up with a local gym. I stepped on the scale ... and discovered I had just stepped into the overweight category for the first time in my life.

    I immediately dropped about 25 lbs and stayed there for several years, and then increased my cycling and dropped another 20-25 lbs and stayed there for years. There were some minor ups and downs, of course, but nothing significant.


    When I was 42, I moved to Australia, developed DVT on the flight over (ended up in hospital for 2 weeks), and had to adjust to living in a cabin completely off the grid for a year ... as well as dealing with energy-draining warfarin. I was exercising and trying to eat a decent diet, but just couldn't get up the energy to do as much as I would have liked. For the second time in my life, I stepped over the border into the overweight category.

    Then another move into a small town at the end of the year, off the warfarin, and I started increasing my exercise again. When I was 44, I lost the weight and dropped back to normal. I also took on the 7 Peaks Challenge ... a cycling challenge in Victoria where you do 7 climbing events. I needed to be lighter for that!

    When I was 45, my husband and I packed everything into storage and set off for an 8-month RTW tour. Lots of cycling and walking, but so much good food! And yeah, some weight gain ... back into the overweight category. We ended up in Canada with my family for a month over Christmas, joined a gym, and lost the weight ... back to normal. The 2 weeks cycling and swimming in Western Australia after that helped too.

    Then we had an unsettled couple years ... several moves, some health issues ... and back into the overweight category. This time, I hit the highest weight I've ever been after a pair of surgeries in January 2015.

    February 2015, I joined MFP ... and 8 months later I had dropped 25 kg/55 lbs into the lower half my normal BMI range. I'm right back down to the weight I was in about 2004 and also my high school weight! :)


    So in answer to the question ... what age did I start to struggle with my weight? It's never really been a struggle, but it was at about mid-42 when I started hovering around the high normal/low overweight range.
  • Shana67
    Shana67 Posts: 680 Member
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    As long as I can remember. I remember weighing 100lbs in the 4th grade. Granted, I was very tall but that still was a lot compared to my other friends.
  • Bxqtie116
    Bxqtie116 Posts: 552 Member
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    I was always an average sized child growing up. My weight issues began after I had my first child. I gained about 40 lbs during my pregnancy and probably lost maybe 10 lbs. Then my second pregnancy I gained another 20. The first couple of years in my house, I added on more weight. All I know is when I thought about it, I had put on about 100 lbs since having my first son. I knew I needed to lose weight and I began working out but that lasted a week or two. Starting then stopping. I didn't like what I've become but at the same time, I became comfortable in my own skin. I finally got to the point of being sick and tired of looking and feeling like this and made up in my mind that I need to do this before I let anymore time slip by. 60 lbs down and I'm more than halfway there.
  • IllustratedxGirl
    IllustratedxGirl Posts: 240 Member
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    I've gained and lost 20 lbs so many times in my life. I was bulimic at 15 though... Not that I was over weight. However I would say that's the first time I started struggling with my weight.

    I was never extremely overweight though. Highest was 186 (recently) at 5'9. Currently 166
  • cinnabondelights
    cinnabondelights Posts: 121 Member
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    Around 10ish? My parents always bought junk food from the store and rarely cooked healthy food, we mostly ordered out or got pizza. I'd been overweight pretty much my entire life, and it was only a few years ago that I finally got down to a healthy weight for me. I'm 25 now, heaviest was 161 lbs and current weight is 106. c:
  • spring913
    spring913 Posts: 158 Member
    edited August 2016
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    My whole life. I'm 37. I haven't been a healthy weight since I was a baby. There were some unique circumstances when I was a child, and my mom is a feeder. Food solves all problems!!! I am now aiming to be a healthy weight for the first time in my life.
  • jgramkee
    jgramkee Posts: 3 Member
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    I was 32 when I started having weight issues. I was trying to get pregnant and had to take a lot of fertility medication. The medication messed with my hormones and did a number on me. I had gained 60 lbs. and it has been a struggle to get the weight off. 5 years later I am still working at it. It has brought on a lot of depression and self struggle. I have never been this overweight. I am over 200 lbs now and I just want to drop the weight. I want to be comfortable again. I can't even bring myself to wear a bathing suit to enjoy time with my daughter in our pool. I feel like breaking down every time I look in the mirror.