Why are you / Why were you fat?

4 Mars bars for £1, most days when I was a student got me all the way up to 224lbs at age 21. 6 long years later I'm 161lbs.

Lots of stuff happened in between. but that's the long and short of it.

Damn Mars Bars. I can't even look at them now. I still miss them!

I think a lot of my problems did start with my father who constantly harassed me about my weight as a teen. I was maybe 15 lbs heavier than the others and he was very insulting about it. I lost the weight after I left home and entered the Army but when I had my children, I had medical problems and ended up on bed rest. Upset and bored, I turned to food and put on more weigh than I should have. Over the years,m I have tried diets but none have been too successful. 10 years ago, I destroyed my knee and have battled through multiple surgeries and trying to control my weight but it has steadily increased. I dropped 75 lbs prior to my last surgery but after 6 weeks immobilized and then very limited movement for the next 5 months, I put half of it back on.

I realize that I have food issues and I don't want my children to look like I do now when they get older so both my husband and I have both began a lifestyle change. We eat less, but more often. We exercise more and spend more time with our kids, encouraging them to lose weight and be healthy too.

!! ALL OF THE ABOVE !!

Nah, beer, too much food - not all bad but more portion control.
The great thing about this thread is that eveyone who's here is actually doing something about it. I really enjoy some sporting events (mainly running and cycling) , especially as part of a team but as soon as they're finished I fall back into my old beer sodden ways.

I think for me I have to have realistic targets in terms of weight loss and some sort of physical goal to work to. I'm aiming for 13kg loss and a marathon (Edinburgh) at the end of May.

This might sound a bit of a tall order but I know I'll do it as I have the support of my family and friends. Until recently I was really frustrated at my weight not coming off until I actually started logging what I'm eating. It's amazing how just a little thing can make the difference between losing weight and all the day's hard work counting for nothing!

I'd say that as soon as you feel able, try to get just a little exercise in a few times a week. Even if it's just a walk to the shops the long way. The more you do, the more you'll be able to do and the better you'll feel. It's a double whammy and it's addictive!

Get stuk in folks!

NTB
8o)

I don't have any good excuses... I had three babies, and didn't really work to lose the baby weight in between, and I just enjoyed eating so much! And I'm truly a couch potato at heart. I just ate (all the wrong things, and too much of them) and didn't exercise at all and the pounds piled on. And for a time, I felt like it was ok. I could always buy bigger clothes. (I know, DUMB!)

This new lifestyle journey I am now is showing me that in order to change you have to be ready for it. You have to want it for yourself. No one can do it for you. I wasn't ready to make these changes before, but I am now. And seeing the results happen slowly but surely is SO encouraging and motivating!

It was a cascade effect for me.
Tuned 30
Divorce
Desk job
Remarried (a foodie )
3 kids close together
diagnosed low thyroid

and the main reason... Too much mindless and/or emotional eating

Medication

i have come to terms with the fact that i am emotional eater. It means i have alot more work ahead of me then i would like but sense i dont want to be anorexic again i am just working one day at a time.

I think because I like food, really, really like food. I enjoy cooking and especially like baking cookies for my family - which all have required taste testing on my part. I'm also a big fan of wine (which I haven't been able to give up). And I have been inactive for pretty much my entire life.

Combine that with an attitude of not wanting to deprive or deny myself anything I wanted (which I still kind of have), aging and being extremely content in my new relationship and *poof* an extra 15 pounds has seemed to appear on my body.

For me, it was large portions and too much snacking.

I've always been an exerciser. I've never been a binge eater or had an unhealthy emotional relationship with food. So, it was simply too many calories.

Once I got portions and total calories in check (around 2000 a day) my weight issues worked themselves out pretty easily.

A part of it was from eating habits as a child. My older brother and younger sister were very picky. I wasn't. My parents praised me in regards to the variety foods that I ate, and that I would clean my plate at every meal. At mealtime, I was the "good kid". So it went from there....

I also love food! I love the taste of it, I love to eat it until I'm very full. I love the feeling of being really full. I also love beer, lots of beer. Yes, I do some emotional eating, but the rest of the time, I just eat a lot because I love food. My portion control is non-existant and I like to have seconds and thirds. Working on self-control now..... :drinker:

In childhood I place some blame on my Mom. She didn't encourage me to take part in activities or force me to be more active. At the same time, although she always was a great cook, it wasn't always the healthiest food and always in large portions. I definitely feel that set a precedent for me as I started gaining weight around age 4 or 5 and never looked back. By the time you get to school and into grades 1+, kids start to be cruel and this leads to self esteem issues. I feel my mom and dad had an opportunity to try to get me active, teach me healthier eating, and didn't.

Now I take full responsibility for my weight from about 12 years old and up. That is about the time I had freedom, pocket money and the ability to make my own choices about what I did. I wasn't active, ate fast food all the time with friends and bought candy and chips with babysitting money.

I was ALWAYS teased about my weight and around 13 is when I feel I developed emotional eating and compulsive eating habits. I would eat to celebrate, when I was sad, mad etc. I would also hide food in my room. From this point it became a cycle of obesity. Feel bad/get teased about my weight, go home and gorge on food, feel bad about my weight, eat more. This cycle continued to some extent until I moved out on my own. Then only the hiding food stopped, but not the emotional eating.

Emotional eating is probably at the heart of my obesity and it is something I battle every single day. I am thankful that except for my early teens when I ate a lot of fast food, I got heavy eating large portions of home cooking and lots of carbs. This allows me the opportunity to be "healthy obese" - no high chol. no high BP, no diabetes. I've taken that as a blessing and am determined to get the weight off. That is what keeps me from reaching for the bread when I have a bad day or making a pit stop for chips on the way home from work, knowing t hat I have a very real chance of undoing the unhealthiness I have lived with for 25 years.

easy- COLLEGE! Stress, no time to eat properly/grocery shop, alcohol, eating at unusual times, no access to healthy foods. I am determined with my new lifestyle if I do continue on in school to make healthy eating and exercise more of a priority than it was before.

Completely oblivious to nutrition / exercise / calories and the balance. Also I was working in a call center which means hours and hours of sitting my duff and eating take out twice sometimes three times daily.

I had always been slightly pudgy due to a binge eating problem since childhood, but I had managed to maintain at about 175-180, which was healthy for me because I'm pretty heavily muscled.

Then, my doctor put me on antidepressants, and my weight skyrocketed by 80 lbs in just over 6 months. I haven't been able to shake it since. I'll lose 20, gain it back. Trying for completion this time!

For me, I think it's a psychological thing. When I was kid my parents tried to be really really healthy ALL the time. They hardly ever let me have sweet or fatty things. But when I was older and I had my own money I could buy them all the time, so I craved what I had been deprived and ate them all the time.
But that is going to change.

Oh wow, this is the EXACT same as me!!