Calling out to the former chubby kids

dewit
dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hiya,

if you were a little plump as a kid and are now at a healthy weight (or within a healthy range), I would like to read your transformation story. 😎

Were you plump because there were unhealthy habbits in your family? What were these? Food 🍔, snacks 🍫, baked goodies 🎂? Sedentary lief style 🎮?

Do you think it is genetics? Were you able to defy gravity by losing weight and keeping it off? Was this a huge effort?

Did the change happened naturally, you basically grew up and grew out of it? Transformed into a fit adult uncounciously? What are you doing to maintain?

Was it maybe a dramatic change, due to social pressure? Are you yo-yo-ing and often feel your body fights against being "skinny"?

Cheers, I appreciate all honest answers 🌻
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Replies

  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    I might have chosen a wrong time of the day to post (again!) or an unpopular thread... 🤔
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    Thank you both for the ellaborated, honest answers. I applaud your perseverance and great results. Actually, taking a bow 👍
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    @rainbow198 fantastic answer! You actually answer another question of mine in a different thread. Thank you!!!
  • rainbow198
    rainbow198 Posts: 2,245 Member
    Thanks so much! Glad to help! :)
  • riffraff2112
    riffraff2112 Posts: 1,756 Member
    I was always chubby. I was the fat sibling, with a skinny sister and brother. Being Italian, there was always tons of breads, pastas and calorie heavy foods around and I found comfort in devouring more than my fair share. When I turned 18 I basically starved myself skinny. I knew nothing about nutrition and just knew that if I ate like a bird I would lose weight fast. What a dummy. I did this again when I let my wight slip when I was in my mid 20's...again..what a dummy.

    As I got older and kept struggling with my weight I knew I had to get this figured out. I needed to do something that I could do for life. So I started eating more mindfully, planning my meals in advance, discovering a love for weight training, educating myself about macros/meal timing and generally just eating with a purpose.

    So here I am at 52, weighing less than I did at 15.
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    I was a chubby kid. Until junior high, I was the fattest kid in school. My mom had emotional eating issues, and she'd choose fast food a lot for lunch or dinner when we were kids. We ate a lot of Burger King. I picked up her emotional eating issues, which is not uncommon - you're basically taught through example how to respond to stress, and for my mom, that was eating. I wouldn't say it's genetics as much as not knowing any other way because that's how I grew up.

    I stayed at a fairly steady "chubby" throughout high school (I was at the lower end of obese for my height). I gained some weight in college due to less food boundaries, and gained some more when I moved out permanently and got sedentary with my full-time job. I didn't really try losing weight until a few years after that, almost on an impulse. I over-restricted, though, and started struggling with binge eating partly because of that and partly because I subconsciously expected weight loss to solve problems that it couldn't solve. I couldn't cope with that fact and struggled for about a year from active binge eating.

    This time losing was easier because I took it slower and focused on improving my mental health at the same time. I never really felt societal pressure to lose weight, at least not directly. I had physical issues from being at a higher weight, so I knew that I had to get the weight off or else I was going to forever feel like I was 60 at 30 years old (hip and knee pain).

    I still feel the urge to binge eating sometimes, especially during stressful times. I think it will continue to be my "gut reaction" to stress for a while.
  • cupcakesandproteinshakes
    cupcakesandproteinshakes Posts: 1,129 Member
    Well I was teased for being a chubby kid but I probably wasn’t overweight technically. I wasn’t interested in sport so was sedentary as a child. Mum was always ‘on a diet’ but was actually a normal weight and was trying to lose what we would now say were vanity pounds, Dad was obese and sedentary.


    I yo-yoed in my twenties up and down 30 pounds. Finally sorted myself out about 5 years post baby. It took quite a lot of effort to change some bad habits and substitute good habits. Far from perfect but getting there.
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    @Lillymoo01: sorry for your loss... 😐 Hugs
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,740 Member
    edited March 2020
    I think being a chubby kid just set me up to be "ok" with being an obese adult, really.

