What do you think has caused you to be underweight/overweight

I used food as an emotional crutch. Instead of dealing with my emotions, I stuffed myself to try and make them go away. It didn't matter what. The fact of eating was all I needed.

As you can guess, I ended up morbidly obese (BMI just a smidgen under 40) with no real coping strategies for when life gets rough. Kind of a sad state of being for a soon to be 36 year old.

So now I not only need to lose weight (currently down to BMI 28.8), control how much I eat (sticking to my calorie budget and learning what an appropriate portion size is for me), but also develop healthier strategies to deal with my emotions (exercise - without over-exercising - and writing).

My mum used to give us sweets every day, so I was sugar addicted from the beginning, started to be chubby from a young age and never had a real concept about eating healthy.
The first round of real weight gain happened when I moved in with my BF when I was 18. We were responsible for buying our own food and boy, we did buy food. All the fatty yummy goodness.
The second round, which brought me up to a BMI of ~39 was my job. I was stable and had money and could buy whatever I liked. (Food AND clothes, so I never realised how much I gained, because I liked buying new clothes frequently and so it always fit) Combined with an office job and free juices/soda, I gained easily.
Plus, like @ladyreva78, I like to eat when I'm unhappy. Fortunately, that's not happening too often.

I started gaining because I was unhappy and stressed with my living situation at university, not exercising because I have Exercised Induced Asthma, and my bad habits (read: eating all the cookies and food in general) carried me pretty far, but after a health shock in the family, I realised that I couldn't take care of anyone because of what I was doing to myself.

You have to decide who you want to be: do you want to be the person who eats whatever they want? Or do you want to be the one who fuels their body for good things?

I drank a lot of soda as well, Coke, specifically, and then I switched to Polar Water which is a flavored seltzer water that has zero calories and no artificial sweeteners. It took a little while to get used to the difference, but now if I drink a regular soda, which is once or twice a year because when I visit my Dad he sometimes wants to go to Wendy's, it's far too sweet and I cannot even finish the cup.

My problem was/is with chips. I love potato chips, nacho chips, pretty much anything in chip form. I had no problem eating a large cheese pizza with extra cheese, a family size bag of potato chips, a family size bag of Doritos, and around eight or nine bottles of beer in one sitting. Watching TV while I ate was another major problem that helped me over eat.

I can easily blame it on my mother dying, my marriage ending, or any one of several other life altering events, but those are excuses because the truth is simple: I'm a fat lazy guy who desperately wants to be a fit active guy.

Fortunately you see what you're doing, now you need to devise a course of action and then stick to that action plan to achieve your goal.

Sleep deprivation.

Emotional/boredom eater here as well. Stress-eating has been a problem for me most of the time, but I'm trying to move toward "stress-exercising" and it works some of the time? My mother is an emotional eater and my dad is a boredom eater, so I inherited the worse end of both...

Food!
Emotions.


I used to eat a lot more and do believe I gained most of my weight during my years of depression and on antidepressants. I used to be an emotional eater. However, I've lost about 45 lbs and have kept it off for many years. Currently I'm trying to lose the last 10 superficial pounds I carry.

For the past 6 or 7 years on my fitness journey, I've learned so much and continue to learn techniques and tips. I also have practiced willpower and have gotten so much better at saying "no" to daily treats. Everything in moderation, balance.

When I am was overweight, it was due to things we believed that limited our potential! All not true! You have the power you just have to believe it!

Depression and binge eating. Plain and simple

I was a competitive athlete for most of my life growing up and then the Marine Corps out of high school and then in college I was pretty active doing landscape construction in the summers and working retail in the winters and didn't own a car so I biked or walked everywhere...I never had issues with weight until I graduated and took a desk job and my activity level went into the toilette.

I'm good now, but I spent about 8 years getting fat.

Bad habits and I enjoy food...

Mental illness. Psychiatric medications. Not caring about myself anymore.

I became obese because enjoying whatever food I wanted whenever I wanted in whatever quantity I wanted looked shinier to me than a thinner frame. Basically just different priorities. My problem was not with sweets and conventional snacks. My regular serving was not big then, and it's not big now. Half a cup of ice cream is more than enough, and I rarely drank soda. I enjoyed food, though. A lot of it. I snacked on nuts all day and drenched my vegetables and greek yogurt with olive oil. I loved making butter and salt, or butter and sugar sandwiches, and ate too much hummus...etc. I also ate whatever is in sight just because the act of eating itself is enjoyable to me too, regardless of the food (and doubly enjoyable if the food is great). When my priorities changed, my eating habits had to change too despite of my internal temper tantrums.