Has anyone else struggled with weight for most of their lives?

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Speakeasy76
Speakeasy76 Posts: 961 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm a 44-year old female and at a pretty good place right now with my weight, eating habits, exercise and overall attitude about my body. However, I've struggled with my weight for most of my life. I can remember feeling uncomfortable as a kid in my clothes as I was a bit heavier than my friends, and just feeling like they didn't fit me well. That's why I went on an extreme diet at 14, which even further "made a mess" out of my relationship with my body and food, leading to bingeing, followed by diet...wash, rinse and repeat.

I was actually getting rid of my old weight loss/diet/exercise binders that I made by tearing out articles from fitness magazines in my young 20's. I re-read some of my weight graphs--ironically, my starting weight was a few pounds heavier than I am now (not overweight and a healthy weight for my height) and I managed to lose about 7 pounds before I stabilized and eventually went back up. I also had some journal entries about how I was "starting over for the rest of my life" and was tired of obsessing about food. Before I found these I was actually thinking about how it made me sad how much of my life and thoughts were preoccupied with my food and weight. I'm grateful that it's not this way anymore, but it's actually kind of inspired me to maybe look into a career where I can help young girls and women with this so they don't fall into the same pattern I did.

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  • Speakeasy76
    Speakeasy76 Posts: 961 Member
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    concordancia wrote: »
    I didn't have a chance, as none of the women around me had a healthy relationship with food. My grandmother was a binge eater (~300lbs) and my Mom went from anorexia to binging and even had a bout with what was basically bulimia when I was a teenager, right as I was finally on a reasonably healthy path myself. She found that McDonald's milkshakes gave her the runs and was happy to be able to have one a day and still be losing weight - whether that led to the gallstones or existing gallstones where what was causing the reaction I will leave up to the dear reader, but the episode did end in emergency surgery.

    I went from a toddler sized kindergartener to a full sized (5'5) adult, including menstruation, in just 5 years and then kept eating the same (which was also the same as my older, teenaged brothers) and started expanding outward. My senior year of high school and freshman year of college went well, but I have barely been a healthy weight since then. The last time I was close, there was couple of months of barely eating and near constant walking involved. As soon as I started eating again, I ballooned up to my highest weight ever, as one does.

    Since being diagnosed with diabetes the roller coaster just seems to have sped up. I will get my blood sugar under control for a few months, then hit a stressful event and go back to my worst habits. I was always so happy with the good times that it is only in the last year that I can say I have been working on my overall stress habits and dealing with my relationship with food. It has helped somewhat - my bounces are getting smaller and smaller before I regain control. And because I am recovering sooner, my blood sugar goes right back down as soon as I start eating well and moving more, rather than taking a month or more to get it into the normal range.

    I can see how growing up in that environment would make it nearly impossible for anyone to develop a healthy relationship with food. I hope you are able to finally find that path to permanent healthy eating and overall health.

    Ironically, it was more of my dad that was more weight conscious than my mom. My mom never was on a diet or really seemed to struggle with her weight,and I don't remember her making disparaging remarks about her body. I wonder if that was a conscious choice on her part, though, as my grandma (her mom) never seemed happy with her body, was a bit overweight and always seemed to be "watching her weight." My dad, however, was the one who went through a period of not eating breakfast or lunch, instead choosing to swim on his lunch break, and come home to eat a lot of food. He was doing intermittent fasting back in the 80's before it was the thing to do! He also was the one to make comments here and there about how much I was eating or my weight. I distinctly remember he and my mom arguing one night (not in front of me, but I could hear it) because she allowed me to have ice cream at night, and he didn't think I should be eating that much. Meanwhile, my brothers probably ate at least as much as me and didn't have any problems with their weight.

    That's not to say my mom did everything right, even if her intent was to help me. When she went back to take some classes in order to get her teaching license, I was part of her "school project." She had me track my fruit and veggie intake to see if I could lose weight....which I actually don't think was a bad strategy, but still didn't feel great. When I lost weight on my own at 14, everyone seemed happy for me, even though no one really stopped to ask if I was doing it in a healthy way (900 calories a day). It wasn't until it became more extreme that there was some concern...in the form of my mom yelling wouldn't I refused to eat dinner, and having me talk to the dietician at the gyne's office (since I was no longer having a period), which was pretty much useless. Then, a few years later when I was heavy again, my mom said something along the lines of "You'd look so much prettier if you lost weight." Those probably weren't her exact words, but that's what I remember about it.