    Growing up I was by far the biggest kid in my class until middle school. Not just chubby but huge for my age - 5'4" and about 130-135 lb in 3rd grade. I thought it was cool, actually. I liked wearing juniors clothing and people assuming I was a teenager.

    Like several others here, I was mostly sedentary and used food for entertainment, comfort, etc. So did my parents to some extent. My mom was always dieting but we had a ton of meals out all through the week and dessert every lunch & dinner.

    By high school I was over 200 lb and didn't get back down below that until age 36 with MFP. At my heaviest I was much much larger than that. To me it was really normal to be bigger than most other girls/women around me, even though I'm not that huge of a person at 5'8" I just always had it in my head that I was meant to be plus-sized. Apparently not!

    Now 43, I plan to never hit those high numbers again. I'm still technically a bit overweight, but I'm at a healthy weight according to my doctor. Mostly it's been education on nutrition/calories and like 20% of it for me is being more active.
  • deputy_randolph
    deputy_randolph Posts: 940 Member
    I was a fat kid. I was fat, because I overate (particularly a lot of nutrient deficient "junk food" and drank too many calories in the form of soda) and was pretty sedentary.

    I wasn't fat due to genetics per say. My mom was obese and had bad habits...and likely undiagnosed binge eating disorder. I learned those bad habits. I might have a genetic predisposition to weigh more or have more "addictive" type behavior; however, most of my behaviors were directly modeled by my mother...using food to cope with every emotion, using food as comfort and entertainment.

    By 15 years old (1995), I figured out that my obesity was due to too much food and too little movement. As a teen, I lost nearly 40lbs in highschool without adult assistant. I could tell that I was eating more than my peers. I moderated my food intake and completely cut out soda. I ate more vegetables for more volume. I lost a modest 15lbs....but that encouraged me to add more intentional exercise. Using both strategies I lost significant weight when I left for college.

    In college, I gained a Freshman 10. Well, I buckled down on calorie intake. I knew activity level wasn't a problem at that point, b/c I was pretty unintentionally active and moderately engaging in intentional activity. I lost close to 30lbs the next year.

    I'm 40, and with the exception of 2 pregnancies, I've maintained my weight for 20 years. I've learned better emotional coping strategies than using food. I've also figured out that I am an "all or nothing" person so I have to be mindful of that when I indulge and plan those indulgences in advance.

    I also recognize that even if I do have a genetic predispotion to weigh more...it's still my responsibility to analyze and modify my behavior.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,740 Member
    Danp wrote: »
    I wasn't, but I was told I was to the point that it ended up becoming true.

    I always maintained that I had been fat my entire life. That I had always had a weight problem even as a little kid. I was mostly convinced this was the case as I distinctly remember my mother (who was always overweight) constantly telling me how fat I was and recall her putting me on the latest weight watchers, jenny craig, etc diet that she was doing. I even remember the weight chart that she created for me when I was probably about 8 or so to track my weigh ins.

    It wasn't until I was in my 20's and a girlfriend and I were visiting my parents that I pulled out the old photo album and home videos that I realised how untrue this was. I hadn't seen these photos or watched these videos since becoming an adult and I was shook to my very core to see a skinny little kid running around. Even my partner turned to me and said "I though you told me you were a fat kid, you're not even a little bit fat there". I just couldn't understand how the image in my head could contradict so strongly with what I was seeing with my eyes.

    Going through the photos I noticed it wasn't until I hit my early teens that I started to put on weight and really, it wasn't until my late teens that I would consider the kid in the photo as 'overweight'. I genuinely think my mothers constant harping on a non-existent weight problem eventually manifest as a genuine weight problem. Almost like my physical form eventually caught up with the mental image that had been drilled into my head since day one.

