What made you fat?
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Cassandraw3 wrote: »Like the poster above, eating more calories than my body burned. That is the simplicity of it. Getting to the reason why is a bit more complicated. For me, I went from a job where I was on my feet and busy all day to a job behind a desk. Decreased overall TDEE, plus increased time to be able to eat/snack/think about food out of boredom lead to my weight creeping up. I enjoy food, and one of my bad habits that I constantly struggle with is eating out of boredom. I am working to find "distractions" to change my thoughts for when I want to eat yet I am not hungry, as that is the root cause of my excess calories.
Wow.. I thought I was the only one who ate out of boredom lol.
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Eating to experience happiness when happiness was in short supply. Defining myself by my love of food. Being a little bit addicted to processed foods.3
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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.1 -
I got pregnant, reduced exercise dramatically and increased eating dramatically. Post-Partum I got depressed and therefore ate even more and continued to not exercise much.
I have always been a bit of an emotional eater, but when I was more active back before I got fat fat, when I had bouts of putting a little bit on due to emotional eating, as soon as whatever emotional thing was over I was able to just be mindful and i'd lose the weight easily again. I'm talking a couple of kilos, not 10s of kilos.
After baby though being mindful wasn't enough. I had to use drastic measures (as in counting calories LOL) and have turned to lifting. I am now fitter than I probably ever was.2 -
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.4 -
Getting married and trying to keep up with hubs (food and drink). At the same time stopping exercise to spend more time together. Piled on about 50# in the first 10 years.1
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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).0 -
Peanut butter and apple juice when I was young.0
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emotional eater here, difficult narcisstic mother and adult children. I ate rather than dealt with situation and learned to set boundaries and accept what is. Food numbs me and I asked myself what am I trying not to feel, it was that I didn't matter. I figured out it was them not me and learned to love myself and want to take care of me. I know that if I am sad and eat I will be sad and fat. Learned to do healthy stuff when I got sad, walking, journaling, talking with friends, etc. Finally got it thru my head how destructive this overeating was and to be good to myself. Cope with healthy stuff not food.6
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Scientifically, consuming an excess of calories.
Psychologically, engaging in every activity that led to a promotion of self-destructive behavior so I could create a negative feedback cycle to validate my negative behavior.2 -
Cheeseburgers....2
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i grew up in the country, and led an extremely active lifestyle with daily manual labour caring for our horses and riding them (this is actually quite a workout depending on what you do!) and general running around, climbing trees, exploring. i ate massive portions because i was hungry all the time, but the amount of moving i did kept my body very lean.
then i moved to the city, and became an incredibly sedentary person (depression, no friends, no way to pursue my old outdoor hobbies easily), but i still ate the same portions as i did when i was running and climbing and working outdoors all day. predictably, i gained a lot of weight!5 -
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 much1
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DesireeLovesOrganic wrote: »Active social life with too much booze and Happy Hour junk. I do fine when I stay at home! LOL Also, we love brunch. Oops.
Bruuuunch. Brunch is the worst! My girls want to do brunch soon and moderation is not their idea of brunch. We have an all you can eat/drink place and it's the best place in the world and the worst place for a healthy lifestyle0 -
Abuse. Self loathing.11
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I am an emotional eater and I lost my fiance 6 months ago. Plus, I love food and eat even when I am not hungry.6
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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.0 -
Choices, same thing that made my thinner. Change your mind, change your life...oh and donuts.11 -
I made me fat1
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Lack of control - childhood with an environment controlled by parents (obese); exercise can only help so much. An environment filled with bulk cheap commodities typical of a Standard American Diet is not something easy to overcome when one has no say or control in food choice.
Lost tons of weight upon gaining more independence (adolescence having a part time job & into college) where I could control the environment/food choice/availability3 -
Eating my emotions.
Binging as a reward for exercise.
Being told I was genetically programmed to be fat or my extra weight was cute.
Psychological control by narcissists using any attempt of weight loss against me (you're losing weight because you're cheating/ leaving me, stay fat to prove you love me).
Not making myself a priority.
Ignoring hunger signals.
"Last meal" and on again/ of again psychology.5 -
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My Doctors13
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Depression and anxiety leading me to quit my job, so the only thing I did was cook and eat and drink wine and smoke. Over eating numbs feelings and I use extreme over-eating as self-punishment when my brain has a bad day. When I'm busy and content I still probably eat a bit too much sometimes because I just love food but it seemed to find a balance.
Having ceoliac messed with my hunger signals as a child because I was always hungry, I over-ate so I wouldn't be starving before I got a chance to eat again so it makes sense to me that I eat when I'm anxious. And I get anxious when I don't know when/ what I'm eating. Having a food restriction did mean that I always had a basic understanding of calories and energy since you spend a lot of time looking at food labels, so managing my weight is more about managing my mental state than anything.1 -
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.0
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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.
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Dirty bulking.1
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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.1
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