    Now, my daughter is built just like how I was if not a bit heavier due to remote learning and less activity/more opportunity for snacks. She also doesn't like to be active, just like I was back then. It is very difficult as her mom, having experienced being overweight myself, to not want her to experience what I did, but helping her in a way that isn't damaging to her. I focus on eating foods that are better for us and limiting treats but not forbidding and trying to get more active as a way for us to be healthier, not smaller.
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    Speakeasy76 wrote: »

    Now, my daughter is built just like how I was if not a bit heavier due to remote learning and less activity/more opportunity for snacks. She also doesn't like to be active, just like I was back then. It is very difficult as her mom, having experienced being overweight myself, to not want her to experience what I did, but helping her in a way that isn't damaging to her. I focus on eating foods that are better for us and limiting treats but not forbidding and trying to get more active as a way for us to be healthier, not smaller.

    It took a long time until I was really ready to hear it, but as I have improved, I have found the Intuitive Eating book a decent tool. It really depends on where one is starting, though. I also like Abbey Sharp's youtube series on intuitive eating. Actually, I generally like her channel, but watching her analyze other people's What I Eat in a Day videos probably isn't one of my healthiest habits.

    I have always been pretty active, although rarely the best at any particular activity. I might let it go once in a while, especially if I don't have anyone else to play with me, but for the most part I like moving my body. Except that I have had a bad back since my 20s, so when my back goes out, I might be forced to go weeks with minimal exercise while I recover, and then it can be hard to get back in the habit again. If I can get started, I get right back into it, though.
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
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    Yep. Read my profile for the full story, but the short version is that I was the fat kid since first grade, and memorized the BMI chart by age 12. I'm just a few months shy of 60, and at my the lowest weight since age 14.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    Yes. When I was 2 years old I weighed more than my 4 year old brother.
  • Speakeasy76
    Speakeasy76 Posts: 961 Member
    edited March 2021
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    spiriteagle99 wrote: »
    My mother was obese, back in a time when none of the people around us were obese. My father couldn't handle it and left when I was 10. He admitted years later that that was a large part of why he left. As she attempted diets off and on, so did I. I still hate cottage cheese! I love sugar and eat way too much of it and it always makes me gain weight. I was pretty active as a kid, though also a reader. I wasn't really fat, just a bit pudgy. I felt fat. Puberty was hard, because I developed a woman's body seemingly overnight, which led to awful stretch marks that took 20+ years to fade. I was a yoyo dieter from my teens - up 20, down 20, up 20, down. I had a brief period of serious depression after college where I stopped eating and sleeping and got down to 108 (at 5'6.5") but that didn't last. For a while I settled at 145 or so, then the weight crept up to 175, I lost 40 lbs., gained it back, lost 30 lbs. etc.

    I lose weight fairly easily, but keeping it off is another story. Finally, the last time I decided I wasn't going to repeat history. After I got down to my desired weight, I stayed active. I continued to log my food. I continued to weigh myself often. I've managed to maintain for several years, thanks to being consistent on mfp.

    Even so, I don't really have a great relationship with food or my body. I look in the mirror and sometimes I see my mother's body rather than the skin and bones that is the current reality. I could fairly easily become anorexic, even at my age. It is so easy to see only the flaws. Alternately, if I was unable to exercise the way I normally do, I would probably end up regaining a lot of the weight I've kept off the past 8 years. Not that I don't know how to keep it off, but sometimes I get really tired of always being mindful. I've been counting calories for at least 2/3 of my 65 years. It does get tiresome.

    I can relate to a lot of what you've said. I wasn't really a "fat kid" either....never got teased for or felt left out because of my weight...well, my older brothers may have on occasion, but I don't really remember them doing so relentlessly. I just felt fat compared to most of my childhood friends and I was 1-2 sizes bigger (plus I had one really skinny friend who seemed to be able to eat anything she wanted).

    When I lost my baby weight after my 2nd (and last) child, I kept it off and for the most part developed a healthy relationship with food. However, I stopped tracking on mFP and ever so slowly the weight started creeping up. I'm doing to about 12 pounds less than the weight I got to initially after losing my baby weight, but am getting to that phase that I often do where I want to lose "a little more." The difference this time is that I'm doing it slowly and if I don't, I'm hoping not to get too obsessive.

    I also relate to what you've said about still not having a great relationship with your body. There are days when I'm like "I look pretty good," but lately I've been focusing on my body flaws and all I see are my fat thighs and arms. Yesterday my dance teacher told me I have "such a cute figure." One, I'm uncomfortable with compliments in general and two, I still don't see myself that way, especially after being a "chubby kid." It's hard for me to believe. I also get really anxious thinking about what would happen if I couldn't keep up my current exercise routine, and I know have overworked myself/have overuse injuries from not scaling back when I've needed to do so.
  • Speakeasy76
    Speakeasy76 Posts: 961 Member
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    rosebarnalice wrote: »
    Yep. Read my profile for the full story, but the short version is that I was the fat kid since first grade, and memorized the BMI chart by age 12. I'm just a few months shy of 60, and at my the lowest weight since age 14.