    I definitely WAS chubby but I can still relate to this a little bit. I look back at old photos and see that during a brief time at age 13-15, I was doing pretty well actually at around 160-ish lb and 5'8"....the same size as I am now. I had my full height and adult curves so I really didn't look "fat" at all but after being the biggest kid growing up and being WAY bigger than all of my girlfriends (most of them 5'2 and 100 lb as young teens), I did not think twice when the scale went up later on to 180, 200, etc. I wish I'd seen the problem growing at that time and had tools like MFP when I was a teenager to keep things under control.
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    Current stats/description: 30M, 6'1" average around 175 lbs, estimate body fat at <15%. Has been within "healthy" by BMI since Fall 2006, avid weightlifter since 2015, will occasionally run to support the handful of 5/10Ks I do each year. I also enjoy playing golf and tennis (both poorly).

    Backstory:
    I was always mild/moderately overweight as an child/adolescent. My family ate a fairly varied/balanced diet but not a particularly healthy one. Snacking has always been a big thing (still is for my parents), and I definitely could've been more active, though I was fortunate to grow up on 5 acres of former farm land so there was a decent amount of outside activity. Between being a little pudgy and having glasses and braces by age 7 self-confidence was a formative struggle and something I've dealt with into adulthood. I recall routinely expressing to my mother that I wish I looked better and thinner... more like my friends with whom I played sports and were at healthier weights. The reply I most-often received, in what I expect was aimed at bolstering the little self-confidence I had, was typically along the lines of "people are just built differently". The confluence of those lifestyle habits and inaction to correct them I was around 6' 200lbs at 17 in the summer of 2006. At the time I did not weigh regularly so this is a ballpark figure. I played some sports as a kid but that 200lbs certainly wasn't muscular-looking.

    Phase I: Healthy Weight for the First Time
    My initial weight loss occurred almost by accident. I happened to spend three weeks that summer at a college-prep type engineering camp at a University in a neighboring state. I was living in a dorm without a TV or computer, eating three meals/day at the student union with minimal snacking, and was very active doing intramural sports as part of the camp or playing ultimate Frisbee or racquetball with friends I'd met there, all in the muggy Indiana summer heat. Some time during the second week I'd realized my pants were feeling a little loose: "awesome, let's keep this going" I remember thinking. Without tracking my foods I focused on making "better" choices in the cafeteria line based on what I perceived was healthy. I don't recall exactly what those choices specifically were nearly 15 years later now, but the net effect was returning home and weighing in the 180s. During back-to-school shopping I discovered I now needed a 34" waist, not the 36" I'd worn for years. My snacking habits had also been curbed significantly and I continued to inadvertently lose down to the mid 160s over the following 3-4 weeks, needing to drop to a 32" waist and medium shirts. For the first time in my life I was truly at a healthy and basically ideal weight for my height. My eyes were opened to the reality of how much control I had over how I looked and after finally getting my first girlfriend before the previous school year ended my confidence was higher than ever heading into my senior year.

    Phase II: Weight Maintenance
    Fortunately, I maintained that ~30 lb loss without too much extra effort until after graduating from college (2011). In college, I fell into a great friend group who had plenty of active pursuits, I made frequent use of the campus rec and would meet my eventual wife and take up running as a hobby she enjoyed.

    Phase III: Steve gets a real job/Operation "don't be fat"
    Upon entering the work force after graduation the position I held entailed a good bit of travel. Nutritionally unchecked and armed with an expense account the frequent appetizers, burgers and craft beers caught up with me quickly and I was back up in at least the 180s after three months on the job. For the first time I was intentionally trying to lose weight but I didn't really know how best to go about things. I started doing P90X as it was something I could do at home or from most hotel gyms and that at least stopped the bleeding as I navigated trying to eat better while travelling. A few months later, in May of 2012, I found MyFitnessPal. It was a another revelation in terms of just how much I was eating and how easy it was to manage and dropped almost 15 lbs in the first two months using the site and reached a recorded adult low weight of 159 in May of 2013 before getting married that June. I was successful in my mission of staying "not fat" into 2015.

