Why are you fat???

I am fat because I am an emotional eater, I moved to the UK in 2008 on my own. I missed all my friends back home and started eating here like I was still on a vacation. I then had my gallbladder removed, got into a relationship where I've become extremely comfortable. My Aunt who lived here who was pretty much like my Mum died August 2nd 2010 of lymph node cancer. I was so overcome with grief and still continued to use my food as a coping mechanism. My Oma died on June 5th and I flew back to Canada to say goodbye. As well I noticed now that I used to use food as rewards as well not only as comfort and have ballooned out to my highest weight of 207 pounds.

I was about this weight during high school, and then I lost everything during college. Then I went abroad for my Master's and the first year (Glasgow) I was relatively good (not enough worse to overcompensate for the increased amount of walking I was doing), until the last month or so, when there were goodbye drinks, meals, eating out, junk food, you name it. I gained about 10 pounds (estimation). Not terrible, but then I came home for a month and loaded up on all the food I'd missed before. I'd say I gained another 5-ish there. Again, nothing too horrible. Then I went for my second year (Krakow), and again, managed to not gain too much through the first 6 or 7 months, with increased general activity pretty much making up for any increased caloric intake. Then I had my dissertation, and long story short, for a lot of reasons, it was really stressful. I was only supposed to have a month or so after classes (and most classes were on stuff I did not know anything about, so my focus was going to them) to finish my dissertation (most people get 3-4 months after classes, plus right before the dissertation was finals, which were stressful and I did the same stuff to a lesser extent during finals, plus afterwards, I knew I would have to make some decisions about my future.). So I sat in my dorm room for days on end (it was not terribly uncommon for me to not leave the dorm for 4 days at a time). I drank coffee to stay awake, but it just made me more stressed. At first I was eating relatively healthy, oatmeal most mornings, grilled cheese most lunches, lentils most nights, sometimes frozen vegetables (but I had no freezer so I couldn't do that on a day to day basis), but then I kept getting sick! I thought it was just the stress initially, but then my mom randomly sent me this article that said that undercooked legumes could give you food poisoning. I didn't have time to sit there and baby a pot of lentils every day, and I couldn't leave it because I shared a kitchen with half of the floor of the dorm so leaving it was not really an option either. I decided to just dump the lentils and go for pasta. Bad.choice. I'd had a "no pasta no pizza" policy (except as a rare treat) for my entire time abroad, but that went out the window. Oh, and ice cream. Oh, and cookies (you know, to go with the coffee and tea, which I'd started drinking hearing it could help alleviate stress. I didn't put sugar in the drinks, or milk, but did I mention I was stressed?). And also, you know, because I shared a dorm with half of the floor, I had to know when the fewest people were in there to go do my cooking, so even when I wasn't hungry, if it was a time that the kitchen was empty (bonus points if my roommate was away), I went and did my food anyway. But my month deadline passed. And my two month deadline passed. And then I got it in for review by my advisor and started to be able to do a little better, but then I just had to wait for another month (it wasn't officially in at this point, he had to approve it, and at this point, it was getting *seriously* close to my not even being able to graduate, and no word at all from him). I ultimately send him an email asking if he's done and stressing the urgency of my situation, and then I get an email back saying that I needed to double the length (in about two weeks), it wasn't acceptable, and it was unlikely that I could graduate on time. So I did the same for another two weeks. I made it. I was able to graduate on time (got the news literally on the last possible day). Victory, but in the meantime, I'd gained about 40 pounds. Yikes. I don't know if the eating helped me in any way to alleviate the stress, but you know what? I was practically paralyzed with stress. I did not care ...

Easy. I'm fat because of me. I lost 45 lbs back in 2009 and I got alot of attention and compliments and I felt good. Then I started to go out to bars more often (drinking beer, late night drunk eating). Went on dates(free food), then got into a relationship (got too comfortable, tried to eat as much as my boyfriend does, our only forms of dates were eating out). There. thats why I'm fat lol OH and I rather snuggle than go walking/jogging/anything remotely physical.

