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

So I'm an overweight 18 year old guy and I always have been chubby. I'm not relatively huge I'm around 185 pounds but I'd love to be 150. I think the main reason why I'm overweight is due to my addiction to soda. If I want I can honestly drink around 2 litres a day which in itself is over the daily sugar intake and around 800 calories. Another contributing factor to my weight gain is the fact that I only eat one meal and day and that meal is normally really late at night. Is anyone similar to me? What are the reasons why you are overweight/underweight
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Replies

  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
    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).
  • missevil
    missevil Posts: 113 Member
    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.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,706 Member
    edited May 2017
    I gain weight when two life events converge ... moving house and ill health (like surgery or DVT).

    I stop paying attention to what I'm eating, I ease up on my exercise, and focus on moving house and getting well.
  • glassofroses
    glassofroses Posts: 653 Member
    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?
  • pawan245lbs
    pawan245lbs Posts: 32 Member
    Stress and break up!
  • perkymommy
    perkymommy Posts: 1,642 Member
    I'm 48 and I can lose the weight if I stick to a plan. I'm lazy though. Bottom line I eat too much in one sitting. I eat too much throughout one day. If I stayed within what I'm allotted per day as far as calories then I would lose. I know what to do but doing it is a whole other thing right now. :-/
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    I'm naturally greedy and used to be a bit lazy...
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
    Because I ate too much. My parents didn't teach me portion size or nutrition, so I kept that up well into adulthood.
  • moonstroller
    moonstroller Posts: 210 Member
    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.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,285 Member
    Boredom eater. Emotional eater. Stress eater. Sedentary lifestyle. Just... not caring. Until I got a medical issue that made me.
  • LAT1963
    LAT1963 Posts: 1,375 Member
    Sleep deprivation.
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    I'm an emotional and boredom eater. I eat when I'm happy, I eat when I'm sad, I eat when I'm meh. But mostly when I'm sad, and my anxiety issues made me sad a lot. I gained a lot of weight back a couple years ago when I had a somewhat serious binge eating issue that was the culmination of all the above. It was hardcore "eat to numb the pain". Those six-odd months of binge eating feel almost surreal now because I was so ill from anxiety and quite hungover from such a high salt intake.
  • krazy1sbk
    krazy1sbk Posts: 128 Member
    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...
  • annacole94
    annacole94 Posts: 997 Member
    Beer.
  • happysherri
    happysherri Posts: 1,360 Member
    Food! :D
    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.
  • amyteacake
    amyteacake Posts: 768 Member
    I ended up using food as an emotional crutch when I was in high school. Every time I was sad I would eat. And I was sad quite a lot of the time so it was constantly. I didn't exercise that much and didn't care all that much about it either. Then I ended up starving myself during the day and binge eating at night. This cycle continued until I was 17. There are certain foods that I don't eat now out of fear of binge eating on them again.
  • Leenizi129
    Leenizi129 Posts: 133 Member
    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!
  • stacief82
    stacief82 Posts: 109 Member
    A combination of eating too much fast food and less activity due to working a desk job.