    Phase IV: Takes Aim at New Target
    In the fall of 2014 I'm able to transition to a new role with far less travel. Come spring of 2015 I weigh right around 170 lbs but I'm not happy with what I see in the mirror. I'd previously always had the mindset, due to my childhood weight struggles, that losing weight = looking better. However, I'd been at lower weights and knew that I didn't appreciably like how I looked 10 lbs lighter than I was. I had been doing P90X3 workouts (because y'know, that's what people do to get ripped right?) but I didn't really like them, nor was I finding that I was making any progress... I was just doing them. At was at this time I first came across Marc Perry and his BuiltLean programs. Marc's similar arc of gaining and losing weight with his first "real job" resonated quite a bit and his aesthetic was certainly better than my own. It was also at this time on the heels of Captain America: Winter Soldier having been released in 2014, my wife and I get firmly entrenched in the MCU hype. My wife is also thoroughly smitten with Chris Evans' Captain America look, and so that becomes my new goal; no longer to simply be "not fat" but to really try and transform my body. I fully recognize the extent that hollywood imagery distorts our reality and it's not necessarily encouraged to aspire to any on-screen goals... however, that's still my main objective. In April I start a more traditional weightlifting routine with the dumbbells I'd purchased for P90X. By July I'm convinced I need to level up to barbell training to continue progress and take the plunge taking advantage of 4th of July sales. Introspectively, I see building my own home gym as a watershed moment. Growing up a huge nerd I've always admired the muscular, Superhero-style aesthetic but never allowed myself to pursue it. I didn't belong in the weights section at the rec in college, who was I kidding? Having my own equipment and own space in my basement was what ultimately allowed me to permit myself to make strides towards my goals; removing my mental hurdles and getting out of my own way.

    Five years later I happily get up to lift every morning and I'm stronger, look better, and am happier in my own skin than at any other point in my life. I still sometimes struggle with diet and getting/keeping lean(ish). I've never gotten to where I have really visible abs and I don't think I really have the mental toughness to execute a true bulk so I've bounced between 170 and the low 180s. I log more meticulously now that I ever did when trying to lose in big chunks, and have a streak that dates back to July 2017 going right now. I find a great deal of comfort in the element of perceived control it provides.

  • LisaTcan
    LisaTcan Posts: 410 Member
    I was chubby all throughout my childhood, from about age four. My mother was an emotional eater and that was pretty ingrained in me and my sister. We were homeschooled and pretty much grazed on snack foods all day. My sister was slightly chubby, but I was obese. By age 11 I was 180lbs and was sent to a bunch of dieticians and doctors to try and treat my obesity. I was given a pretty hard time with strict diets etc. At 13 I developed anorexia and at 16 bulimia, I finally recovered around age 23. I'm 5'6'' and except for pregnancy I've been between 130-150 for the past decade. I road cycle and weight lift and put a lot of effort into healthy but moderate eating. I have two children and I want to give them a healthier relationship with food that I had. I provide healthy meals, and treats at set times of day, and we only eat at the table. My sister seemed to come out of our childhood unharmed, as an adult she never struggled with her weight or an eating disorder, so I'm not sure what that says about a genetic predisposition.
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    You people are wonderful 🌷. Thank you for opening up - I wasn't aware of how deep I'd go into your lives. Each story is so particular and I can relate to some of them quite a lot!

    Am trying to figure out what the lessons learned are, as an added value to what I already know. There's a lot of information in here, hands in experience 🌻. Hope this thread helps others; it does help me, anyway!

    Thank you all! 💐🤗👍
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited March 2020
    Were you plump because there were unhealthy habits in your family?
    No, Mum was a SAHM and a good cook. I was a very active child but stayed chubby, all the children played outside a lot and walked to school.
    Not many snacks kept in the house, very much a traditional eating style - 3 meals a day sit down as a family for meal times. As both my parents grew up with war time rationing and in poor families there was a strong expectation that you cleared your plate.
    (If you had queued for 2hrs for a single orange as a child it would have an impact on how you viewed food as too precious to go to waste!)
    Could be my portion sizes were just a little too large as I was quite a bit younger than my brother and sister.