    I loved reading your story on your profile. Thank you for being so open and honest.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,052 Member
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    I identify with so much of this. For as long as I could remember, mom was always battling her weight, secret eating, hiding food. (She's morbidly obese and diabetic now). Her mom & grandmother were always thin, but there was something odd about her mom's attitude towards weight. I was a skinny child, but both my parents harangued me about my weight once I hit puberty, so of course I felt fat. It didn't help that mom is a huge projector. She castigated me for all the things she hated about herself (like being fat). I escaped to boarding school and climbed to my highest weight. I lost (guessing 35#?) to about my current weight my 1st year in college and have +/-maintained that weight ever since (excluding pregnancy). It's always been a mental struggle, though. No one who knows me, even childhood friends, know this. All looks fine from the outside.

    Fast forward 3 decades and I realized something -- I had never actually been BMI overweight. During all the vituperation and ranting and putting down, I was technically in the "normal" BMI range (though obviously not what my parents wanted). And all the years of struggle and hating my body... about something that *technically* wasn't even true. Such misdirected psychic effort.

    I'm pretty open with my daughters that staying disciplined takes a lot of effort for me, and further, that I have quite definitely had disordered attitudes and behaviors about eating in my past. What I can say in my own defense is that (1) I have been successful maintaining and (2) my present attitudes are the least disordered that they ever have been. My present behaviors (namely weighing everything in the kitchen and counting calories) may be somewhere on the disordered spectrum, but it is the easiest way I've ever found to maintain my weight and it works for me. Maybe I will find an even easier way that comes across as less disordered someday, but that doesn't register anywhere on the top 10 things I'd like to change about myself. :D

    Thanks for the thread.
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
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    I've always been heavy, as has my younger sister, and my mom. My dad was rotund like the rest of us growing up, although he's since managed to lose about 100 lbs and keep it off over the past 10 years or so, after he and my mom divorced. Mom is still heavy, so is little sis.

    I don't remember a time when my weight was not a concern. There are pictures of me in grade school - even in kindergarten I was markedly larger than the other kids. My parents tried every sport the YMCA offered for little girls and I just lost interest in all of them - swimming, gymnastics, softball, soccer, tae kwon do. (I still love swimming in general, I just couldn't hack the early morning practice for synchronized/competitive swimming.) Every summer was spent trying to "get active and eat healthy," grandma took us up to the high school to walk around the track, weight loss was a constant goal. Mom can't cook to save her life, her attempts at mid-late 90s "healthy meals" are as grim as you're imagining, and tbh the rest of us were pretty cruel to her about it (or, rather, Dad was pretty cruel to her about it and us kids joined in because we didn't know better...or, rather, we knew better than to disagree with Dad). Mom enrolled the three of us in Weight Watchers for a few months. We had a 3-month trial membership at Curves one summer in high school - that was okay, I do like the concept and miss my Planet Fitness 30 Minute Circuit, but we didn't keep it up after the 12 week trial expired. A few times we tried to establish Family Evening Walks as a thing we did, but Mom always found an excuse not to go - I know now that the excuse was arthritis in her hips and therefore extremely valid, but when you're a kid you don't really have much power in this kind of situation. Our neighborhood was safe enough that my sister and I could, and did sometimes, just go out and walk together, but we liked having the time with mom. We knew basically nothing about nutrition, calories, fitness, none of that.

    It wasn't really until I went off to college and moved out that I felt like I could actually make progress on this goal that had been held over my head pretty much as long as I could remember. I received the message that fat was the worst possible thing I could be loud and *kitten* clear, but I'd always been fat, so I had no actual roadmap to stop being fat. I found MFP originally in 2009 or 2010; I started taking walks, I noodled around in my college's rec center while I had access to it, I even dabbled in running (okay, jogging) for a hot minute with C25K before realizing I hated it. I managed to get down to 169lbs, my lowest adult weight, sometime circa 2012. Finishing college and then moving to an unfamiliar city to work a grueling job with long hours for basically no pay, I bounced right back up into the 200s within a year. I've been in the 230-250 range for the past 8 years. I have no idea what my adult body looks like at a healthy weight. I now have a normal job with reasonable hours and decent pay, I'm fully in control of the food I eat (and I'm a damn good cook, if I do say so myself), I've actually learned a thing or two about weight loss and calories and fitness, I have a wonderfully supportive husband who has seen me at my heaviest and lightest, and I do believe I can do it this time.
  • GigiAgape1981
    GigiAgape1981 Posts: 64 Member
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    ahoy_m8 wrote: »
    I identify with so much of this. For as long as I could remember, mom was always battling her weight, secret eating, hiding food. (She's morbidly obese and diabetic now). Her mom & grandmother were always thin, but there was something odd about her mom's attitude towards weight. I was a skinny child, but both my parents harangued me about my weight once I hit puberty, so of course I felt fat. It didn't help that mom is a huge projector. She castigated me for all the things she hated about herself (like being fat). I escaped to boarding school and climbed to my highest weight. I lost (guessing 35#?) to about my current weight my 1st year in college and have +/-maintained that weight ever since (excluding pregnancy). It's always been a mental struggle, though. No one who knows me, even childhood friends, know this. All looks fine from the outside.