I think mine is self esteem. And feeling abandonned after my mom died. I ate because of stress... because of needing comfort I couldn't get. It was emotional. Feeling like I needed someone to make me feel better... something... anything... hey! This tastes good!

Emotional eating excuses excuses being lazy getting to a point were you say Im already fat if I want to eat I will eat it wont matter at this point

I have always been a little heavy but in high school I played lots of sports and could control it. I got married right out of high school and my husband was diagnosed with cancer I put on 60 pounds just from stress. Now he is in remission and I want to get back down to a normal weight.

When I'm upset or stressed I tend to crave carbs, particularly fast food. I tend to skip breakfast a lot too. My job is stressful to begin with and having 3 vending machines in the lunch is a recipe for disaster. As well at home, with my husband working opposite shifts than me, we rarely have dinners together. This often leads to me either going to a fast food restaurant, buying a prepackged meal at the store, or just not eating dinner in the evening at all. I'm now trying to make a soild effort to eat breakfast every day and eat healthy throughout the day.

I have pretty much always been fat, and I'm not 100% sure why. When I was a kid, I know that I didn't eat an unusual amount of calories, and my mom just thought I would grow out of being overweight as I got older.

I have PCOS and have since I was 12 or 13 years old, which has made it hard to lose weight and easy to gain it.

When I was in middle and high school, I was desperate to be thin and developed anorexia. I got down to 82 pounds, which is obviously unhealthy even at only 5' tall. I started eating again after a trip to the hospital and some scary "you're going to die" talks, and immediately shot back up in weight. I did some serious damage to my metabolism and also my ability to sense that I am hungry or full.

I hope that at some point (hopefully soon but honestly just "in my lifetime" would be good) I can manage to be healthy about food and weight.

binge eating. I was diagnosed with an eating disorder. I put on like 20 pounds during my binges. Thank you therapy and MFP

I was overweight growing up because I ate what was given to me. To this very day I can't go to my mothers house without eating junk because that's all that is in the house. I don't blame her or anyone because when you become an adult it is up to you to change or stay the same. I think my highest weight was over 180 but I Iost the weight a year ago. I'm 20 now and I weigh 143. I knew that if I didn't lose it now it would progressively get worse.

I love to eat..

My problem is I eat the wrong things. You would have thought fast food was my best friend. I truly enjoy the convenience of it (and the taste of course). I've had this bad relationship with fast food for a long time. When people used to say, you better stop eating that crap because it's going to catch up with you, I ignored them. Well needless to say, it caught up with me. Never would I blame my husband for my weight but I have been with him since we were teenagers. He has never complained about my weight gain. I guess you can say I was comfortable. He has always expressed his attraction to me so I never felt pressured to stay in shape for him. With me being tall, I remained pretty proportionate as I picked up weight. So I would say to myself, you still look o.k.......until it was out of control and I didn't recognize my own reflection in the mirror anymore.

This is pretty much my entire high school life:

1) didn't eat breakfast.
2) had a large cookie every day at morning break plus soda.
3) eat noodles + a chicken mayo roll for lunch with more soda.
4) come home and have scrambled eggs/roll/crisps
5) have a huge carb/fat dinner
6) tea and toast before bed

All of that coupled with no exercise meant I put on a lot of weight in high school.

When I left school I started working, drinking 3-4 times a week and eating junk food just as much. I had an active job though so I didn't put on much. Now in an office job and it's good to finally be on the way to having abs again

I was happy with my weight until 4 years ago where a number of things happened, I finished University, started full time work (goodbye to being able to go to the gym in the afternoons), was in a very bad relationship where I comfort ate. My partner also wouldn't allow me to join a gym due to the cost, and the fact that I had to care for his child (not my child but we had full time care of him). My life turned into being all about other people and I lost the "me time" where I would previously have spent at the gym or out walking.
Once I left him I stopped gaining weight and have maintained the same weight since leaving (about 1.5 years ago), but now it's time to lose the weight (and all the emotional baggage associated with it!).
:-)

It became my coping mechanism at an early age. I grew up in a semi chaotic household where I wasn't allowed to show anger and shared emotions were not appreciated. I wasn't close with either parent and didn't have many friends when I was young, so I turned to food. Damn learned behavior!