What made you fat?

sardelsa wrote: »

I gained it on purpose. I wouldn't say I got fat but I had to cut back down after to reveal what I built.

I did that too, and it didn't really work out the way I wanted it to.

What it boiled down to was eating more than I burned.

WHY that happened:

I went from active jobs (outdoors working at a horse stable doing barn chores and riding several horses a day and/or teaching riding lessons) while also tromping around a college campus to a job that had me sitting on my tush 10+ hours a day, leaving me exhausted at night (aka, more sitting around) but paid more which also meant more eating out, more starbucks fru-fru coffee, etc. Since I had never really had to worry about my weight most of my life to that point (in my early 30s), it didn't occur to me that my activity had changed too much.

The weight crept on. I knew I was getting heavier, but it wasn't like I was obese, so it didn't really bother me enough to really change my lifestyle.

Until the day I couldn't squeeze into my "fattest" work pants no matter how uncomfortable I was willing to be, even with a belt leaving the button undone. I couldn't get into them.

That was my wake up call.

Still have a ways to go to my ideal weight, but slow and steady loss is happening.

Emotional eating from having two small kids, working full time, husband who had been unemployed and then studying for about 3 years and then working contract-to-contract, and being the sole bread winner. I stopped caring for myself. Worse, I stopped loving myself. I stopped all exercise and just ate whatever, and whenever I wanted. That made me fat. Sorry, that made me morbidly obese.

I am am firm believe in mindfulness, self-care and self-love now. For without it, this journey was going to fail before it started.

Bad habits that started in childhood got me started on the wrong path. Going out to dinner multiple times per week. Dessert after just about every lunch AND dinner. Sedentary lifestyle of being a bookish artsy type. Being big/tall compared to my peers and just thinking "I should be eating more than them because I'm bigger"...but then in my teens, when I stopped growing, that didn't really apply anymore. I kept doing it though.

Later...I was married to a guy who was obese as well, and had a bunch of friends who were also big and/or obese. I ate less than all of these guys and thought I was doing okay. So I was still eating 3 big slices of pizza and having 2 vodka cocktails. Just because they may have eaten 7 slices of pizza and 5 beers didn't make my portions okay for my body size, so I kept gaining weight.

Eating for every reason...stressful day at work, exciting accomplishment, grief, holidays. Everything.

Drinking my calories! I drank big glasses of milk as well as juice, lattes, mochas, etc, and not realizing how terrible they were when it came to the calories and sugar. I stopped drinking sugary soda around age 22 - but just kept drinking all of these other things without a second thought...even after I really started to work on my weight, but before I started counting calories, this was an issue for me. Even 6 years into MFP and maintaining a major loss, it pains me to think of how many thousands of calories I drank in Starbucks without realizing it was "that bad" (i.e., thought of a latte as similar to coffee w/ creamer rather than it actually being closer to a small milkshake).

Cheeseburgers....

All the extra weight has been added just the last few months. Went from playing at the top level internationally in my sport (roller derby) to not playing at rec level. I could no longer afford to play at the top anymore (made me sad), but never adjusted my eating for the reduced activity. I also love ice cream wayyyyy too much

Foot injury took me out of a 30-35mile/week running routine.
Moved from the city to the suburbs where I hardly ever walk anywhere anymore.

I made me fat

I really enjoy food, and am an emotional eater. I eat to comfort myself, but also to reward myself etc. This was fine for years as I was very active growing up, but around 20/21 my activity levels dropped and so the extra calories became a problem. I managed to keep it under control for the most part until I hit my 30's. Even when pregnant, I didn't gain a huge amount, BUT, after our daughter was born and I was exhausted all the time and it felt like I had a baby permanently attached to me whilst nursing her, I ate a LOT and it was mostly junk/convenience food. I've been working to improve that a lot since then, as well as my relationship with food and learn not to comfort or reward myself with it. It's a process but the scales are moving in the right direction and I'm in the right head space for it currently.

Pretty sure I’ve always been overweight. I remember weighing 8 stone at 8 years old.
When I got older and was able to cook for myself I didn’t know how to lose weight in a healthy way. I thought the only way to do it was to not eat. This always lead me to put on more weight than I lost.
I also always found comfort in food at stressful times. So through my parents having breast cancer twice, heart problem, kidney problems, a heart attack, brain damage and terminal oesophagus cancer I just binged on food to manage my stress.

I grew up being the skinny girl. That resulted in me thinking I couldn't possibly gain weight. Enter my 20s, beer, poitines. Enter an extra 25 lbs.