    Fast forward 3 decades and I realized something -- I had never actually been BMI overweight. During all the vituperation and ranting and putting down, I was technically in the "normal" BMI range (though obviously not what my parents wanted). And all the years of struggle and hating my body... about something that *technically* wasn't even true. Such misdirected psychic effort.

    I'm pretty open with my daughters that staying disciplined takes a lot of effort for me, and further, that I have quite definitely had disordered attitudes and behaviors about eating in my past. What I can say in my own defense is that (1) I have been successful maintaining and (2) my present attitudes are the least disordered that they ever have been. My present behaviors (namely weighing everything in the kitchen and counting calories) may be somewhere on the disordered spectrum, but it is the easiest way I've ever found to maintain my weight and it works for me. Maybe I will find an even easier way that comes across as less disordered someday, but that doesn't register anywhere on the top 10 things I'd like to change about myself. :D

    Thanks for the thread.

    Thank you for sharing this. I relate to your story. The bolded part is encouraging and helpful. I have been pondering on how to eventually share with my daughters why I weigh my food.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    I've definitely struggled with my weight for most of my life. I think my first big growth spurt around age 8 was when it really started but I was bigger than most other kids even in Kindergarten. By 4th grade I was 5'4" and ~130 lb so bigger than a lot of my elementary teachers. By middle school I really wasn't that "big" at 5'7 and wearing ladies size 12, but in my mind, I was always & forever the biggest girl (I wasn't at that point, at all). I was not athletic in the sporty sense but always performed well in gym class and was active with my friends walking all over the city. I had a big dad who wasn't "fat" but at 6'4" and well over 200 lb, so I just assumed I was big-boned and all that. My mom had disordered eating and was thin. My family celebrated everything with food and I don't mean holidays...I mean, it's Tuesday, we're going to Red Lobster, ordering Pizza Hut....all the time. Dessert with every lunch AND dinner. By junior high & high school I was plus sized and accepted it as just who I was meant to be. I really didn't have much trouble with it honestly. I had friends, boyfriends, etc.

    In my early 20s I started to struggle more w/ depression and anxiety and I gained a lot. Got it under control for awhile, then married a guy who had poor eating habits and was morbidly obese as were many of our mutual friends. It felt "normal" to me in the company I kept and when I switched to a more sedentary professional job, I hit 300+ around age 30. Then I realized my health wasn't what it used to be and that scared me...getting winded, swollen ankles, etc. I started exercising and lost a little bit of weight getting back to my "normal".

    Too much to get into here but through some life-changing events beyond my control, a divorce, and lots more, I changed my whole life around and lost over 140 lb. I've kept off most of it (over 100 lb) for 8 years now but regained some during COVID so I'm working on that now. I am back to my middle school size and it's weird feeling like an average/normal woman after so many years of being obese and morbidly obese.
  • Speakeasy76
    Speakeasy76 Posts: 961 Member
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    Thanks everyone for sharing your stories. It's nice to be relate to others who get it.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,052 Member
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    I've enjoyed hearing everyone's stories, too. Some of you guys have been around a while and I have always appreciated your perspectives on things. It's nice learning the backstories. Thank you for sharing.
  • LisaGetsMoving
    LisaGetsMoving Posts: 664 Member
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    I put myself on my first diet when I was 10 years old, kept a secret journal of everything I ate and all the exercises I did each day. I remember meeting with my father after he'd found it and read it some of it, with mixed feelings. He told me that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was beautiful as I was, and that I was not to starve myself. He was right of course, but I was convinced that I was the most hideous thing on the planet. I had a love/hate relationship with my body most of my earlier life. The past twenty years I've learned to be kinder, to have gratitude for limbs that work, and to recognize the beauty inside me that has nothing to do with size or shape or hair style or any of that nonsense. One of the best things about aging, for me, has been to give up caring what others might think about me or how I look. I decided to become my own best friend.

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