    Do you think it is genetics?
    There's an element of that - I was the body shape twin of my Dad. But I don't regard genetics as an excuse to be overweight. Both me and my brother have maintained good fitness levels, never got fat and stayed healthy but my sister was morbidly obese - she chose an unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle and died young as a result.

    Were you able to defy gravity by losing weight and keeping it off? Was this a huge effort?
    Not really a huge effort - I slimmed down (30" waist) in my late teens mainly by doing more sports and general exercise. I simply didn't want to be a chubby adult (both girls and sport were factors!).

    Did the change happened naturally, you basically grew up and grew out of it? Transformed into a fit adult unconsciously?
    No it was a conscious decision - I wanted to be in shape and put in the effort deliberately. I picked different weights depending on my sporting ambitions but didn't feel good being too light when I slimmed right down when motorcycle racing.

    Got chubby again at 31 after a serious knee injury caused by a careless driver. Rapid weight gain while unable to either walk or work plus depression took away my self control. Stayed chubby (but got fit again) until the scales fell from my eyes at age 52 and realised I had to take responsibility for how much I ate and how I approached getting older.

    What are you doing to maintain?
    A lot of exercise (probably higher volume than ever mainly because I enjoy it and have time to indulge my hobbies), deliberately keep my general activity level high, eat the right amount of food (over a very extended timescale - I do best with the least restrictions or rules), monitor my weight and correct any upward slide before it gets out of hand.

    Was it maybe a dramatic change, due to social pressure? Are you yo-yo-ing and often feel your body fights against being "skinny"?
    I guess fairly dramatic as I maintained chubby for 21 years but only took four months to get back in shape.
    Would hate to be called skinny! That's a completely negative term to me, I felt skinny when I dieted down for racing and disliked feeling weak and small.
    No my body doesn't fight me but I do recognise my appetite is out of kilter with my needs, my high exercise level really helps me maintain without great effort as I can eat far closer to the level I want to eat at. If I didn't burn so many calories it would be much more of an effort to maintain (it would be worth the effort though).



  • ellyseb1
    ellyseb1 Posts: 49 Member
    I'll start by saying I wasn't a chubby kid, but so many of these stories really resonated with me. My entire family was/is overweight or obese. Growing up, I was completely inactive and ate the same bad foods they did. I managed to stay at a healthy weight until I went to college. I felt like it was sort of my destiny to gain weight to be like the rest of the family. They teased me when I was a kid about being "skinny" although I wasn't really, and then seemed satisfied somehow that I was turning into the same as them.

    Long story, but in my 30s, I finally got interested in some active hobbies and it changed my perception that I wasn't doomed. The most difficult thing for me was realizing that I could actually enjoy working out and participating in sports, even if I'm not good at them. I grew up thinking I couldn't, being told that I was too klutzy to be one of those "athletic" girls. Even today at 51, I'm sometimes surprised myself when I finish a long hike or a jog.

    In my experience genetics might be part of it, but family baggage is tougher to fight against.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    I was a chubby kid. And then an obese teenager. And then a morbidly obese adult.

    I was reasonably active as a primary school child, but when I moved to secondary school there was a long commute and a lot of homework and much fewer opportunities to do, well, anything. And I'm easy bored and loved to read, which is a pretty sedentary hobby.

    In retrospect, I have also always suffered from my appetite being essentially disconnected from physical cues. I feel starving hungry if I'm bored, and especially if there's food easily available. If I actually physically need food, I feel... tired and indecisive.

    My transformation started when I realised that I could avoid the hopeless constant hunger by distracting myself a lot. I weighed around 27 stone then; I currently weigh 11. That part was easy.

    Maintenance, unfortunately, I'm finding a lot harder. I work in a food-rich environment (there's a freely available fruit box right behind me, the office provides free cake every Wednesday) and I'm currently suffering from some kind of mysterious ailment that makes me tired all the time; which means I can't concentrate on distractions. And being a little bit bored and therefore a little bit peckish all the time seems to have mutated my appetite into full-on binge eating disorder.

    But I've conquered so much, I can conquer this. I just need to find the right strategy.
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    @ceiswyn I can relate so well! Can you go cold turkey? I try IF till lunch, unsweetened tea, coffee and water only. Tea is a calorie-free distraction from the other snacks...

    Let's knock down this monster together! 🏋️‍♀️
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    @dewitt I've considered it occasionally, since I only have a small breakfast anyway, but my body doesn't react well to morning fasting. Frustratingly! But there are always other techniques to try :)
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    Would hate to be called skinny! That's a completely negative term to me

    This resonates with me 100%. I hate that the social norm is to be overweight and anything smaller than that is seen as simply "skinny"
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    edited March 2020
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    @dewitt I've considered it occasionally, since I only have a small breakfast anyway, but my body doesn't react well to morning fasting. Frustratingly! But there are always other techniques to try :)

    Totally agree! I still reccomend the tea and water with a splash of lemon in it, when it comes to "munching".

    Apple is also good, once you allow yourself a few cals.🙂 For the substances which it produces in the brain, killing the appetite for sweets and for being refreshing.

    Apples, black tea and coffee make me hungry, though... 😑.

    Oops, I'm hijacking my own thread... 😀
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    QuinntessentiallyMe wrote: »
    Some people who liked me obese have left me. Makes them feel bad about themselves or they can't relate to me anymore. It can be tricky.

    Their loss! You are wonderful, look amazing and need fit friends, to do all the great activities that your new body enables you to do! Congratulations for finding your way out of it 🏋️‍♀️ and finding yourself 🤸‍♀️


  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    Simon, you already know what I think of you! Thank you for the elaborate answer and the great insights! 🤗🌻
  • fitnessguy266
    fitnessguy266 Posts: 150 Member
    deputy_randolph wrote: »
    I was a fat kid. I was fat, because I overate (particularly a lot of nutrient deficient "junk food" and drank too many calories in the form of soda) and was pretty sedentary.

    I wasn't fat due to genetics per say. My mom was obese and had bad habits...and likely undiagnosed binge eating disorder. I learned those bad habits. I might have a genetic predisposition to weigh more or have more "addictive" type behavior; however, most of my behaviors were directly modeled by my mother...using food to cope with every emotion, using food as comfort and entertainment.

    By 15 years old (1995), I figured out that my obesity was due to too much food and too little movement. As a teen, I lost nearly 40lbs in highschool without adult assistant. I could tell that I was eating more than my peers. I moderated my food intake and completely cut out soda. I ate more vegetables for more volume. I lost a modest 15lbs....but that encouraged me to add more intentional exercise. Using both strategies I lost significant weight when I left for college.

    In college, I gained a Freshman 10. Well, I buckled down on calorie intake. I knew activity level wasn't a problem at that point, b/c I was pretty unintentionally active and moderately engaging in intentional activity. I lost close to 30lbs the next year.

    I'm 40, and with the exception of 2 pregnancies, I've maintained my weight for 20 years. I've learned better emotional coping strategies than using food. I've also figured out that I am an "all or nothing" person so I have to be mindful of that when I indulge and plan those indulgences in advance.

    I also recognize that even if I do have a genetic predispotion to weigh more...it's still my responsibility to analyze and modify my behavior.


    The bolded was a major culprit for my chubbiness as a teen, and is a major catalyst for my current diet strategy. I go "all in or not at all" on days outside of the structured diet that I am typically on, therefore I plan ahead and make it an "expectation" when I do.

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